I’m a natural backbencher. I’m shy around people I don’t know well. I don’t mix easily. I prefer the background.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t like doing weddings, unless they are of family or close friends. The church part is ok, but the hotel part – the eating and dancing part – I find taxing. When it comes to mealtime, I try to sit at an inconspicuous table, but almost invariably I am told to sit at the top table. Usually, I end up at the end of the table, with nobody on one side of me and the deaf granny of the bride on the other. After a few minutes, the conversation runs dry, and I sit there uncomfortably waiting for the meal to end. I prefer the backbenches.
Today’s readings stress the importance of being humble. In the Book of Ecclesiasticus, the author advises that “the greater you are, the more you should behave humbly. There is no cure for the proud person’s malady,” the author says, “since an evil growth has taken root in him.”
In the Gospel, Jesus advises that if you’re a guest at a party, go to the lowest place and sit there, so that when your host arrives, you may be told to move higher. Jesus also proposes that when you hold a party, don’t invite the rich and influential, who can pay you back, but rather the poor and the outcast.
His advice sounds like a recipe for social suicide, but the point Jesus makes is clear: The Christian isn’t concerned with image or status or power or social standing but with service of others. Humble service of God and neighbour is what counts.
Jesus, the servant king, is the best example of humility. Jesus identified with the least of all. He chose the sick over the healthy, the weak over the powerful; the poor over the rich, sinners over the pious. He washed his disciples’ feet. He mixed with outcasts. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Hr is our model. We imitate Jesus by living humble lives.
Today’s social media world, with its focus on beauty and bling, makes it harder than ever to live humbly. Our competitive environment promotes individualism, the survival of the fittest, vanity, vaulting ambition. To get on in life, you must be aggressive, driven, obsessive. To succeed, you must be selfish, self-centred, ruthless.
Humility is different. Humility is the opposite of Me First individualism. It’s the ability to stand in the other’s shoes; to consider experiences that are not our own. It is revolving our actions around others rather than ourselves. It is being least, being last, being servant, being little, being insignificant.
How, then, must we be humble? Three ways, I suggest.
Humility is self-awareness, acknowledging our smallness before God. Despite our best efforts, we sin all the time. No matter what our role or rank in society or church, we sin all the time. We know we’re not perfect. And so the humble person never has a big head. The humble person is without ego or vanity or pride. The humble person doesn’t rush to judge. The humble do not look down on anyone based on race, sexuality, gender, religion. They never discriminate against, bully, exclude. How can we look down on another when we know how imperfect we are?
We acknowledge our littleness before God at Holy Communion when we say, “Lord, I am not worthy…” I am not worthy that you should come into my house. I am not worthy of being in your presence. I don’t deserve you. Humility is honest self-awareness writ large.
Humility is selflessness. Pope Benedict caused a sensation six years ago when he announced he was resigning. For age and health reasons, he was stepping down. Popes didn’t do that. No pope had done it in over 600 years. Few had ever done so willingly. Benedict did. He voluntarily relinquished the top job in the church. He renounced power, and the perks, privileges and pomp that accompany it.
What he did was rare because people are not inclined to give up office or status, if they can help it. We want to hold onto what we have attained for as long as we can. The world is full of people desperately scrambling for the top. Humility is the opposite of that. It’s not self-seeking, not lording it over anybody, but placing ourselves at the service of the other, any other, all others. Washing feet. Humility is selflessness writ large.
Humility is simplicity of life. It’s an attitude Francis has trademarked since becoming pope – his refusal to live in the papal apartments or use a limousine. His insistence on wearing the same black shoes. His use of ordinary language.
Our world is greedy and grasping. It brainhacks us to believe we need to look young and perfect, never to be content with how we look. It encourages reckless narcissism; more bling; persuades us we can never have enough. We always need more to provide that extra security, extra comfort – because we’re worth it.
Humility is being satisfied with enough. It’s knowing that our biggest treasure, our ultimate security, is God. Always wanting more gets in the way of putting God first. Simplicity of life is also a way of cherishing the earth, which is facing imminent catastrophe, and of showing solidarity with the poor, who through others’ greed are denied life’s basic comforts. Humility is simplicity of life writ large.
Today’s readings aren’t about shunning the limelight, or being invisible, or staying silent. They’re a summons to a selfless, wholesome way of living that imitates Jesus, the servant king.
frommypulpit 