In this season of life, just shy of two years 1 from the worst moment in my life, I've been fortunate to be in a community of faith and under a pastor 2 gifted at mercy's promise' made real in his discipler's teaching and mentoring presence—increasingly pregnant within the community itself. Today's worship and preaching centered on the 3rd Beatitude, "Blessed are the meek." The beatitude's are an opportunity to enlarge our community’s understanding of salvation as “restoration,” as human-making.
We who are shaped in the revivalist tradition sometimes are led to assume that The Spirit is known only in “one step beyond” the normal 3. Each extraordinary worshiping moment or miracle, even as simple as God gifting us a convenient parking space on a cold wintry day running a bit late into an important meeting, should be followed by another extraordinary moment, service, sermon, miracle. If not careful we can be exhausted on a spinning wheel of expectations (ours and others, even of God or from God), like a proverbial lab rat.
I will never forget the moment my friend and associate pastor and I were relaxing down at Alki beach, sitting just behind a big log, nudged in the sand and against the gentle lapping waves. It was on the edge of cold. We had spent a good and tough week doing a creative Vacation Bible School centered around basketball, crafts, drama class and teaching in a government housing project, High Point, Seattle, WA. In the mix were actual gang members watching/guarding their hood from a distance, wondering at the 20+ white kids from Montana taking over their turf. Hesitantly and only as the gang members signaled approval did some pre-teen wanna-be gangers lay down their bikes and join the bunches of kids now crawling out of their homes and into the park.
There was a felt tension in the air as our free spirited, rural and naïve troup overwhelmed the park with laughter, play and a bit of rough and tumble by our unaware teens doing urban mission. Sadly, in addition, the Montana pastor had brought a gun, concealed. I’m glad I was unaware. How foolish. Even a brief exposure could have brought a permanent end to West Seattle Naz’s ministry among our neighbors—some 5 blocks away.
Even the weather seemed triggered to end the moment before it started. It was late summer but the clouds around the city were dark, the air tingling as it drifted around us like snow flurries in the heart of winter, rain beginning to pour out of the lowest cloud. I looked up and simply asked God to make it go away. Within three minutes the warmth of bright sun rays broke through the clouds just above and with it the heaviness evaporated within the human to human inter-actions melting before us. It would be months before I became aware of the back story that had made the moment possible. The gang members guarding their territory had relented on command of one of them, apparently influential. I was told by a Samoan brother that he had heard one of them say that they were to give this pastor space, as a ‘good guy’. Months earlier I had visited him in the hospital, recovering from a bullet wound.
As we packed out of the park I looked up into what had been a clear sky and noted that it literally was a hole in a sea of grey, dark clouds that hovered over the whole city. Smiling and a little full of myself, I suggested to my associate pastor we should kick down to the beach and get a coffee and listen to the ocean, which always soothed my soul.
The weather at the beach suddenly turned dark, chaotic and the waves were braking against the log splashing up just over the top. My friend suggested we might need to leave. ‘Why?’ I wondered. 'What’s a little gust of wind, compared to the miracles we had just experienced'. “No need,” I stated. “God, please calm the storm,” I confidently voiced. Just then a wave larger than I’ve ever seen at Alki broke over the log and drenched, just me. Shocked, we broke out in laughter, picked up our stuff and left God’s turf.
At the center of all of the Beatitudes and most certainly, humility, is simply relaxing into your own skin; aware, curious, open and concerned not with ourselves, but with the landscape around us. ‘Relaxing’ into your own skin is both like and very different from the song, “I Gotta be Me,” made famous by Sammy Davis Jr. 4
Whether I'm right or whether I'm wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong
I gotta be me, I've gotta be me
What else can I be but what I am
The charm and child-like abandonment to the sense of wanting “to live, not merely survive," and dreaming “of life that keeps me alive” is lost inside itself, as this child whose prize is a “a world of success.” In such a world of glory the temptation to “have it all, as long as there’s a chance” leaves one against the world and as the writer discovers; “alone, that’s how it must be.”
In sharp contrast to the rich and famous or the poor and non-descript of every person who still runs the treadmill of life, going nowhere and bound to the anxieties of ‘self’s place,’ is the poor or rich, famous or private who manage to look beyond themselves into another kind of glory; the wonder of God’s creation all around. Nothing is less lonely, though often alone, than the release that comes when one ceases all addictions to the self, others or even God and instead falls 'in wonder of' the self, others and God. This is the ‘meek’ of whom Jesus is speaking. Human, vulnerable, aware and fixated on the gift that is life. To these few or many the promise is given; “they shall "inherit the whole earth” (Matthew 5:5 NLT).
Blessings! Terry
09/29/24
1 Link to "Entirely Christ's & Not Yet", extended excerpts of my own—as yet unpublished—book written in the 1st year of recovery from sexual addiction and attendant sin. The Beatitudes are about God's smile on we humans who wrestle and struggle against both interior and cultural influences that distort our 'becoming human.' Entitled, "Entirely Christ's & Not Yet: Human Making-Themes from the Beatitudes, is highly confessional and process focused essays on following Christ, as one addicted. I hope you find it helpful. (The specific emphasis, in narrative form, on the Beatitudes starts on page #265 of these excerpts, #535 of the book). Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:us:4042846f-8198-4a54-9c2b-43c1e6950286
2 Pastor Paul Johnson's Message on the 3rd Beatitude: "Blessed are the Meek... Yea, Right!" (40.o minutes exactly into the service). Link: https://www.youtube.com/live/C7L2WLYfF8Q?si=87BQRyrMrEbu6ioj
3 This reflection of communal experience is from Brian D. McLaren's book, "A Generous Orthodoxy" which focuses on the diverse strengths of the various traditions within Christendom. Link; https://a.co/d/9hp4ZSc
...I requoted him when exploring his own experience in Pentecostal and Charismatic faith communities, in my book, "7 Faces of Jesus in the North American Experience", Week 9: Saturday, "Coming Home... The Liberal Face of Jesus" Link: https://a.co/d/glhOYNu
4 Old Memories: Sammy Davis Jr.'s "I Gotta Be Me" Link: https://youtu.be/BB0ndRzaz2o?si=yWQD1yqJZRHg9p5r
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