Matthew 5:5 "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Izaak Walton once wrote “God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.” Meekness is a hard concept to swallow, an ideal that we would rather not prefer. Meekness as we see it is weakness. We see the mild mannered, bashful, Clark Kent who can barely get up the courage to tell his boss “no” and we much prefer seeing superman who is strong, mighty, proud, yet just and soothing.

We are called to be meek, but what is meekness? Meekness comes from the root meccea (Old Anglo-Saxon) which actually means “companions or an equal” As Adam Clarke says “...because he who is of a meek or gentle spirit, is ever ready to associate with the meanest of those who fear God, feeling himself superior to none; and well knowing that he has nothing of spiritual or temporal good but what he has received from the mere bounty of God, having never deserved any favor from His hand.”

Meekness is a condition of the heart. We who are called by His name are called to be changed and to become more like Him. Thus our heart is to be more like His. We are to be an ever ready companion of all. Thus we must change from our desires of power, of acceptance, of might, of our being right, and of being influential into Christs desire for us to be humble, to help the worst-off, to care for them and to not think of ourselves better than them.

One of my friends alerted me to a quote in the New Yorker. “The people Jesus loved were shopping at the Star Market yesterday. An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps. Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them: shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay, as if the Star Market had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in with the rest of them...” (Marie Howe) We are just like the rest of them, and we are to show them God. Christ came not to the proud and the well kept, He came to the dirty and the poor, the humble. He came meekly. Dorothy Day said “As for ourselves, yes, we must be meek, bear injustice, malice, rash judgment. We must turn the other cheek, give up our cloak, go a second mile.” Even Havel spoke on the topic “The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.”

Meekness is hard but once we have realized our depths of depravity and the poorness of our spirit, once we have wept for our sins and the sins of our friends, what choice do we have but to continue on, learning meekness from the Creator's hand? “The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.” (Psalm 25:9 KJV) For Christ needs a meek and willing heart to do His great work in. Our frailty and the ineptitude of our hands bring glory to Him when He accomplishes everything we are unable to do, but He does it through us! “The Saviour reigned in all their hearts, and they successfully copied the pattern of meekness and gentleness, which he had left them.” (John Strachan)

Plant in us Thy humble mind;
Patient, pitiful, and kind,
Meek and lowly let us be,
Full of goodness, full of Thee.