{"id":16397,"date":"2018-01-31T08:33:38","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T13:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16397"},"modified":"2018-01-31T09:53:27","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T14:53:27","slug":"blessed-are-the-gentle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16397","title":{"rendered":"Blessed Are the Gentle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u9bjPwwLgj0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Blessed Are the Gentle<\/strong><br \/>\nWednesday, January 31, 2018<\/p>\n<p>Blessed are the gentle [or the meek, humble, non-violent, unassuming]: they shall have the earth as inheritance. \u2014Matthew 5:5<br \/>\nThis Beatitude is a quote from Psalm 37:11: \u201cthe humble shall have the land for their own.\u201d Some translate it \u201cthe nonviolent.\u201d The translation perhaps most familiar is \u201cthe meek.\u201d It is the unique power of the powerless, which people who have always had power never understand. It is claimed by Mary in her famous Magnificat where she mirrors and models the many \u201cbarren\u201d women in the Hebrew Scriptures: \u201cGod has looked upon me in my lowliness. . . . God fills the starving with good things\u201d (Luke 1:48, 53). She represented the pivotal biblical theme of \u201cthe poor of Yahweh\u201d (anawim), taught especially by the prophets Zephaniah (2:3) and Zechariah (9:9). Surely Mary and Joseph modeled this stance for Jesus as a child. Their offering of two turtle doves at his presentation in the temple (Luke 2:24), which was the offering of the landless peasantry, reveals their social place in Jewish society.<br \/>\nThere is, of course, an irony here. If there was one hated group in Palestine of Jesus\u2019 day, it was landlords, those who possess the land. Nobody possessed land except by violence, by oppression, by holding onto it and making all the peasants pay a portion of their harvest. Jesus is turning that around and saying no, it\u2019s you little ones who are finally going to possess the land. I can hear implicit critique in his voice, but also hope.<br \/>\nJesus is undoubtedly redefining the meaning of land, building on what every Jew would have known. Hebrew Scripture teaches that only God possesses the land (see Psalm 24:1; Leviticus 25:23). In the jubilee year, all the land was to be given back to its original occupants (see Leviticus 25:8-17). Native Americans understood the freedom of the land, yet European colonizers did not. Private property forces us behind artificial fences, boundaries, and walls. People close to the earth know that only God \u201cowns\u201d the earth, and that we\u2019re all stewards, pilgrims, and strangers with a duty and privilege of caring for it. Who will \u201cown\u201d our plot of land fifty years from now? Ownership is clearly not an objective or divine right, but only a legal one.<br \/>\nEknath Easwaran writes:<br \/>\nTo live simply is to live gently, keeping in mind always the needs of the planet, other creatures, and the generations to come. In doing this we lose nothing, because the interests of the whole naturally include our own. . . . In claiming nothing for [ourselves, we] have everything, for everything is [ours] to enjoy as part of the whole. [1]<\/p>\n<p>This image of non-ownership is one Saint Francis fully embraced. He told his followers to live sine proprio, or \u201cwithout possessions.\u201d As a novice in 1961, I was encouraged to write ad usum simplicem (for the simple use of) on all that I had in my room. I still have this phrase on some of my books. Was that na\u00efve or was it brilliant? Francis was just taking Jesus\u2019 word to his disciples (Luke 14:33) and to the rich young man (Matthew 19:21) quite seriously. It astounds me that Christians missed this in our usual lists of the \u201cmusts\u201d of Jesus! Both Jesus and Francis knew ownership was finally an illusion and that it would condemn us to spending the rest of our lives paying for, remodeling, and protecting those very possessions. They are just warning us against this entrapment and all that it entails. Personal ownership is not necessary for enjoyment, as no doubt you\u2019ve experienced in a public library, park, or art museum. Truth be told, after a while our possessions possess us.<\/p>\n<p>Gateway to Presence:<br \/>\nIf you want to go deeper with today\u2019s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.<\/p>\n<p>======<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eKyY8zfjBMQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>===============<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do You See Your Calling?<\/strong><br \/>\nBy Oswald Chambers<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>\u2026separated to the gospel of God\u2026 \u2014Romans 1:1<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell\u2014 it is redemption. The need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker today. As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holiness is an effect of redemption, not the cause of it. If we place our faith in human goodness we will go under when testing comes.<\/p>\n<p>Paul did not say that he separated himself, but \u201cwhen it pleased God, who separated me\u2026\u201d (Galatians 1:15). Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. \u201cDon\u2019t ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes.\u201d To talk that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of God has not begun to touch me. There is no reckless abandon to God in that. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul was not conscious of himself. He was recklessly abandoned, totally surrendered, and separated by God for one purpose\u2014 to proclaim the gospel of God (see Romans 9:3).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blessed Are the Gentle Wednesday, January 31, 2018 Blessed are the gentle [or the meek, humble, non-violent, unassuming]: they shall have the earth as inheritance. \u2014Matthew 5:5 This Beatitude is a quote from Psalm 37:11: \u201cthe humble shall have the land for their own.\u201d Some translate it \u201cthe nonviolent.\u201d The translation perhaps most familiar is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16397"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16397"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16400,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16397\/revisions\/16400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}