If a person is humble dose that make them meek or are they meek if they are poor and oppressed. Certainly, their oppressors expect them to be humble.

Years ago, I asked a Samoan woman if she would serve on the Assembly Business Committee. Her response was indeed humble.  She just said: ‘Thank you.’

I was therefore delighted to read that after 14 years of service to Counties Manukau Health, with the last three-and-a-half as CEO, Margie Apa has been appointed Chief Executive of Health New Zealand.

Matthew was right to have Jesus say ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth’ (Matthew 5:5).  Or at least head up our new health structure.

Our reading is Luke’s sermon on the plain and Luke is also more specific about what it is to be meek.

He spells out some of the disadvantages meek people might have like poverty, hunger and being so upset or frightened that all one can be is weep.

‘Blessed are you who weep now for you will laugh.’ (Luke 6:21) That reminds me of a clip I have seen on television of a little girl at the start of a surf carnival.  There was a huge surf with the waves much higher than this little picture of meekness who stood there crying her eyes out.  Then the starters gun went off and she rushed into the waves and disappeared.  She emerges shortly after to race up the beach ahead of the other competitors.

Readings

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Jeremiah gives us the metaphor that depicts those who trust mere mortals being like a shrub in the desert while those who put their trust in Yahweh are like a tree planted by water.  Maurice Andrew suggests we might think of the contrast between the scattered matagouri bushes of Central Otago and the broad beach forests of South Westland.

Luke 6: 17-26

In chapter 6 Luke tells us that Jesus had gone up a hill and spent the night praying. In the morning he called his disciples to him and named 12 of them apostles.

Our reading begins with him coming down the hill to where Jesus addresses his disciples in what is called the sermon on the plain in contrast to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount which contains similar material but happened when they were up the hill.

Luke’s beatitudes are shorter than Matthew’s and he contrasts his four blessings with four woes.

Despite being frightened by the huge surf the wee girl’s competitive spirit drove her towards becoming Dame Lisa Carrington.

From time to time, we see a television commercial soliciting funding for brain research which has people in white coats washing cars.  One of those people in white coats is New Zealand’s foremost brain research scientist Sir Richard Faull.  While in Hamilton I was fortunate to hear him give a talk organised by the city ministers group.  The thing I have never forgotten from that address was Sir Richard’s statement that in his working life he does not expect to find a cure for Parkinson’s Disease.  His certain hope is that sometime in the future people building on his research will make that breakthrough.

That worldview believes that selfless toiling, sharing of information and building on what has gone before will eventually produce results. Such dedication is why a number of covid vaccines were produced so quickly.

The Carrington’s lived in a beach front house and their worldview told them that not only would a small child be attracted to the water but would find a way to climb any fence they might erect.  So, they sent little Lisa to the surf club to learn to swim and make herself at home with the water.

Such empowering worldviews are contained within this week’s reading from Jeremiah and flows on to our Gospel reading.

Both these readings are about grounding a spiritual world view rather than some system of human rules and regulations. A way of living that is divinely inspired.  Inspired by Yahweh for Jeremiah or perhaps the God that Paul Tillich defined as ‘ground of all being’.

Jeremiah says ‘blessed are those who trust in Yahweh, whose trust is in Yahweh, they shall be like a tree planted by the water, sending out its roots by the stream.  (Jeremiah 17:7,8a)

It is our worldview that provides the water we draw on and that worldview needs to be deep.  A vision of a community of science that shares knowledge rather that struggles for individual glory or a quick profit from a patented product.  A trust in others to teach lifesaving skills so a dangerous environment can be enjoyed and provide growth and challenge.

Such worldviews are much wider and deeper than any ideology or conspiracy theory that evaporates when the heat comes on.  Worldviews, as Jeremiah suggests, need to be like a tree planted by water sending out its roots by the stream. (Jeremiah 17:8)

Both our readings suggest that nothing is deeper or more eternally liberating and empowering than a worldview based on the concept of a divinity attuned to the gifts and needs of all people.  A world view grounded, not just of our being, but all being.

Jeremiah is the prophet who says, ‘If you carry on like that bad things will happen.  So, he puts his woes first, beginning:

Thus says Yahweh: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from Yahweh, they shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes.  (Jeremiah 17:6)

By using the opposites of woes and blessings in our readings both Jeremiah and Jesus emphasise the importance of a worldview based on a nourishing loving God.  A worldview opposed to the dry self-centred, instant gratification that we sometimes find in self-help books and numerous leaders with Swiss bank accounts.

Jesus lived within the Pax Romana, a time of world peace which was not only achieved by military superiority but insisted that Caesar was god.

Caesar not only gave peace but communities that worshiped Caesar got superb roads, civic amenities and running water.

Of course, the Roman idea of a divine ruler made the Jews a bit niggly.  They had, and still have, a very deep flowing tradition that demanded peace through justice.  Roman peace through victory on the other hand was not always just.

For the Jews of Jesus time the deep nourishing water of Yahweh tradition was about shalom, the peace of the God of freedom and justice. The peace they expected God to send a messiah to re-establish.

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus sermon on the plain is about God’s actions to fulfil that expectation.  However, the messianic expectation was about an instant rebuilding of the world.  A God spoke and it happened moment.  But Luke is gently leading his readers to understand that God’s action begins with Jesus who calls people to be part of the programme and it begins where people were.  The people Jesus spoke to were poor so that is where it begins.

‘Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.’

‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be fed’

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. (Luke 6 :20 -22)

Jesus was like scientists who, through new discovery, speak out against conventional wisdom.  Jesus was like parents who build survival skills rather than fences.

In the Roman world to say ‘Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.’ Seemed stupid.  It feels a bit silly in our world too. It was the rich in divine Caesar’s world who got the blessings of roads, baths and blood sports.

The Hebrew scripture, including today’s reading, also indicates that even in the Jewish world the notion that God rewards the virtuous.

Therefor in their world and ours, poverty is likely to be seen as a curse, and a curse to society.  Meanwhile the wealthy are not only idolised but seen as role models.  Except when rich role models challenge public health protocols.

But Jesus was talking to his disciples about a whole new way of being in which lifestyle and love had nothing to do with wealth and poverty or even about race.

Jesus was talking to his disciples, and he began where they were at.  They were poverty stricken, hungry, miserable and extremely likely to be given a hard time.  But Jesus told them they were blessed.

He told them they were blessed because they were discovering something new.  Something firmly grounded in their religious tradition like a tree planted by a river.  As Jews they were blessed by that tradition that ran so deep there was always spiritual wisdom to draw on.

A tradition that held to the vital concept of shalom and stood against the utilitarian Pax Romana.

Their tradition also held the concept that God would intervene in the world and deliver that peace through Jesus.  But what they were learning from Jesus was that such intervention would not be achieved with the blinding flash of a cosmic magic show.  The expected transformation was to be like creation itself, a process.

The disciples were blessed because, in spite of their poverty and lack of status, they were to begin that process.  The process Jesus called the kingdom of God!

Writing about Paul, Crossan and Reed sum the understanding up brilliantly when they say.

But Paul, like Jesus before him, did not simply proclaim the imminent end of evil, injustice, and violence here below upon the earth.  They proclaimed it had already begun (first surprise!) and those believers were called to participate co-operatively with God (second Surprise!!) in what was now a process in human time and not a flash of divine light (third surprise!!)[1]

Certainly, as Crossan and Reed point out that whatever Jesus and Paul said about the length of that process and the details of the conclusion was completely wrong by two thousand years and still counting.  Nevertheless, they left us with the first and fundamental challenge of the Christian Faith:

‘Do you believe the process of making the world a just place has begun and what are you doing about joining the program?’[2]

That was the challenge Jesus was giving his disciples as he encouraged them to start where they were.  In this sermon and his parables and actions he gave them some guidelines drawn from and reinterpreted from the deep nourishment of their scripture.

When I read about the Roman world of the first century and compare it with our own, I can’t help believing that the process has indeed begun.  It is also blatantly obvious that it still has a fair way to go.

But despite conspiracy theories and antivaxxers, when I reflect on the way our nation has reacted to the current pandemic, I am grateful for the empathy we have developed.  When I reflect on the bold and constructive parenting that builds Olympic champions and the dedicated scientists, eager volunteers and willing health officials who give their lives for future miracles, I know the process continues.

Certainly not all those engaged in the project are card-carrying Christians but when the call to action comes from an all loving divinity, I find that quite reasonable.

But Jeremiah underlined the responsibility of spiritual leadership that Jesus gave to his disciples and therefore to us.  Our special responsibility as Christians is to keep fresh the continuous river of religious and spiritual tradition that empowers and nourishes the tree of change.

The challenge involves the whole of humanity.  But those bear Christ’s name have the special spiritual responsibility of providing the ongoing river of faith.  It is through us and to us that Christ’s voice still speaks and asks.

‘What are you doing about joining the program?’

[1] John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Read In Search of Paul(New York: HarperCollins, 2005),p.176.

[2] ibid.