Humble Before God

I entitled yesterday’s sermon “Stop Trying to Be so Humble.” (I hope that title made sense at the end of the day.) The text was Luke 14.1, 7-14. We talked a little about a form of competitiveness that makes community life difficult. This competitiveness rears its ugly head in countless ways. Bottom line: we often have a desire to be honored, noticed, and respected at the expense of others. Jesus challenges this approach to life and instead calls us to assume a posture of humility. All of that is important to grasp, but it’s not very easy to implement.

The question I posed yesterday is critical--how do we get there? How do we actually become humble without feeling proud over what we’ve accomplished? Some might take the words of Jesus and actually strive to be humble to prove to others the greatness of their spirituality. Our egos are very creative. Humility can easily become another way to set ourselves apart. How do we avoid that?

The answer I gave is that humility is not a virtue (I'm indebted to John Wesley for this thought). Humility is not something we can own, possess, or achieve. Instead humility is an awareness of our need. Humility is a form of emptiness before God and his greatness. I believe it’s important that we grasp that truth.

Too often, we’re stunted spiritually because we’re full—full of our dreams, desires, and plans. In short, we’re full of ourselves. There’s no room for anything, especially not God. Though we might pay lip service to God or to some form of obedience, it’s still all about us and what we’re accomplishing. In fact we might end up being more narcissistic than when we started our journey. Remember C.S. Lewis’ thoughts on this topic. He argues that the humble person is not thinking about pride or humility. The humble person is thinking about God and the person that happens to be in front of her. That type of humility is nothing more than emptiness.

How do we get there? We grow in our understanding of God through worship, prayer, frequent communion, and study. And as we grow in our understanding of God through these means of grace, we will see our own poverty. When we experience his love, we recognize how incapable we are of love; his light will reveal our darkness; his holiness, our impurity; his humility, our pride. When that happens, we probably end up praying, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This is central. We need to remember that the holy men and women of God who have preceded us never believed they were holy. Why? Because the more they encountered God, the more they were reminded of their own need. Humility then is a response to God. It’s an awareness, a poverty before the Almighty. And that’s a great place to be because then and only then can we be filled with his goodness. Peace!