Billy Graham tells a
story about a time early in his ministry when he arrived in a small town where
he was scheduled to peach at an evening service. Before heading to the church he wanted to put
a letter in the mail, but had no idea how to find the post office. He happened upon a boy and asked for
directions, which the child provided with great clarity. Then Graham said to him, “Why don’t you come
by the Baptist Church tonight because I’m going to be telling everyone how to
get to heaven.” “Heaven,” smirked the
boy, “How you gonna tell ‘em how to get to heaven when you don’t even know the
way to the post office!”
Life does have a way of
keeping us humble.
In today’s reading from
the Gospel of Luke we encounter one of Jesus’ better known teachings: “When
invited to a banquet, don’t sit at the place of honor lest you be asked to move
down. Rather, sit at the lowest place
and receive honor from the host when you are asked to move up.” I suspect even people who don’t know much of
the bible know something about this teaching.
It is very clear and concrete. It
is easy to identify with the humiliation of a person asked to move aside. It is thrilling to contemplate how it might
feel to be asked to move forward. It is
possible to reduce this parable to little more than proper etiquette; simply a
strategic maneuver to avoid humiliation and disgrace.
Jesus’ second teaching
is not nearly as well known… or followed.
“When you give a meal, don’t invite friends or relatives or rich
neighbors – the people who can reciprocate.
Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. You will be blessed because they cannot repay
you.”
Paired together, these
teachings challenge us to cultivate a certain disposition in life. They call for selflessness and a focus on
others. They invite us not to consider a
person based on what he or she can do for us, but rather to engage each person
you meet wondering what you can do for them.
The single word the bible uses to name this disposition is humility.
The best definition of
humility I know comes from C.S. Lewis’ classic work Mere Christianity. He held, “Humility is not thinking less of
yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.”
I like that. It helps frame
today’s teachings in a way that makes sense.
It means you are not to be focused solely on promoting yourself and thus
naturally do not sit at the position of honor unless so invited. It means you use what you have to serve those
who have not. Being humble means you
invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame to your banquet. Being humble does not mean when they say it
is the best food they have ever eaten, you respond by saying, “Oh, please, I am
a terrible cook.”
I suspect most people
consider humility to be the opposite of arrogance, pride, boastfulness, insolence,
and being self-absorbed. We don’t care
much for braggarts or for those who exaggerate their own importance. In today’s “Notice Me” culture, we dinosaurs of
a time long ago wish people had just a tad more modesty, which is a derivative
of humility.
I also suspect some of
us who are trying to cultivate humility equate it with being self-effacing. We act as if Jesus’ wants us to minimize our
contribution and to demean our gifts and good qualities. We take it to mean we should shrug off every
compliment and renounce every recognition that comes our way.
Humility is not thinking less of
yourself. It is thinking of yourself
less in order to focus on something else.
But focus on what? The bible
answers this in two obvious ways. First,
focus on God. Phillip Brooks once
preached, “The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than
yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will
show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.” Brooks suggests we are to be all we can be
and do all we can do. God created you to
be you and it is up to you to be you to the best of your ability. The servant with the one talent who buried
it, then gave it back to his master was not humble. He was rebuked for wasting his life. Our faith calls us to stand at our real
height and to measure ourselves against the greatness of God.
Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “As long as you are
proud you cannot know God. A proud man
is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are
looking down you cannot see something that is above you.” Hopefully the mere act of coming to this
place week in and week out, the observance of the ritual, being attentive to
the reading of God’s word, saying the creeds and offering our prayers changes
our perspective. If you look up long
enough never again will you be able to look down, only around.
Which leads to the second thing the bible
teaches about humility: focus on others.
Gordon Hinkley said, “Being humble means recognizing that we are not on
earth to see how important we can become, but to see how much difference we can
make in the lives of others.” Isn’t this
what we admire most about the people in our lives… not so much what they have
accomplished, but how they have served. Sometimes
the person possessing the most impressive résumé is the last person you want to
hire, because he or she cares little for others.
The last thing I want
to say is humility is a lifelong work in progress. It is not a threshold we achieve but a
destination toward which we walk. There
is no better reminder of this than something I came across recently called The Prayer of an Anonymous Abbess:
Lord, thou knowest better than myself that I am growing older
and will soon be old. Keep me from
becoming too talkative, and especially from the unfortunate habit of thinking
that I must say something on every subject and at every opportunity.
Release me from the idea that I must straighten out other
peoples’ affairs. With my immense
treasure of experience and wisdom, it seems a pity not to let everybody partake
of it. But thou knowest, Lord, that in
the end I will need a few friends.
Keep me from the recital of endless details; give me wings to
get to the point.
Grant me the patience to listen to the complaints of others;
help me to endure them with charity. But
seal my lips on my own aches and pains -- they increase with the increasing
years and my inclination to recount them is also increasing.
I will not ask thee for improved memory, only for a little more
humility and less self-assurance when my own memory doesn’t agree with that of
others. Teach me the glorious lesson
that occasionally I may be wrong.
Keep me reasonably gentle. I do not have the ambition to become a saint
-- it is so hard to live with some of them -- but a harsh old person is one of
the devil’s masterpieces.
Make me sympathetic without being sentimental, helpful but not
bossy. Let me discover merits where I
had not expected them, and talents in people whom I had not thought to possess
any. And, Lord, give me the grace to
tell them so.
Amen.
