Micah 6: 1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1: 18-31
St. Matthew 5: 1-12
“Blessed are the Meek”
Grace and Peace to you my brothers and sisters in Christ, Amen.
In grade school I had a very close friend who I would always
hang out with during recess or after school. She was a dear friend
of mine who cared neither for my short statue nor complications
with communication, unlike all the bullies I suffered from growing
up. Unlike them, she was kind and quite intelligent, top of her
class. I treasured those days, but then in middle school teenager
Chris had to ruin everything.
All I had going in elementary school was my talent at art. I
wasn’t very good at much else… that is until I discovered Algebra
in 4 th grade. All of a sudden I discovered an academic talent I was
proud of, which led me to actually start caring about my academic
life. So in middle school I focused on getting as many A’s as
possible, but I had one stumbling block, my best friend was better
than me academically at everything outside of math and art. So I
started to get jealous of her.
With each month this jealousy in 7 th grade grew, to the point
that I ruined my entire relationship with this friend of mine by
blowing up in her face about how much better she was than me. I
wasn’t one to get angry, so it must have been a right shock to her
when I suddenly started flinging verbal abuses at her one day
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after school. But that was all it took. I stopped speaking to her
after that, but mostly because of the shame I felt. And she
stopped looking at me. My pride got the better of me, a stupid 13
year old kid.
Some of you already know I’m not a fan of those who out of
pride attack those who prove to be right, using words such as,
“Oh, you just always have to be right.” When I was a snot-nosed
brat new to puberty I was that person. And when my little brother,
whom I love, hit puberty he became that sort of person toward me
as well. Ignore the fact that he corrected my horrendous grammar
every opportunity he got, whenever we disagreed and I was
proven to be correct, such as fixing appliances, instead of
acknowledging the truth he would get verbally and sometimes
physically abusive. In his youth, he always had to be more correct
than me, and that pride compelled him to be unable to accept
being wrong.
Many of us go through that stage of life and grow out of it,
learning from our mistakes, yet when I look at humanity as a
whole with regards to our relationship with God I see that we have
not learned from our mistakes and still act as snot-nosed teenage
brats incapable of acknowledging that we are wrong and God is
always right.
We look at God in anger and say to Him, “You just always
have to be right.” Yes, He does, for He alone determines what is
right and what is wrong, as well as what is good and what is evil.
But when we raise our fists at God what we are really saying is,
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“How dare you expose me a fool; how dare you expose I am
wrong; how dare you expose my actions as sinful.”
We want to control God; put Him in a box and demand
things from Him. And when things don’t go our way we, humanity,
get a temper tantrum. We demand that He accepts our sinful
ways and that He turn a blind eye as we do that which is
objectively evil. We demand that the guilt and shame we feel
when we do evil be taken away so that our fragile pride can stay
intact as we continue to displease God. We look at His frown and
demand that He smile at our bad conduct; that He wipe his face of
dissatisfaction as it makes us uncomfortable. If you love us God
should you not accept our every life style and make us eternally
happy? We want to become God for we have grown to despise
the authority of God which exposes our sinfulness. We want to
determine what is truly good and evil so that we are never in the
wrong. In the end, when we look at the Law we are overcome with
hatred.
How dare God tell me that this action is a sin! I will perfectly
obey this and that in the Law of Moses, but this I cannot abide
and demand that no one use Scripture to tell me that this
particular action or belief is a sin.
This is a struggle that surprisingly most Christians face.
Though we wish to follow the Law for through the power of the
Holy Spirit we have come to realize that it is indeed good and for
our own benefit, for humanity was not made for the Law but the
Law for humanity, we still struggle with sin. We are both sinner
and saint; saint not on account of our actions but solely on
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account of God’s grace, and, so long as we live in this temporal
life, still sinners. And it is the sinner in us that causes us trouble
as we look at the Law with love in part but with hatred at other
parts. We acknowledge we are sinners, but rarely do we like
hearing an action we do regularly called a sin. We become
personally attacked and the Old Adam in us gets riled up as we
start to make unreasonable demands.
Examples include when Jesus Christ Himself says that
remarrying someone else after a divorce is a sin. This directly
cuts at the heart of most adults for it seems in America all have
either divorced or have been affected by divorce. Hearing these
words from Christ hurts, and we rather sweep them under the rug
then to hear them, get angry, and then feel guilty over getting
angry at God. Another example includes when God tells us that
both homosexuality and transgenderism is a sin; same reaction.
What about when God tells us that abortion and supporting
abortion are both sins? Do we get angry at God and scream,
“How dare you”? Do we commit blasphemy, the only
unforgiveable sin, by putting God in a box and proclaiming that
God actually supports remarriage after divorce, homosexuality,
abortion, and such?
In our efforts to be wise, to be strong, intelligent, morally-
right, powerful, or famous we become puffed up clowns that boast
in the presence of God our own vane glory. And in our own self-
righteousness we demand a mighty court case with God as the
accused. But when we plead our case, without fail, the case flips
and we suddenly become the accused. In our vane glory we think
we are better than God, only to be humbled. God demands how
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He has wearied us and short of proclaiming that good is evil and
evil is good we cannot answer His demands. He has blessed us
all, including those who hate Him, with life and family and food
and so much. If anything it is our own neighbors that fault us, not
God. But He has given us so much and we still rise up demanding
more. Who are we to demand anything from God when He has
already given us so much?
And how do we react? Instead of doing good we offer
sacrifices. We are still skirting the issue at hand, for do not want
to address that we are wrong. All we have to do is be meek, to
humble ourselves before the Lord. But we can’t do even that. How
can we satisfy your anger O Lord? How about a burnt offering,
no? Well how about a thousand rams? Ten thousand rivers of oil?
How about my first born son? Now that one’s an irony. How about
you just do what I [God] commanded?
Notice how none of these offerings address the issue at
hand for they still want to do that which is wrong. It is like giving
money to a police officer to look the other way as you commit a
crime. These people who go to court with God want to please
God but not at the cost of their desires; that’s the whole point.
They want an excuse to not feel guilty and to continue acting in
what they would like to claim is not sinful. Such fake humility!
True humility would seek the forgiveness of God with a guilty
conscience admitting that you have sinned. A truly humble heart
would repent, know that God has forgiven them on account of the
free offering through the cross, and then try as hard to do that
which is right. A humble person when he stumbles would not try
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and hide such under a rug with platitudes, but acknowledge that
they messed up and asks the Lord God who is merciful for
forgiveness.
To the meek who knows he is weak, a fool, and try as he
might just can’t get his ducks in a row, but seeks the Lord who is
his strength, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption –
to him, the Lord God above has no frowns but smiles and
blessings. Such a person blames not God nor gets angry at God
but rather blames and gets angry at themselves and the fallen
human state. Such a person who is meek would dare not boast in
themselves, but boasts in the Lord who is their strength. For they
have realized that if they are blessed then such blessings come
not from within but from God alone.
Let me end with a thought. Had we not been meek toward
the Lord would we have accepted His forgiveness of sins? …No,
we wouldn’t. So the meek are truly blessed, for they did not refuse
the free gift of Salvation.
Let us pray,
Dear Heavenly Father, humble the sinner we dreadfully are,
and lead us away from the temptation of justifying sin. Give us
quiet hearts as we come to terms with our own wickedness while
seeing the abundant mercy you offer us through your Son our
Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.