Happiness and Responsive Obedience
Earl, is a small-time thief who wins $100,000 on a lottery scratch ticket. But, as he’s celebrating in the road he’s hit by a car and the ticket blows away.
In his hospital bed watching late-night TV, Earl learns about Karma and his life is transformed. He makes a list of every wrong he’d ever done and sets out to amend them all.
After repairing his first, ‘Karma’ returns his ticket, which then funds his subsequent efforts - that’s all in the first episode.
‘My Name is Earl’ is my favourite sit-com. It’s a show about what true conversion looks like, about how Earl’s life is redeemed by living in obedience to Karma.
Of course, it’s predicated on a fudge. Karma is like a law of nature - that good things happen to you when you do good, and bad things when you do bad. It doesn’t tell you what to do – it has no personality. But for Earl Karma is a personality – and it speaks.
The trick the writers play is to replace God-language with Karma, I guess to make it more palatable to irreligious audiences. But in substance its an examination of the amazing good that follows when we allow ourselves to be guided by the impulse of goodness.
I tell you about Earl because of the way I think his story relates to today’s text:
Blessed are the meek, says Jesus, for they shall inherit the earth.
Meekness isn’t a word we use much today. Neither is it a virtue we value as something to pursued. Probably because it conjures ideas we find unattractive: a mild temperament, smallness, the flaccid and wet.
Clearly, that’s not what Jesus is proposing in connecting meekness with the good life.
To see what Jesus meant, and to see how it relates to Earl, let me put two images before your mind:
In one, a wild stallion races, uninhibited, across a windswept ridge. In the other, a shire horse draws a plough across a fallow field.
To grasp Jesus’ meaning requires understanding what differentiates them. What trait, or quality, transforms a free, instinctual and untamed animal into something disciplined, trained and capable of cooperating in productive work?
I use the example because of the word Jesus uses here: praus. It’s a word taken from animal husbandry. It’s actually the same idea he uses a few chapters later in Matthew 11 when he calls those who are weary and heavy laden to take his yoke upon themselves. It has to do with the way an animal comes to submit its power to another, becoming compliant, receptive and tame –not weak or powerless, but productive towards a purpose.
Blessed are the praus, he says, by which he means, those whose raw potential and ability to make a difference in the world has become responsively obedient to the direction of another.
Of course, this idea might not appeal to you any more than smallness, or mildness of temperament. In today’s world you and I prize few things as highly as independence, self-reliance and self-determination. The idea of subjecting yourself to another sounds regressive, like returning to values from which we’re all struggling to emancipate ourselves.
Well, let me point to two examples of meekness in scripture who illustrate why meekness might be key to the life Jesus proposes – which is abundant, thriving, and happy.
Whatever its historical merits, the view of humanity in the Genesis creation narratives reveals an image of the human ideal: Adam, flourishing not because he lives according to his untamed drives, but because he lives in obedience, putting his powers to constructive use as God’s gardener.
He meets with God in the cool of the day and spends his life obediently caring for creation, which results in harmonious relations: between humanity and the environment; between humanity and God; and between individuals.
And notice here that a garden isn’t a natural phenomenon, it’s an artifact of creativity and imagination. Gardening takes nature and through the application of culture, makes it better. Eden was the place both where human community thrived and nature flourished in balance. Which means, I think, that meekness might be just what’s needed if we’re to practice the kind of stewardship needed to address the environmental challenges that confront us. I just submit that for your reflection
Notice too that when Adam and Eve confront their temptation, at least part of the what they’re called upon to decide is whether they accept their status as God’s creatures and whether they’ll choose to live in ways that are appropriate to it – which is responsive obedience – it has to do with whether they’ll choose meekness.
Jesus too, who Paul calls the ‘second Adam’, exemplifies meekness. It couldn’t be more clear: instead of exercising transcendent omnipotence, instead of demanding our adoring worship, which was his due as equal with God, Paul tells us in 2 Phil that Jesus chose servanthood – living in obedience to another. He says so himself in John 5 “I do nothing by myself, I only do what I see my father in Heaven doing.”
And that’s the pattern we see in his life, he gets up in the morning to pray while it’s still dark, and then he goes about his day responding obediently to the promptings of the Spirit, to the stirrings of compassion and to the requirements of neighbourly love. What results is healing, the foundation of a loving community, the restoration of humanity’s relationship with God, and the possibility that things on earth might be as they are in heaven.
So, there’s a lot to be said for meekness. It’s not weakness. It’s not limp. It’s not timid or mild. It’s powerful and strong, but it’s the way of exercising power that submits to the direction and the call of pure goodness.
In these reflections we’re examining the idea that what’s on offer in Jesus’ new Kingdom, the good it promises, is achieved through a set of practises, a pattern of life, that results in makarīos – which is the fulfillment, or flourishing, or happiness that comes with living as you were created to live. So, what practices characterise meekness?
I’ll name three.
First, like Adam and Eve, the question before us is whether we’ll choose to live in ways that are appropriate to our being God’s creatures; whether we’ll choose meekness. Do we want to live in the way God created us to live, or to live as creators of our own lives?
But, this isn’t the kind of decision we make once and then somehow expect our lives to look differently as a result. It’s the kind of decision we make continuously, in, each action, each interaction, and in our outward behaviours and our silent inner thoughts. It’s a decision we have to practice, repeatedly putting our power at God’s disposal, to be used as servants.
Second, like both Adam and Jesus, meekness is fostered and nourished by practicing regular contact with God. That’s how we learn to hear God’s voice. It’s how we discern the moments of God’s leading. It’s how we learn to respond properly. In silence, in prayer, meditation, reflecting on scripture, worship, study, whatever – practicing the presence of God regularly is the training ground for submitting our powers to God’s steering.
Third, like Jesus, and to a lesser extent Earl, meekness is expressed in the practice of responding – of taking decisive action when we’re inspired or moved. You know what I mean: it comes through feelings of compassion, through a pang of conscience, through careful and clear-sighted reasoning, through loving our neighbor, or through a strong gut feeling. It tells us to ring a friend, to go back and buy that homeless guy a coffee, to hold our tongue instead of entering into heated debate.
The point is, the meek act. They practice following where they are led and doing what they are called upon to do. We can make a special commitment to do just that.
Adam’s meekness resulted in paradise. Jesus’ meekness inaugurated God’s inbreaking Kingdom and his transformation of the whole world. Earl committed himself to repairing the wrongs he’d done, with redeeming results. The challenge to us is to Decide. To Commune with God. And to act. And the promise is not only happiness, but the opportunity to apply our powers in the service of God’s redemption, transformation and perfection of all things.
My prayer is that we’d choose that pursuit, that we’d submit ourselves to God’s reins, and that we’d see the outcome that God promises as a result.