Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are the gentle; for they shall inherit the earth.
God blesses those who are gentle and lowly, for the whole earth will belong to them.
For Memorial Day, Honor our Fallen Heroes as we consider the meek.
Blessed are the Gentle. It is our heroes who protect the meek. It is the gentle, the meek, who make up the society in which we live. There are heroes within the meek. There are the meek and gentle within our heroes. Our service men and women, those who died to protect, do so to protect those that are the meek. Those who shall inherit the earth.
Who is it that are in need of protecting? What makes up our society? Those who are living simple lives. The meek and the gentle. Simple lives.
We have been settling into a time of “pause.” The Pause. Pause creates space for simplicity. Are you allowing for the Pause or are you filling your space with a new busy and new distractions? When we talked about the pure in heart, we talked about having a clear lens with which to see clearly. Busy is a big modern day clouding that keeps us from pausing to see clearly. “Too busy to stop.” “No time to look.” “Gotta hurry up; there’s no time to assess.” I think we might be afraid to stop. I think we might be afraid to cleanse the lens. To really see. To slow down. To be simple.
We don’t, still, value the meek, the gentle, the simple. We still value power and ambition and desire. We are still complicating our lives.
Jesus’s words remind us to to be meek and simple is a gift and blessing.
A pause allows us to assess and live with gratitude and appreciation for our simple, but wonderful, lives. What’s important in life? What’s really important in life? A new appreciation for technology and how we use it. Are we using for health and happiness and welfare? What resources are cultivating the opposite results? Are we overindulging? Are we using our resources appropriately? With simple appreciation.
Easwaran says of the becoming the meek and gentle: “Simplicity is singling out what is worth living for, and then shaping our lives around what matters and letting go of everything else.”
Have you made time to come back to simplicity? Have you singled out what is most important? It might be clear as clear. Claim it. Now. It might be clear as mud. That’s ok; we can search…
Singling out. What is your core value? Can you shape your life around that? We have a desire to do it all, but as we pause and evaluate…what is it that we truly want? What are we chasing? Know that clearly. And then, discover if that is valuable.
What is your core value and create every decision around that. Is it money? Security? Kindness? Creativity? Family? Serving others? The Earth? Protecting the meek? What is your core value and can you shape your life around that?
Collectively. What is our core value?
“Our problems develop through thousands of little individual acts, and that is how we can resolve them.” A thousand individual acts. Simple acts that ripple out goodness. By knowing our own core value we have something to offer. Our own individual act that ripples out.
The meek and gentle. The good. We read the story of Adam and Eve this morning. We know where it goes with the snake and the tree and Original Sin. But what was before original sin?
Original Goodness. Goodness. Did you know that? Did you think of that? Or are we so focused on the “bad”, the “sin” that comes after, that we forget that we are Originally….Good. We are Good. God looked at everything and said: “it is Good.” Us too.
Laughter is contagious. So is Goodness. So is simplicity. The meek and the gentle who inherit the earth. How do we inherit the earth? The gentle and simple slow down enough to see the earth. The gentle and simple tread lightly on the earth. The gentle and simple appreciate and have gratitude for the simple joys that life offers. The meek and gentle and simple by their very lives inherit the Earth. Now. Slowing down allows us to be with heaven on Earth.
Are you cultivating your meek and simple side. In a just war, this is what our heroes fought and died for. So that we could come back to our contagious Goodness. Are we focused on Good and simple or reaching and grasping and expending our energy on things that do not matter?
Are you spreading contagious Goodness and Gentleness?
I’ll close with Easwaran again: “We begin by just loving one or two people, but the day will come when we catch the whole world in our love.” It really is just that simple.
Thank you to our heroes who have helped build a life that allows us to be the meek and gentle. May you remember tomorrow those who have died so that we may be Good and blessed. Honor those fallen heroes by living a Good life that ripples outward.
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 