Humility

Micah 6:8 NIV
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Humility is a slippery fish. Almost no one really has it or if they do, they don’t think it’s there. A teen recently told me that if you think you are humble, the very thinking it means you aren’t. That is the clichéd thought on humility but is it true? Humility is a reverenced trait in Christian circles…not so much because everyone wants to have it but more because it has the halo feel about it, the ancient icon sense to it. Moses, the greatest of the Old Testament heroes was described as more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12:3 NIV) Jesus said of Himself that He was gentle and humble in heart. (Matthew 11:29 NIV) Whether it is the Apostle Paul (Be completely humble Ephesians 4:2 NIV), James the brother of Jesus (Humble yourselves before the Lord James 4:10 NIV), or the Apostle Peter (be compassionate and humble. 1 Peter 3:8 NIV) the New Testament declares humility a virtue of the highest order. But who of us is really like that? Who can say he or she is “humble”?

Humility is commonly expressed in several ways. In Asian culture, particularly in Korea bowing is a sign of respect, the deeper the bow, the more humble the personage. Humility is preserved within Catholic and Orthodox traditions by the kneeling bench. We do the same sort of thing in Evangelical churches when we bow our heads in prayer. In American culture we show a certain form of humility when we let pushy drivers merge in front of us. A common way to express humility is to deny a compliment its place. “Oh my drawing really isn’t that good!” “I got a lucky hit.” “I just threw some things together. It wasn’t really much effort.”

But do any of these humility forms necessarily indicate one is being humble? Can you bow before an elder and be vain, kneel in prayer and lack respect for God, let someone cut in front of you and despise the person driving, downplay what you have done but burst with pride at your work? Let’s take a quick glance at three examples of how humble behaviors can actually be nothing of the sort.

Genesis 32 illustrates the first corrupted form of humility. Jacob, who nearly thirty years before had duped his brother out of first his birthright as older brother and then his father’s blessing had lived those three decades as a prisoner of his brother’s wrath. He had narrowly escaped Esau’s deadly plot to revenge his lost honor and inheritance but now, with his own father-in-law a mortal enemy, Jacob had to make his way back into his brother’s good graces or have nowhere to live. When Esau got word that Jacob was returning, (Jacob had in fact sent emissaries in advance to test out his brother’s feelings about him) he came to meet Jacob with an army of 400 fighting men. Jacob was spent. All he could do was face the music and so as the two parties approached one another, Jacob and his wives and children and handful of servants and Esau with his band of 400 armed warriors, Jacob worked his way to the front of the line. The outmanned Jacob bowed down to the ground seven times as Esau came near. Now was this humility or fear fueling each of the bows? It could easily be deemed humility but the truth is that Jacob really did not want to have nothing to do with his brother. He rejected every one of Esau’s overtures at fellowship and as far as we can tell, never met up with him again. Is it humility if you bow before someone you don’t like?

We pick on King Saul often but perhaps for good reason. When Samuel the prophet declared him the first king of Israel Saul complained that he was from the lowliest of the twelve tribes of Israel and a member of the least respected of the clans. When it was time for Samuel to introduce him as the new king to the entire collected nation he was found hiding behind the piles of baggage. Now was this humility or just a crushed ego destroyed by social stigma? Was he responding out of his healthy understanding of how difficult it would be to serve as king or did he just despise himself because his friends and neighbors had made fun of him when he was young? Is it humility when we decide we are ugly or stupid or untalented or is it a wound refusing to heal?

Humility is often just ambition gilded. When David became established as king, he wanted to do something for his friend Jonathon’s survivors and was informed a son, Mephibosheth still lived. Mephibosheth had been crippled as a child and David called him to his palace and after interviewing him, made Mephibosheth an honorary part of his family and the land that had belonged to Saul was restored to Mephibosheth as rightful heir. What is more, the servant of Saul’s, who had been living a free man all these years, was now made, along with his entire family, a servant of Mephibosheth. Talk about a change of fortune, not only for Mephibosheth but also for Ziba, the servant. Several years later, David was running for his life because his own son Absalom had gathered a vast army and was approaching Jerusalem with the intent of wrenching the kingdom from his father. Just as David and his allies made it out of town, he was approached by Ziba with a string of donkeys loaded down with raison cakes, figs and wine. “Where”, David asked, “is your master’s grandson?” Whether he was lying or not, we don’t know but Ziba told David that Mephibosheth had stayed home because he was in hopes that Absalom was coming with his army to make Mephibosheth king. Now why Mephibosheth would possibly think that could be and why David would accept this, we cannot know but David did believe Ziba and freed Ziba of his servanthood to Mephibosheth and gave all his former master’s land to him. Ziba’s response? “I humbly bow. May I find favor in your eyes, my lord the king.” Can we call that humility? Bowing to a king to win his favor and gain his gifts?

If humility is not an attempt to gain favor, not the result of insecurities and not a response to fear, then what is it? There are three key components to humility. If one or more are missing, we do not have humility but rather some warped anomaly. Just as the Orcs in the Lord of the Rings were corrupted forms of elves, so too, lacking any one of these foundational components of humility makes it something quite different. The first part of humility is the recognition that without God we are nothing. A collection of molecules stuffed together in a solid mass is not life, certainly not human. God’s parting words to Adam following the latter’s sin describes well our true condition. “…for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19 NIV) We have ideas, and creativity and strength and will not because we earned it; we have these because God breathes life into us and makes every part of us living. We are exciting and fun and creative and full of action due to God keeping it going in us and for no other reason than that.

Humility is built on the fundamental premise that I am first and foremost, sinner. I live against the laws of the universe and have nothing to offer a soul but wrongheadedness and abuse of the gifts given me. I am a violator of the basic morals that make life good and I do the wrong thing again and again. Humility recognizes, as Paul the Apostle did, that I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Rom 7:18-19 NIV) It is not humility to despise myself because I fail at things or am ignored or rejected by others. It is humility though to know that I make judgments about things as a sinner, take stock of my life and the people around me as a sinner, do acts of charity as a sinner and make plans as a sinner. When I correct my children, it is as a sinner; when I preach a sermon, I do so as a sinner and when I am angry over the way my meal has been cooked, my anger is cooked in sin. Without that sense that I am a first-rate sinner, I cannot be humble…not even a bit.

Humility rests also on the reality that I am so loved by God, Jesus died for me. My ugly profile, my clumsy hands, my inability to remember names, my boring little stories and my bad breath cannot be my first or even my third point about me. I am the beloved work of art a God who desperately loves me made. If I hang my head because I do not yet believe Jesus loves me, that is one thing. But if I hang my head because I do not think Jane or Jeffery love me, that is altogether another thing. I can wander away from Jane and Jeffery and find love because God made me beloved and only a fool would despise me. There are millions like me beloved of God who know it and are made to love me too. There is not a shortage of people to love me. There is a shortage of me who know how loved I am. Humility is based on God’s infatuation with me; his last dying breath breathed for me. I cannot be humble if I do not know the taste of God’s love in me.

So what is humility? How do I do it? Humility starts with a desperate faith in Jesus for salvation; salvation for our post death life but also salvation for our life now. My confidence in the Cross to save each part of me…my career, my family, my finances, my thoughts, my friendships is the most crucial choice we make each and every day. Either God does not exist and we live as a complete pagan or He is and we make it our most important task the complete reliance on Jesus to manage and fill every part of us.

In the movie, The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Lucy the youngest of the children brought back to Narnia to help rescue the Narnians has a hint that she has glimpsed Aslan the great lion (who symbolically represents Jesus Christ) but isn’t so sure it was him and can’t get the others to go with her to follow where he is leading. In the end the kids don’t believe her and it turns out disastrously for them. Finally, when Lucy does come face to face with mighty Aslan, she wants reassurance that earlier it was indeed him pointing the way to a safer and more direct way of saving the Narnians. Yes, he tells her, it was him. She then asks how many lives might have been saved if they had taken his directive. Oh, my child, she is told, you cannot go back and discover that for it is already done. But then he makes the sword thrust into Lucy’s heart. You, my child, even if no one else had gone with you, could have followed and it would have made all the difference.

The better part of humility is not the bowing of one’s head or the lowering of one’s dreams or the giving in to every poor soul who thinks he should boss you around. The better part of humility is following Jesus whether anyone goes with you or not. Last night, my boys were with me and two unbelieving friends who have been taught nothing in their home of following God or giving in to his will. We had bought some burgers and fries and were sitting in my car in the back side of the parking lot. I asked (told) one of my boys to lead us in prayer. At that moment was a great quandary. Not for me but immediately for my son. Do I speak out or mumble a complaint. Do I argue that I can’t or don’t feel like it or have nothing to say? Do I pray? In humility, my son bowed his head, opened his mouth and before his friends, thanked God for our food. Humility is not a way of thinking; it is and always has been the micro submissions we make to the God who through us is changing our world.