What is humility? How many of us find humility a difficult virtue not only to practice but to define? We might think of humility in terms of what it is not, or in opposition to attitudes and habits of people and of cultures that we judge as lacking in humility.
Does our own culture not tend to value the individual: Self-confidence; competition? Anybody here who has ever played a sport; applied for a job or competed for a more advanced position within our line of work; earned a large salary; owned or run a business; sought higher education; spoken, performed or shown some other talent publicly, and so forth, has conformed in some way to our cultural norm, centered on the individual. In themselves, these actions are not evidence of a lack of humility, in an individual or in a culture. Many people who have been successful, talented, and even well-paid, some who are among us here now, are among the humblest people we know.
So what is humility? I do not believe that it is necessary to act too differently from the norm of our culture, focused on the individual, in order to be humble. Humility, though, within a culture that values the individual, is the virtue that seeks to use whatever individual advantage or advancement we gain to benefit one another. In other words, the good of each individual person is praiseworthy, as long as those who have advantages; who are successful, well-paid, or talented in a variety of ways use these advantages toward what we call the communal or “common good”; the good of all people as one human race; the good and dignity of all creation.
The more we are successful or talented, the more we have the responsibility to use our success and our talents toward the good of all; the “common good.” And so who might be our model, in our own experiences, of humility? Many if not all of us know somebody we would consider humble, but what if I were to suggest that our model of humility is God himself?
To place God as our first model of humility is quite a lofty goal. We know this, I am sure. Would be not better off trying to match the humility of somebody we have known and experienced as humble than to try to live up to the humility of God? Yet our readings today present God as humble. Who here thinks often of God as humble? But there God is, pictured by the prophet Zechariah in our first reading as “humble and riding on a donkey” into a rebuilt, glorious city of Jerusalem. Zechariah’s image of the humble king (human kings were understood as ruling in the place of God) takes nothing away from the greatness of God (also the king), described by Zechariah as “triumphant and victorious” as well as “humble.”
God’s triumph and victory is not a triumph or victory of military might. In Zechariah’s time, the people of Israel were just returning to their homeland from a long period of exile in Babylon. Who could fault them, in a way, after their experience of the superior military power of the Babylonians to that of Israel, for developing an image or expectation of a God who would bring them back from exile with even greater might than the Babylonians had. But this is not the God of Israel, Zechariah says to his people. This is not our God. Our God is a God of humility, and it is precisely by God’s humility that God will be forever triumphant and victorious.
Might this reminder that God, and so we, are most triumphant in humility and not by military strength or any form of violence, in word or action, be just as timely for us today as it was for the people of Israel in Zechariah’s time? In fact, our national motto of Canada, “from sea to sea” (or, in Latin, “a mari usque ad mare”) is drawn from the prophecy we hear from Zechariah today and from several other places in our Scriptures. God’s “dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
God’s “dominion” is a dominion; a triumph of humility. Imagine, then, all of us called to co-operate in establishing this divine dominion of humility. This is what God’s Kingdom, “on earth as in heaven,” looks like. And what other virtues; what effects are associated with humility? Zechariah associates humility, God’s and ours, with peace. The Psalmist speaks of graciousness and mercy, slowness “to anger” and abundance “in steadfast love”; faith, compassion and, yes, power and glory in humility.
Of course, humility means recognizing our sinfulness; our need for God to save us. St. Paul reminds us of this in his Letter to the Romans from which we hear today. “We are debtors,” St. Paul says, meaning that a price; a debt has had to be paid for us, because of our sin. That price is the Cross, the supreme act of humility, indeed humiliation paid for us by our Lord Jesus Christ that is necessary for our salvation. When we pray in our Creed that Jesus “was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried,” we acknowledge that God, in Jesus Christ, has taken our place in death; in burial in the earth (in Latin, humus, meaning earth or soil, the root of our English words like “humble” and “humility”), only to rise again and so to carry us with him into his resurrection. By his suffering, death, burial and resurrection, Jesus invites us into a share in God’s own humility in humbling himself for our sake.
And so humility is linked to our salvation. Humility is also linked to freedom and to joy. How freeing Jesus’ words are in our Gospel reading today from Matthew: “Come to me, all you [who] are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”!
Those of us who have ever cared for children: Is it not so freeing and joyous to watch little children take in the world around them, while remaining totally dependent on a parent or other caregiver? This, I suppose, is behind Jesus’ prayer of joy in today’s Gospel: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” What do “infants” see that “the wise and the intelligent,” at least in their own estimation independent even sometimes of God, do not? Infants, and anybody willing to make themselves totally dependent on God, our ultimate fatherly caregiver, see heaven. And in observing children; infants, do we not catch a glimpse of heaven in their smiles, their coos, their first words, their curiosity at the world around them?
This is joy; a glimpse of heaven that is only accessible to the humble. In humility we find joy, we find freedom, we find peace, and ultimately we find our salvation. Why is this? In humility we find all these— joy, freedom, peace, salvation— because it is as we become humble that we become more and more like God, who is humble. And as we, in a way like little children taking in the world around them, take in this mystery of our salvation, we share in God’s own triumphant dominion of humility; a dominion that, from God through us, extends from this place, indeed “from sea to sea, and… to the ends of the earth.”
