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Beatitudes: Poor, Mournful and Meek (1, 2, 3)

 Matthew 5:3-5; Luke 18:9-14

August 10, 2003

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

⁵“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

⁹He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ ¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Earlier this week, Alex and Kim and I had a pillow fight.  We don't do this often, but when we do, all the pillows and cushions on all the couches in the living room, end up strewn and scattered all over the living room carpet.  As the three of us were picking up the room and replacing all the pillows, Kim smiled and asked me, "Would your mother have let you do that when you guys were kids?"  She added "My mother would have killed me!" 

As she said that, I too smiled and remembered a time when true enough, my brother and sister and I had destroyed my mother's sitting room with a heroic pillow fight.  We usually got home from school about two hours before she got home from work, and any such mischief was done and out of our system, long before she got home.  But this one time, the three of us had gotten so wrapped up in this extraordinary battle, that we lost track of time and my mother walked in on us!  "Amaaan!  Eench gneck?!?!" She screamed.  "What are you doing!?"  She dropped her groceries and her handbag and began to beat her chest, all the while continuing to yell in Armenian, "Ahkh!  Ahkh! I pray that God will one day give you children like to torture you too!"  She was being tortured with children such as us three.  She was being punished by God, and she was enhancing this torturous punishment by beating her own chest.

Self-flagellation, this beating oneself in mourning and self-punishment is an ancient and thankfully forgotten custom in contemporary Western culture.  In some passionately Roman Catholic cultures, like in the Philippines and in Mexico, the practice is still carried out.  Also in other religions, like in the Muslim and Hindu faiths and in other cultures, for instance in Indonesia, Morocco, Thailand and India brutal and violent practices still exist.[1]

Here too, in this parable we've looked at today, Jesus tells about the attitudes in prayer of a Pharisee and of a tax-collector. The hero of the story is the tax collector, "who went down to his home justified" and vindicated.  He too is also beating his own breast.

What's going on?  This ancient practice is a way to punish oneself in sorrow and guilt because of one's own sin.

The Pharisee is excited about what he has accomplished, he felt as though he "was righteous" and perhaps "regarded others with contempt"

¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

In the Beatitudes, poorness in spirit, does not indicate being cash poor or being lost in poverty.  Neither does mourning mean grief over having lost an important person or item.  These are both ways of describing the grief and humility that come to one's soul when a person is faced with his or her own sin or imperfection, with their odious plight in life..  For some people the feeling is so profound that they move on to torture, injure and punish themselves.

For most of us, these actions seem terribly extreme.  Yet, Jesus says that those who have a bit of this sense of mourning and humility will inherit the kingdom and be comforted. 

OK then, what does it mean truly to mourn over your own sin?  How do I mourn and live humbly in light of my own sin, without fanatical self-flagellation and self-torture?  Maybe by fasting of some other more moderate form of deprivation, like the ones so many folks adopt at Lent.  But more importantly, to become poor in spirit and to mourn over my own sin is simply to embrace the truth about myself.

After a certain Senator addressed a great crowd, one of his friends said, "You must get a great thrill to know this kind of crowd came out just to hear you speak.

The politician answered, "Yes, I am thrilled. But I always remind myself how much larger the crowd would be if I were to be hanged." [2]

A certain teacher who taught middle-school school, considering teaching a calling from God.  "But gradually, as the years passed," she writes, "I became proud in myself and wandered away from my God.  Within three or four years I found myself doing more, accomplishing less, and enjoying very little."    As her relationship with God slipped, so did her relationship with other people. After struggling for a few years and benefiting from excellent Christian counseling, she writes, "It was then that I discovered again, how to pray, how to teach, and how to live." She discovered the gift of humility before God.

The Pharisee in Jesus' parable was a good, outstanding citizen. He was the type of man we would be proud to have as part of our community and our church.  He enjoyed the work he did and was thanking God that he was able to perform his duties. But, there was something missing in his life. Something was wrong and he just didn't get it.  He thought he could win God's favor by his own accomplishments. Instead, he was alienating himself from God and from others with his proud attitude. When we boast of our accomplishments, we forget God. [3]

Being poor in Spirit, mourning in the sense mentioned in the Beatitudes, means being somehow down to Earth, but not only in the conventional way of just being a good guy that others relate to and not being puffed up and stuck-up.  But being grounded in the truth of God and who you are before God.

About five times in the Wisdom writings of the Old Testament we find a profound connection between wisdom and the fear of the Lord.[4]  We hear that a person cannot begin to know or understand anything about himself or the universe around herself, without first understanding and having a healthy respect for God's pre-eminence in the universe, and understanding that before God, we are like blades of grass, and wilting flowers, that are here today and wither and are gone tomorrow.[5]

With that alive in one's heart, everything else pales in comparison. 

During the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, Bill Moyers, the President's press secretary and a Baptist minister, was asked to offer the mealtime prayer. He began by praying quietly. President Johnson became somewhat irritated and interrupted him. He said, "Pray louder!"  The press secretary looked up and replied, "I'm sorry, sir, but I wasn't addressing you."[6]

He had nothing to prove, he was quiet and not pompous, he was praying to Almighty God.

But why?  Why all this humility and meekness?  Just for show?  To tell all your friends, "Yeah, I'm so much more meek, gentle and humble than you…"  Like the late genius Charles Shultz' character Linus in the pumpkin patch, who insisted to everyone he knew he had found the most sincere pumpkin patch anywhere?  No, there's a hypocrisy and pride in that approach too, isn't there?

No, meekness, humility and gentleness aren't just to be strived for their own end.  Aren't just neat parlor tricks to impress our friends.  They are important to us and to God because they lead to grace.  They come from mourning over your own sins and lead to grace, which is ultimately how God Himself is able to love the world so completely.

I was at the Rockingham Park racetrack at the monthly clergy breakfast of the Salem clergy association this past week and during a worship time Lee Alphen told us an amazing story that I want to share with you.

Every Sunday, Lee leads a worship time that draws about 25-30 folks for praise and singing, for reading the word and for preaching.  In years past, Lee says that many of those who attended were people who were probably concerned as much with the meal after the worship than the worship itself.  This year the program at the track has changed and the people who come, the grooms, the trainers, the owners, jockeys and riders, are all new.  Lee says that now there are some wonderful and faithful people attending who really are more interested in the actual worship itself.

One of those people is a particular rider named Diamond.  Diamond is one of those people that sits in the little cart that follows the horse as it races.  In harness racing, the human racers are not called jockeys, I guess jockeys are the folks who actually sit on top of the horse.  In harness racing, the human racers, who sit in those little carriages behind the horse, are called riders. 

Diamond is a very good rider.  Apparently in a normal season of riding, any good rider would be happy to achieve two or three wins.  This summer, Diamond has racked up something like eighteen wins.  Everybody in his stable and everybody in the other stables at the track, are jealous.  Yet when they get angry and yell at Diamond and ask him, "What are you doing to these horses that they always win!?"  He responds to them by saying, "I pray for my horses, I take care of them and I treat them right."

Diamond never misses Sunday worship at the track.  One Sunday morning recently, there was apparently some trouble at Diamond's stable.  During the prayer time at worship later that morning, the owner of Diamond's stable, who also is a regular at worship, asks the gathered group for prayer.  He says, "Pray for us, there was a little bit of problem in our stable this morning."  Yet he doesn't give any further details.

Later, during the meal following worship, Lee Alphen, who leads the chapel service and whom you may have seen on the Salem cable station with her Christian TV show, found out that one of the handlers in the stable, a man that Diamond had been trying to convince to come to church, to whom Diamond had been witnessing and to whom he had even been bringing a plate of food from the meal served each Sunday, had gotten angry at Diamond.  Not only is Diamond a great rider, and a regular Sunday worshiper, but Diamond is also black.  This handler in his stable began yelling at him and attacking him with racial slurs.

That same Sunday, when it came time for people to return to their day's work Lee asked Diamond if he wanted her to take the plate of food to that angry man instead, so that Diamond wouldn't have to face him.  Diamond turned to Lee and said, "No, that's OK, I'll do it."  He took the weekly food offering and went down to the stable and gave it to the man who had verbally and yet so viciously attacked him.  The man, for the first time in a long time, Lee said, apologized to Diamond.  The next Sunday, he was there in church in the little chapel at the track with Diamond and all the other worshippers he has not missed a day of Sunday worship since.

Humility, mourning and meekness in the face of anger and emotion, attack or any other challenge is blessed by God.  That's what the Beatitudes tell us.

What if Diamond had responded with pride, with righteous indignation, with the same anger and rage the other man had shown?  Would God have been invited in?  Would God's blessing and reward have been witnessed?

And where did this humble spirit come from?  His humility, his gentleness and meekness in the face of conflict?  I don't know Diamond, but I can guess that it came from a realization that yes this man had wronged him in an unforgivable manner.  Yet ultimately, he himself was not above such things.  Who is perfect and incapable of such meanness, anger and insensitivity?  Diamond must have been able to be as in touch with his own capacity for hatefulness and his own sin, as with the depth of his pain and have must have been able to mourn for his own sin and the sin of that angry man.  The holy Spirit must have been involved in this, for to put aside one's own pain for any purpose, and to focus beyond one's own self in such circumstances requires inhuman help. 

Diamond's humility, his gentleness and meekness perhaps came from his mourning and repentance over his own sin, and led to his gracious forgiveness of the other man.  It also led to this other man's returning to God's own presence.

So this is why we hear Jesus, in his constitution of the Christian faith, the Beatitudes begins the eight blessings with these three about with mourners and the meek.  This is why the tax-collector, one of the most despised members of ancient Hebrew society, went down to his home justified.

As we too strive for such lofty goals and hopes, with the tiny beginning of such attitudes budding in our hearts, we too can truly and realistically hope to love and have mercy and touch the hearts and souls of others in our lives. 

Amen.