Blessed Are the Meek: When the Call Isn't What We Wanted

One of the hardest things about following Jesus is that he often calls us to become something we didn’t ask to be. And I don’t just mean the call to walk through hardship. We can often muster the resolve for difficult seasons when we believe there's purpose in the pain. But the harder call? The one that quietly invites us to change into something we never admired in the first place.

Something like meek.

Reshaping the Message to Fit Our World

So often, we reshape Jesus’ words to suit our own sensibilities. We recast his invitations so that they align with who we already are—or who we want to be seen as. When Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor," or "Blessed are those who mourn," or yes, "Blessed are the meek," we instinctively ask, "Really? In what kind of world is that true?"

And then we make it true in our world by reinterpreting it.

I have a commentary in my office that tells me meekness means “strength under control.” It explains that the meek inherit the earth because they are powerful enough to dominate but wise enough not to. And that makes sense, at least in the world I live in. But that’s not actually what the word means.

In English, meek means submissive, easily imposed upon. The Greek word praus doesn’t fare much better. It means humbled, not overly impressive. And the Hebrew equivalent, ana, carries connotations of being bowed down, even cowering. None of these definitions suggest quiet power. That interpretation isn’t translation; it’s a coping mechanism. It’s how we try to make Jesus make sense within the world we already understand.

But What If That’s Not the Point?

What if Jesus isn’t trying to affirm our world? What if he's not even talking to us first?

If you're a poor, rural Jewish person in the first century, standing among those who have had their land taken, your story disrupted by empire, and you hear Jesus say, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," you don't think of quiet strength. You think of Psalm 37.

That ancient song spoke of the fall of Israel and the temporary triumph of the ruthless. It reminded people that the Lord would not leave them in the hands of the wicked. And it ended by saying, not that God delivers those who overcome, but those who seek refuge.

So when Jesus echoes this song, he’s not offering a spiritual self-help tip. He is proclaiming that those who have been crushed, overlooked, and pushed aside—they are seen. They are the ones God is advocating for. They are the ones who will inherit.

You Don’t Want to Be Meek

At least, not in this context. Because to be meek here is to have been pushed to the margins. It is to have had your land taken, your rights stripped, your story silenced.

And if you're a Roman citizen, shoulder to shoulder with a dispossessed Jew listening to this rabbi from Galilee talk about inheritance, that’s more than awkward. It’s subversive. This isn’t about how to earn God's blessing. It's about who already has it, even when the world says otherwise.

Reframing God's Favor

Jesus is not giving us a checklist to earn God's approval. He's reframing who already has God's attention.

And once we begin to see that, we stop trying to make Jesus fit into our world, and we start asking what it might look like for our world to be remade in the image of his vision.

These beatitudes are not sensible. They are aspirational.

What if this really is what God is like? What if God sees the mourners, the merciful, the peacemakers, the meek? And what if our call is not to become strong so that we can win but to become soft enough to be shaped by that love?

What if Jesus isn't just opening a sermon with poetic lines, but is naming the kind of world that might exist if we allowed ourselves to dream God-sized dreams?

May we have the courage not just to admire the meek, but to stand with them.

May we learn to want the world Jesus is offering us.

Even when it doesn’t make sense—especially when it doesn’t make sense—may it become the world we begin to live into.