 |
 |
Notes for June 20-21, 2009
The Third weekend after Pentecost
The Ministry of Meekness
*Series drawn from Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together … how we live as Christ’s servants, as a people immersed in the water of Baptism—as a people who “take the plunge” and risk to live by the Spirit instead of our stubborn wills; ministry again from Latin minus—“the act of becoming less filled with self,” so more filled with love for God and others … just as sang in #857: “Lord, help us walk Your servant way … And, bending low, forgetting self, Each serve the other’s need. You bid us bend our human pride Nor count ourselves above The lowest place, the meanest task That waits the gift of love.”
*So today, meekness. First thing to keep in mind is that meekness is not weakness; it is being mild-tempered, humble, patient in tough circumstances, gentle … the marks not only of a good father (as we think of today), but of every Christian who follows the way of our Lord … by his grace, not being the prideful, domineering, and authoritarian people to which our wills often incline. Hughes’ “meek as a mouse” … small and seemingly weak, but able to make the large and strong cower.
*Bonhoeffer: “He who would learn to serve must first learn to think little of himself. Let no (one) “think of himself more highly than he ought to think” (Rom. 12:3)…. Only he who lives by the forgiveness of his sin in Jesus Christ will rightly think little of himself…. How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?”
*Aesop’s fable of the tree and the reed: ‘Why don’t you plant your feet deep in the ground like I do?’ Answer: ‘I’m content with my lot. I may not be grand, but I’m probably safer.’ ‘Safe,’ came the reply … ‘who can pluck my roots up or bow my head to the ground?!’ Then hurricane uprooted large tree, but reed bent to the force of the wind and stood upright again when the storm was past. Strength in bending, as in hymn.
*Makes us think about definitions of strength that dominate in our world: might makes right, strength is seen only in force—meekness is weakness, the bigger the better. Takes us back to the Lord’s answer to Job’s questioning: ‘Your proud waves shall be stopped’ (Job 38:11) … and to the disciples’ worried panic on that storm-driven sea: ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you have no faith?’ Also puts us in mind of that list of what Paul and his companions suffered (2 Corinthians 6:1-13): ‘…beatings, imprisonments, riots, sleepless nights, hunger, slander and abuse’ and how they answered with the strength of meekness: ‘endurance, purity, knowledge, patience, kindness of the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech as the power of God, and rejoicing as possessing everything though having nothing.’ What he wrote of a bit later (12:9) as ‘the power of Christ resting on him in his weakness.’
*The greatest strength appears to be weakness … Jesus’ defenselessness in arrest and death on the cross; “the power of God for salvation to all who believe” (Romans 1:16). Seen in Bonhoeffer’s execution, stripped naked and going up his gallows; seen also in this prayer found in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, written on a torn scrap of paper and left by the body of a dead child: O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we have borne, thanks to this suffering—our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart, which has grown out of all this, and when they come to judgment, let all the fruits we have borne be their forgiveness.
*That’s the divine strength of meekness we’ve been brought into to live out as the baptized, forgiven and forgiving sons and daughters of God … that ‘wide-open heart’ Paul wrote about saying, ‘our heart is wide open … widen your hearts also.’ Let the Holy Spirit stretch and strengthen us in meekness.
*Flood-waters turned into saving water of life. Luther on daily drowning of old Adam as people who live in baptismal grace and daily rise to newness of life. Gregory of Nyssa: You have been for a long time wallowing in the mud: come to the Jordan … at the voice of Christ…. The river of grace runs everywhere. It does not rise in Palestine to disappear in the neighboring sea; but it envelops the entire world and plunges itself into Paradise…. Leave the desert, that is to say, sin. Cross the Jordan. Come quickly toward Life according to Christ, toward the earth which bears the fruits of joy, where run, according to the promise, streams of milk and honey.
*Collect for humility on p. 312 of LSB
.