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The following message for the moment is delivered by the Reverend Dr. Bruce Lewis Sherman. Today's sermon is entitled, "The Song of the Strong." The first reading of the morning is Genesis chapter 13. I begin at the verse number 2.

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"Now Abram was very rich in capital. In silver and in gold. And he journeyed on from the Negev as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Arak. To the place where he had made an altar at the first.

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And there Abram called on the name of the Lord. And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. So that the land could not support both of them dwelling together. For their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.

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And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelt in the land. Then Abram said to Lot, "Let there be no strife between thee and me. And between your herdsmen and my herdsmen.

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For we are kingdom. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right.

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Or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left." And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zeruach. (Which was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

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So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley. And Lot joined each, that they separated from each other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelt among the cities of the valley, and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

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Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord. And may God bless the lot, and to our understanding, this reading from this book. Prayer of the Smith. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Amen. It is reported to have occurred on a railroad train between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. A woman got on the train in a chair car, and her baby was crying. And the longer the ride was, the more the baby cried, until a toweling filled the car from one end to the other.

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Finally one man could stand it no longer. So he got up, and he went over to the woman, and he said, "Madam, your baby is the ugliest baby I have ever seen." Well, she was raving with anger, and she jumped up and began to yell at him,

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and there was quite a commotion, and the conductor came running into the car. And she said, "What's wrong?" And he said, "He has insulted me, he has humiliated me." She said, "The conductor, take this man and lead him to another car."

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And then he goes back to the woman, and he said, "Now just sit down and be calm. Everything will be all right. He will not bother you anymore. I'll go and I'll get you a nice cup of tea. I'll even bring back a banana for your monkey."

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Well, there's some comedy in it, but at the same time it was a colossal blunder. He thought he knew, but in fact he didn't. What's the justice with regard to the world's definition of the word "meek"? It thinks it knows, but it really doesn't know.

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Take the advertising game, for example, which takes, if you will, the word. In advertisements we find that the powerful person, the successful person, the one who buys the big car, who lives in the big office and gets the huge refrigerator, that individual is called "strong," "successful."

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The meek, on the other hand, are the before part of a before-and-after ad. They are those who are readily pushed about. The 98-pound weakling on the beach who's knocked aside by bigger men. The little fellow who makes the doughnuts.

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Not long ago, Ted Turner, who was Time Magazine's Man of the Year, the own CNN, MGM, the Atlanta Brave, and is the most recent husband of James Fonda, delivered the following sentiment. He said, "Christianity is a religion for losers."

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Now, Jesus said, "Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." And Jesus does not invite people to meek. He invites people to win. So Mr. Turner is comically, colossally wrong.

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He thinks he knows, but he really doesn't know. A comment like that, and he makes a monkey of himself. Let's see then what the word "meek" truly means, and how Jesus entices us to understand it in the Beatitudes, which is before us this morning.

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The first thing we can say is this. The meek are not the weak. Let me give you two examples, both drawn from the Scripture. The first from the Old Testament.

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In the book of Numbers, chapter 12, verse 3, we read these words. "The man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." Moses was the meekest of men in his day. Now think about this, Moses.

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He grew up in a royal palace. When one of his kinsmen, a fellow Jew, was killed by an Egyptian, he rose up with his bare hands and killed the Egyptian. He stood his ground before Pharaoh, who was the most powerful reigning monarch of the day.

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He defeated the armies of Egypt. He led a rag-tag bunch of slaves out into the wilderness, and led them there for forty years, and forged out of them a nation, a nation so strong that it endures even until today.

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When God came with fire and thunder and flame to the top of Mount Sinai, and the children of Israel fell on their knees and on their faces before him, Moses climbed that mountain. Moses walked in the middle of that fire and that thunder and that smoke.

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And he brought down out of it the Ten Commandments. And when he discovered the idolatry of his people, he immediately responded with a justice which was sure, swift, and severe. Now does this sound like a loser?

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Does this sound like someone easily pushed around on the beach? The fact is that if any man was ever strong on the same, it was Moses. Let's draw another illustration from the New Testament. In Matthew 11, verse 29, we read, and Jesus is speaking,

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"For I am weak and lowly at heart." Jesus describes himself as "weak." Well, what then can the definition of "weak" be? Here's a man who laid aside glory to take up the gauntlet,

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the challenge of saving the whole world. Here's a man who deceived temptation. Here is one who bested his enemies in open debate. Here is a man who made himself vulnerable to all who had needed him.

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This is the one who took a bunch of leather cords and made them into a whip and cleaned out an area larger than our Market Square, chasing all the crooked merchants from their stalls, sending their silver into the streets, and their scrambling after that silver.

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This is the man who stood in the presence of government authorities and either coined it with his silence or defeated it with his irreputable argument. Here's a man who climbed a cross when he didn't have to. And even when he was upon that cross, from that very bloody tree,

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spoke words of love and comfort and forgiveness, so that even the soldiers, the tough Roman soldiers, were armed at his compassion. Now does this sound like a whip? Does this sound like some 98-pound weakling?

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Does this sound like a loser? Moses and Jesus were men of powerful purpose. It has been said that the strongest people in the world are the people who can master themselves.

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I do not agree with that. That group would be the second strongest group in the world. The strongest group in the world are those who can master themselves and then turn themselves utterly over to the control and the mastery and the direction of God.

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These are the mighty men. Back in the days when nuns still wore the ecclesiastical garb, which used to be typical, four nuns went to a baseball game. And seated in front of them were a group of men who were fugitive against Roman Catholics.

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So one of the men said in a voice loud enough for the nuns to hear, "I think I'll move to Oklahoma. I understand there are fewer Catholics there." The second man said, "Well, I think I'll go to Texas. I understand there are even fewer Catholics there." The third man said, "Well, I'm going to go to Alaska. There are hardly any Catholics there."

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Whereupon one of the nuns leaned forward and with a sweet smile on her face said in a soft voice, "Why don't you all go to hell? There are no Catholics there." Now this is the testimony, you see, of one who is weak. The weak are not wimps. The weak are people of principle.

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Yes, they are mild, but there is an energy in their mildness. They are just in a world which is largely unjust. And when they are provoked, they respond not only with reason, but even more so with their religion. They become angry, but their anger is controlled always.

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Because they understand that the battle is to win not only the point, but also the person. The weak are people of truth. But in defeating that which is untrue, they understand that the greatest and most permanent victory is won when you defeat your enemy with kindness.

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The weak are people of moral power and of virtuous purpose. They are the ones who sing the song of the strong. And what is the lyric of that song? The words of Jesus, "Happy are the weak, for they shall inherit the earth."

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Christ invites us to sing that song. Notice this also. The weak are those who seek. They want the powerful joy of being led by God.

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They yield themselves to God, and they gain from this a peace and power which is theirs because God takes over control of their lives. And when that happens, they develop the ability and the courage to turn problems into projects and obstacles into opportunities and interruptions into interludes and adversities into adventures.

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Again, take an example from the pages of Scripture. I read a few moments ago the story of Abram and Lot, Lot as Abram's nephew. Both of these men were very successful, so successful that their cattle were running into one another and their herdsmen were getting into fights deciding which cattle belonged

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to which owner. So Abram, who was a very meek man, a God-controlled man, went to Lot and said, "There is no reason for this to happen. There is a great deal of land about us, so why don't we separate?"

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And Lot, and remember this is the older man, the man with authority, speaking to the younger man, the one who was subservient. He says, "And Lot, you choose whatever you want, and I'll take what is left." That, you see, is the testimony of a meek man.

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So Lot, being a very prideful person, chooses the best that he can find. "All of the well-watered area of Jordan." But the time came when that land which he selected according to the Scriptures burned like a furnace.

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Abram took what was left, and the descendants of Abram became more in number than the very stars. How do we define a humble home? A humble home is a place where there is discipline, but not dictation.

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It's a place where there is freedom, but not freedom which decapitates other people's freedom. It is a place where there is courtesy and calmness and mutual respect. Pride breaks home, not meekness. What do we describe as the most effective laboratory?

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Is it the laboratory where the scientists that work are only interested in those things which will prove their preconceived ideas? Or is it a laboratory in which men and women work together to discover what is true, regardless of whether it happens to support their theories and ideas or not?

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These people are not intractable, they are altogether teachable. And out of their humility, out of their honest meekness, they discover the secrets that God reveals to them. Look at the poet in his study.

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Look at the artist in his studio. Look at the musician in his concert hall. Look at the parliamentarian in his place of debate. The noblest and the strongest are those who are yielded to God and the fruit of their

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meekness is easily seen. Just think of the names of some of the meek people of this city. Moses, Socrates, Jesus, Augustine, Francis, Michelangelo, Luther, Rembrandt, Bach, Abraham Lincoln, David Livingstone, Pasteur, Curie, Gandhi, Dodd-Homer-Schulz, John XXIII, Albert

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Einstein. Are these losers? Are these the weak? Not at all.

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They are humble before God, and out of that humility, out of that meekness, they have a tremendous strength. None of these ever said, "I will do what will profit me most. I will owe it to myself."

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None of these would claim membership in the second strongest group in the world, those persons who are able to master themselves. But all of these, some of them in ways we would not understand, but which to them at least were real, all of these saw themselves as part of that first group, who not only

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master themselves, but who then turn over the mastery of themselves to the infinite God. Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher, has a parable in which he talks about meekness. He says that we are very much like arrows shot by some master of the bow.

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Now, the arrow does not stop to see how far it has gone. It does not stop in mid-flight to see how high it is. It does not stop to compare itself with the journey of other arrows. It does not stop to admire itself.

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If the arrow stops even for an instant, it will fall immediately to the earth. Those are the losers. But the arrow that is meek, that it responds to the bow of the master archer, that arrow is obedient and goes straight to its target.

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And these are the meek. I like the way the French translate this word "happy are the meek." They translate it in this way, "Eros les debonaires." The meek are the debonaires.

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We are invited by Christ to be debonaires, to sing the song of the strong. "Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." The meek, then, are not weak. The meek seek to always serve God.

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And further, the meek are unique. And this is what is unique about them. They shall inherit the earth. Now, the evidence of that is already at hand.

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What kind of a person do you choose as a friend? Do you choose some pushy individual filled with self-ambition and pride? Or do you choose the person who walks in modesty and grace? Are we drawn by force, or are we drawn and attracted to vulnerability?

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What kind of people do we seek to elect to office with? We want honest people, and we want competent people. But don't we also want humble people, meek people, who will understand that their election is a gift from the voters,

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and that it is their privilege to serve, and not the opportunity for them to rob and cheat those who have put them in their places of power? We admire and are drawn to the meek. The meek are the ones who receive the admiration of others,

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because when they make a promise, they keep it. When they say they will fulfill a task, they fulfill it. What someone else is afraid of, they will go into, and even if they lose, they will lose with such grace that they are admired.

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The reputation of these people constantly develops. They are more and more trusted. They are more and more esteemed. They begin to inherit the earth.

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When I think of this meekness, the character that immediately comes to my mind is Edith Bunker. You remember Edith, the wife of the loudmouth Archie in the television show, "All in the Family." I'm not referring to the fact that Edith did not have an advanced education.

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She was very naive in many ways. She was overly excitable, and she lacked the ability to express herself on many occasions. But remember these things.

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When her shopping cart hit a car in the supermarket parking lot, she left a card with her name and address upon it. She worked in the Sunshine Home, and when someone was dying, she was the only employee there who would go and hold the hands of the dying

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and speak to them of comfort and of love, even as they died. She was the one who had about her such a tenderness and quiet strength that even burglars who broke into her home and people of other races who moved into her neighborhood

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were touched by her, respected her, and loved her. She was the one on jury duty who voted for innocence when all the other eleven jurors voted for guilt, who insisted that they go over the evidence once again,

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and who led them ultimately to the place where they all agreed that the prisoner was not guilty. She had a daughter named Gloria who was pseudo-sophisticated. She had a son-in-law named Mike who was a kind of a knee-jerk liberal. And then there was Archie who was a bombastic loudmouth.

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Remember how he used to call her "Edith the Good?" I recall a conversation in one of the shows. He says, "Edith, you are the only person I know who cheats at cards so others will win. You cheat to lose. You ain't human."

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And she responds with a very strong and authoritative voice, "Archie, that's a terrible thing to say. I am just as human as you are." To which Archie replies, "Oh yeah? Prove that you are as human as me. Do something rotten."

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And Archie knew he was safe in throwing down that challenge. He knew he was running no risk because Edith was too strong to be weak. She was not so readily led into doing that which was ignoble. She became angry only at those things about which every Christian should be angry.

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She was honest and merciful and caring and self-sacrificing and kind and loving and strong and trustworthy and dependable. Edith was the hero of that show. And all those who watched it across many years, whether they were people of belief or not, recognized that to be true. I imagine that she is the most honored and admired and applauded female character in any television series that has ever been done.

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Why, even the chair she sat in on the set is now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. Why? Because she did nothing that she couldn't do in the open. She did nothing which had as its goal something less than loving. She did nothing which would step upon the hopes and the dreams of other people.

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To live courageously, wisely, lovingly, and hopefully. Who's more honored than that? Who's more respected than that? Who's more loved than that? This is what it means when it says, "They shall inherit the earth." So hear the lyric of the song of the strong.

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Jesus sang it first. "Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." And Christ invites us this morning to reject the comedy that the world is, and to become part of the drama of destiny, which is of the kingdom of heaven. He invites us to turn away from weakness and towards strength.

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To not be losers, but to be winners. Not to be satisfied with being number two, able to master yourself, but only to be satisfied when you're number one, able to master yourself, and then surrendering that mastery to God. Why not join in the mighty chorus this morning?

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Why not become part of that great multitude whose names illumine the pages of history, whose lives illumine the course of our days, and who never will be forgotten? Those who sing, who carol, who anthem, who shout the song of the strong. Pray with me.

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Take from us, O God, all pride and vanity, all boasting and forwardness, and please give us true courage that shows itself by gentleness, true wisdom that shows itself by simplicity, true power that shows itself by...

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...of... ...by...