God’s Favor Is on the Oppressed

When you look at the Beatitudes as a whole, you can group them into three categories: The first group is an inward change. The second an outward change. And the third is the response from others that comes from those changes and how we are to respond to that. This session covers the third Beatitude, finishing the first grouping of Beatitudes. We’ve seen Jesus advocate for being poor in Spirit, rather than rich; for a theology of lament, rather than a theology of celebration. And now, he says,

Blessed are the humble, for they will inherit the earth. – Matthew 5:5

And like the previous two commands, this one is also countercultural. The secular world does not consider meekness to be a good attribute. A current dictionary definition is “quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on; submissive.” And yet we go back to the Old Testament to hear Moses described as “the meekest on the face of the earth”.

I don’t think that “easily imposed on” or “submissive.” This is the guy who grew up in the house of a Pharoah and multiple times told God no thank you to God’s calling. Not easily imposed upon. And that’s why most modern translations of the Bible into English replace the noun “meekness” with “gentleness” or “humility.” Meekness is seen with these pejorative overtones of weakness that are now associated with it. But when we do that, we miss out on the fullness and the richness of what Jesus is saying. Because weakness to the world is strength to those in God’s kin-dom community.

Gentleness is a part of it. Humbleness is a part of it. Submission is part of it. But meekness is more than that. Theologian Samuel Meier writes that:

Meekness is therefore an active and deliberate acceptance of undesirable circumstances that are wisely seen by the individual as only part of a larger picture…The patient and hopeful endurance of undesirable circumstances identifies the person as externally vulnerable and weak but inwardly resilient and strong. Meekness does not identify the weak but more precisely the strong who have been placed in a position of weakness where they persevere without giving up.

The person who is meek is one who has learned to trust God in all circumstances, even undesirable ones. And it’s through their strength that they persevere without resorting to destructive actions. What a gospel message this would have been to a persecuted and oppressed people group.

God’s favor is upon you.

God cares for you.

God laments with you.

Persevere through this suffering.

When Jesus says that God’s favor is on the meek or the humble, he’s reaching back to the Psalms and quoting a line from Psalm 37.

But the humble will inherit the land and will enjoy abundant prosperity.

The whole Psalm is an exhortation to remain patient in the face of evil and trust that God will reign victorious. It is a message to an oppressed people to persevere and faithfulness, to continue to do the right thing even in the face of oppression. Do good in the face of evil, David says, and God

will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.

That vindication will be that the meek inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity. This idea of the land is important to the national identity of Israel.

To the oppressed and humiliated to have had their land taken, Jesus says that it will be restored to them. The empire might be prevailing, but God’s Kingdom will win out. This Beatitude isn’t about being happy that you’re sad or God telling you to be a pushover. Jesus is telling an oppressed people that God’s favor is upon them and that their oppression will one day cease. He calls them out of the oppression of empire and into the freedom of the kingdom.

And then, having been made part of the that kingdom community, Jesus calls his followers to spread the kingdom. Pinchas Lapide, a Jewish theologian, writes:

“The courage Jesus inspires here in his followers is an essential prerequisite for his program of action which follows, for unless power is awarded to the powerless, hope to the despairing, and light to those who live on the shadow side of life, no effective collaboration in the saving of the world can be expected.”

These Beatitudes are meant to encourage and empower. They effect an inward transformation by the Holy Spirit that creates a new person. When Jesus says “blessed are the meek,” what he is really saying is that God’s favor is on the oppressed—the oppressed who trust God, who commit their way to God in the confidence that God’s power and mercy will do good for us, who wait patiently even as they work furiously for God’s Kingdom to be realized.

Meekness begins when we put our trust in God. Then, because we trust him, we commit our way to him. We roll onto him our anxieties, or frustrations, our plans, our relationships, our jobs, our health. And then we wait patiently for the Lord. We trust his timing and his power and his grace to work things out in the best way for his glory and for our good.

God’s favor is on those with a patient and hopeful endurance of undesirable circumstances, because they recognize God’s provision and believe that God’s Kingdom will defeat the empires of men.