How did a meek and mild Jesus fashion a whip and scald the hides                                           of the buyers and sellers in the temple?  How did meek and mild Jesus                                    get angry and denounce the Pharisees as “whitewashed tombs?”

Currently I am preaching a series on the family, around certain words that seem to me both important biblical words for Christians and important skills for families in this current weirdest of times. I have preached about family a lot through the years and if I thought the need was done, I only have to listen to some of the arcane mental gymnastics of a fellow preacher still trying to hammer 21st century people into tiny first century cultural forms. The point of biblical study does not end when we ask, “What did something mean in the first century when the text was written?” Otherwise, we’d simply have to stand up and read ancient texts and proclaim, “Ok, go do that.” It has to be interpreted. Always.

That said, last week’s word was “Meekness,” which is a word not much in vogue, of course. It is one of the Beatitudes in the sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

We have tended to look at the meek as doormats or docile, weak persons without any power. We equate power with physical strength, domination, authority “over” others. You can see why we equate “meekness” with “Weakness.”

The word shows up in the New Testament a few interesting places. This is the Greek word  πρᾳΰτης (“prautes.”) It is often rendered “meekness.”  As in “gentle Jesus meek and mild.”   Yet this is indeed a central remembrance of the church about Jesus.  I’ve always wondered, “How did a meek and mild Jesus fashion a whip and scald the hides of the buyers and sellers in the temple?  How did meek and mild Jesus get angry and denounce the Pharisees as “whitewashed tombs?”

I think “meek” and “mild” need to be permanently separated.  Prautes actually means strength, not mildness.  It is a word that means “having the right tone, soothing the other when they are angry, keeping the conversation the right way.”  It is also a word that is used of the training of animals.  It means “teachable.”

You know people who are proud and hard-headed.  They think they always are right.  No one can tell them anything.  They are virtually unteachable.  And their lives and relationships are miserable for it.  Psalm 147:6 uses the Hebrew of this word.  In the NRSV it says, “The LORD lifts up the downtrodden; he casts the wicked to the ground.”  But the old KJV keeps this sense of the word when it says, “The LORD lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” Continue reading “Blessed Are the Meek?”