“Blessed are the meek” it says in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Yet, who in our world would want to own the designation of being one of the meek? The world doesn’t bless the meek. They are disdained as weak, powerless, of little account. Encouraging meekness has been a way of keeping people out of power, of squelching complaints.
During this season of remembering the great love God showed through the gift of God’s Son, through the wonder of the Word becoming flesh, we might begin to see that meekness is not the same as powerlessness. Jesus saw himself as God’s child, first and foremost. He did not focus on himself. He made all his decisions based on God’s ways. Even in the garden he prayed, “Not my will be done, but yours.” Was he powerless? No. But his power flowed from his willingness to follow God in all things. He was, by the world’s standards meek. He refused to defend himself.
His meekness allowed him to see, fully and truly, those the world around him discounted, ignored, despised and injured. He knew God’s great love for them as he knew God’s live for him.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This, Jesus said, is the second commandment. Humility flows from this extravagant love that does not set the self above others. Or, if we look at Jesus’ life, we see humility that flowed from the first commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind.” Jesus, in his life, saw himself as God’s messenger, as God’s chosen one. He set aside self-interest to invest fully in God’s ways and in God’s plan. He set aside privilege to be connected to and serve all who would receive him, particularly those on the margins of his society and world.

Happy New Year!
In Galatians it says that one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. That seemed like an appropriate topic for New Year’s Day when people are thinking about resolutions for the coming year! Self-control is, at first hearing, a very individualistic fruit. We think about self-control as necessary for healthy living. We need to control what we eat, what we drink. We need to assess the risks in our activities.
Self-control has a communal impact. We might ask ourselves what we really need in order to live in ways that positively affect others and the world as a whole. In a consumer society, the fruit of self-control can help us remember that this is a world we share. “Live simply so that others may simply live.”