What is humility? Is it
possible to be confident yet still humble? In 1980, Mac Davis began his song
with the sassy lyrics, “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble.” But none of us
(including, I dare say, Mac Davis, despite the second tongue-in-cheek line of
his song) have the luxury of being “perfect in every way.” So what exactly is
humility?
Our readings today from the
Book of Sirach and Luke’s Gospel prize the virtue of humility. What other
virtues go together with humility, or could help us to understand what humility
is and to practice it? Sirach plays on the apparent paradox between humility
and greatness; being “lofty and renowned” yet humble. Even the Lord himself,
Sirach says, is mighty, “but by the humble he is glorified.”
Do we often think of God as
humble, or glorified especially when we are humble? Sirach goes on to connect
humility with intelligence, attentiveness, and wisdom. How are humility,
intelligence, attentiveness, and wisdom interconnected? Imagine this: Have we
ever consulted an expert on something we knew little about? Have we ever taken
time to ask an expert or a teacher questions, and then listen and dialogue for
the sheer joy of broadening or deepening our knowledge? How many of us have
listened to somebody in a difficult situation in life, or cared for somebody
vulnerable or in need in any one of a variety of ways?
I have limited experience with
monastic religious orders, but the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict, on which
the Rules of many religious orders, in and outside of monasteries, have been
based, begins with a very important verb: “Listen.” St. Benedict considered
attentive listening, inclination “of the heart,” to be critical to the
community life among the monks under his guidance; their rhythm of work and
prayer for which Benedictines are known. The abbot of the Benedictine Monastery
of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico reflects on the reading we hear from
Sirach today about how wisdom is connected to attentive listening. “Wisdom is
not an intellectual activity,” the abbot says. “No, it is the gift of knowing
how to live well in every situation while maintaining our deepest values.” And
to discern what is most true, what is right, what “our deepest values” should
be “in every situation”; to encounter God “in every situation” means to know
“how to keep still and keep silence.” The abbot of the Monastery of Christ in
the Desert suggests that, “as a practical spiritual exercise, today we might
try to be still and silent and just listen to others and see what that
listening does to us interiorly.”
How many of us have
experienced that, the more attentively we listen or care for another person,
interiorly we absorb the needs or concerns of the other person. Our needs, in
the moment, often become secondary to those of the other person. It is in these
situations when I have been the most at peace in ministry as a priest, when
ministry is least about me and most about the other and about encountering God
in the other person. These experiences of encounter with God in and through
another person are made possible by attentive listening. These experiences also
require humility: Ministry; listening attentively is not about me first but
about another person, and ultimately about God first.
Humility, then, is the key to
“our deepest values”; the key to relationship with our God who is mighty, “but
by the humble he is glorified.” So humility has nothing to do with a lack of
self-confidence or downplaying our natural talents. Our talents, after all, are
from God. But, paradoxically, the more naturally talented or intelligent we
are, the wiser we will be the more we can be still and listen, when caring for
another person; when we are at prayer, especially for the needs of others. So
wisdom, far from “an intellectual activity,” is a virtue, the twin virtue of
humility, which is at its greatest when we listen for and attentively seek the
Lord’s presence in others, because, again paradoxically, the mightier God is,
the humbler God is. And the same is true of God as of us. For God, not God’s
greatest might for might’s sake but our best interest, our salvation, is God’s
greatest glory.
Jesus’ parable we hear today
gives us another image of what humility is about. For Sirach, wisdom and
humility are about the encounter with God through attentive listening and care
for others. For Jesus, humility is to leave the position of greatest social status
to another. The images of humility that Sirach and Jesus, through Luke’s
Gospel, offer us today are complementary. Who among us has heard it said that human
beings are both sacred and social? Sirach focuses more on the sacred dimension
of human nature; Jesus in Luke’s Gospel today focuses more on our social
dimension, but these two dimensions of our human nature go together.
Jesus was probably no stranger
to being invited to dine with the social elites of his time. Today’s Gospel
reading finds Jesus invited “to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a
meal on the Sabbath.” Presuming that, at this meal with the leading Pharisee,
Jesus was a respected guest (since our Gospel reading does not say otherwise),
can we not easily imagine Jesus’ host offering Jesus himself the place of
honour at table? How would Jesus act in this situation? Would he not have acted
as he teaches in his parable, taking “the lowest place” and waiting for his
host to invite him up to a place of higher status?
In any case. Jesus turns
social convention on its head with his parable we hear today through Luke. Take
“the lowest place” at table and wait to be invited “up higher,” Jesus says.
“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your
brothers or sisters or your relatives or rich neighbours,” but first “invite
the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” those who cannot repay your
act of kindness and humility.
In truth, this would neither
be the first nor the last time Jesus would take the place of least status. The
meal we hear about today would be the last time in Luke’s Gospel when Jesus
would dine in a Pharisee’s home; the last time he would maybe have been offered
the place of highest status at table. But Jesus was born into this world in the
humblest place, a manger in Bethlehem. And he would again take the humblest,
indeed the most humiliating place, on a cross, where he would die for us. This
act of utmost humility is our only way to salvation. And, as a sign of this
promise to us of salvation, the exalted place with God that awaits us to the
extent we humble ourselves, Jesus would be raised from the dead, but he had to
die on a cross first.
He had to, many times during
his life, turn our social conventions of status and prestige on their head.
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be
exalted.” It will forever be hard for us “to be humble”; humility is a
difficult virtue to define, much less to practice. Yet Jesus proposes what the
wisdom of people like Sirach did for centuries before him, and what holy people
inspired by Jesus have proposed since: Humility, intentionally placing others
and ultimately God first, especially those who are the most in need, the most
vulnerable, or the least reputed socially; listening attentively to the needs
of others, is key to living up to our God-given human nature, both sacred and
social.
We have already been created
in God’s image and likeness. There can be no place of greater status than this;
no greater prestige our world can offer. The measure to which we are humble, inspiring
others by our words and actions to know how much dignity they have before God
as creatures in God’s image and likeness, is the measure to which we will be
exalted. We will know everlasting communion with our God, who is mighty and
glorious beyond our comprehension precisely because he is humble. Indeed, our
God is the source of the humility by which we will be saved.
