What ‘meek’ means to the modern world

This Sunday’s Gospel gives a rare opportunity to enter into Jesus’ personal prayer. Listening to his prayer allows for a glimpse of his interior life and mysticism. Shifts in grammar and language reveal the expansiveness of Jesus’ spiritual imagination. These details expose Jesus’ core prayer for his followers: to learn to seek help. 

Jesus begins his prayer in the first person, addressing the Father in the second person singular, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth” (Mt 11:25). This is an understandable beginning. Prayers of thanksgiving are common among different faiths in every age. After starting the prayer as an intimate conversation with the Father, Jesus switches to the third person, drawing in his listeners. No longer speaking directly to the Father, Jesus speaks out, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son” (Mt 11:27). This third person style is not uncommon in Matthean rules of rhetoric. 

It is the last part of Jesus’ prayer that is shocking. Without any transition, Jesus moves from addressing his Father to addressing the crowd in the second person plural in reference to his own person. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). Jesus becomes the answer to the crowd’s prayer for help. This shift from addressing the Father to addressing himself is like a moment of Transfiguration; it reveals Jesus as a source of grace on par with the Father. The implication is subtle but clear. The equality of Father and Son here in Mt 11:25-30 foreshadows Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration in Mt 17:1-8, in which Jesus reveals his hidden identity. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading, Matthew turns his readers’ attention to this shared holiness through a moment of personal prayer. 

It appears that Jesus is unlike a self-made person.

The content of this prayer draws the reader to reflect on the meaning of meekness as a biblical and divine attribute. In this moment of the prayer, Jesus says, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Jesus’ meekness is difficult to grasp if one considers its full scriptural range. “Meek” is presented as the main image from today’s first reading, “See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass” (Zec 9:9). Zechariah uses “meek” here to describe one who lacks the use of power and force to accomplish his will. To need help from others is in direct contrast to the images of self-sufficient power from the first reading: the chariot from Ephraim, the horse from Jerusalem and the warrior’s bow (Zec 9:10).

It appears that Jesus is unlike a self-made person. He relinquishes all the power he rightly possesses and relies on the help from his Father and his disciples in order to lead by example. The need to seek out help is both true to human nature and scorned by a contemporary culture that reveres self-reliance. The ancient Greek language, however, defines the word praǘs, “meek,” as the quality of not being impressed with one's own importance. For Matthew, no one had a better claim on importance than Jesus, and likewise no one has ever done a better job of keeping that reality hidden. 

“Learn from me,” says Jesus. This Sunday’s readings challenge readers to make Jesus’ prayer their own. The core of Jesus’ prayer is to rest in him, to find one’s help in him. It is what Jesus means when he says, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mt 11:30). To live life through the illusion of self-reliance is hard, but to heed the Son’s prayer brings a lightness to the burdens we carry.