“Great Humility”

First Presbyterian Church
September 2, 2007
Peter S. Buehler
Luke 14:1, 7-14

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Listen to the parable again, Eugene Peterson's version: When someone invites you to dinner, don’t take the place of honor. Somebody more important than you might have been invited by the host. Then he’ll come and call out in front of everybody, ‘you’re in the wrong place. The place of honor belongs to this man.’ Red-faced, you’ll have to make your way to the very last table, the only place left.
When you’re invited to dinner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, ‘Friend, come up to the front.’ That will give the guests something to talk about!

It's about humility, but we can also read Jesus’ parable as a strategy on how to get noticed, how to move to the front of the room. In order to be moved up higher at a wedding banquet, the most public of events, a person intentionally takes a lower seat, hoping the host will notice and make a fuss in front of all the other guests. He puts himself down so that another will say, No, no, no! You’re wonderful, you’re great!

It shows just how tricky the subject of humility is. Can we try to be humble? Is it possible to be great at humility, or is it likely that the more we try to be humble, the more we are stuck on ourselves, which is pride.

What is humility? Why do we value it? Why does Jesus teach it? Do you consider yourself a humble person, and on what basis?

I came across a “humility test” awhile back. My pride was on the line so I took it, just to see how humble I was. The questions are these:

• Yes or no: you help another person save a child from a burning building and then leave the scene. The next day the press is calling you the “hero.” Would you set the record straight?
• Multiple choice: when you daydream about your tombstone, it reads: Rest in peace, Loved by all, or How will the world ever go on?
• Yes or no: do you think your obituary should be a full article with a picture?
• Yes or no: do you have framed pictures of yourself – alone, with no one else in the photo – displayed in your house?
• Last question, yes or no: would you hire someone smarter than you?

If you’re like me, you wanted to do well on the test. Though doesn’t it seem contradictory to want to excel at humility? Maybe not. Is humility not a virtue that we cultivate? We value it in others, we notice it in others -- should we not try to grow in humility?

I planted some new roses this spring; I'm glad to report that they're doing well.
They take some work, as you know -- proper watering, pruning, fertilizing, keeping the bugs off  -- but it is worth the effort when they bloom, when they open and reveal their beauty. Though roses don't call attention to themselves.
They don't shout, they are what they are. A rose just has to blossom, to open.

So it is that in humility we blossom. Humility has nothing to do with closing ourselves up, holding back, hiding who we are, concealing our colors, our gifts.
People get it backwards when they see humility as a denial of who they are, what they are good at. Really, that's pride -- waiting for someone else to make a fuss over us, to call us out. Humility is recognizing and not hiding the gifts we have.
We grow in humility when we use our gifts. When we don't hold back.

We also grow in this virtue when we recognize gifts in others, when we see ourselves not in comparison to other people but in community with other people.
We grow in humility when we recognize just how much we need each other.

Paul's analogy is a powerful one: together we are the body of Christ, he says.
We need each other as a body needs its hands and feet, its head and its heart, its eyes and ears. When we see ourselves as connected to each other, joined as members of a faith community, not separate from other people, then we are free to be ourselves -- and less worried about comparisons -- how others see us, or how we justify ourselves. True humility, then, is not denying ourselves but appreciating others, needing others, for together we are the body of Christ.

I wonder if we would agree with writer Carol Zaleski, who says that Genuine humility is difficult to fake. I think we would. We know genuine humility when we see it. People who just don't fuss about themselves.

Zaleski relates an experience she had while living in Paris with her husband.
She was working on her doctoral dissertation in medieval studies and at one point sent a letter to the world-class scholar and authority on the subject, the Benedictine monastic, Dom Jean Leclerq, asking his thoughts on a particular point. Apparently he was taken with her question and decided to answer her in person, unannounced. The day he arrived, however, was the same day that Zaleski's husband had asked their landlady to send a plumber to fix the faulty heating pipes in the apartment. So she was more than surprised, and very embarrassed, when, after stepping out of the apartment for awhile, she returned to find none other than the famous medievalist scholar and her husband crouching together studying the plumbing. Yet, in her words, "the embarrassment faded… as soon as it became clear that Jean Leclerq was perfectly comfortable being taken for a plumber."

Genuine humility is difficult to fake. For Christians, it is also our way of showing faith in Jesus, the one we believe in, and trust, and imitate. So as we grow in love, and in the confidence of love, so we are free to let his grace and mercy, his humility and truth show through us.

It is a paradox, but it's true: the more we are like him, the more we are ourselves.
Humility is not a denial of who we are. A humble person is not a nothing -- a person without a personality, an individual without individuality. Maybe it's that a humble person just wants to be honest, truthful. Richard Foster, in his book on Prayer, suggests that "humility means to live as close to the truth as possible: truth about ourselves, truth about others, truth about the world in which we live."

So it's another paradox: while humility is a virtue we celebrate, it is not a label we employ. We don't say, Wow, that person is really humble! Definitely the most humble person in our church! That's not it. Rather, what we recognize is that our friends are like flowers -- beautiful by being themselves. Over time we learn that growing in faith, growing in humility doesn't diminish us, it opens us. And in following Jesus, we find ourselves.

It is interesting that Jesus is no less God by being fully human -- or that he is any less humble in knowing that God is his Father. Writer Barbara Brown Taylor compares Jesus and Adam: “Both Adam and Jesus were tempted by the chance to play God,” she says. “(But) whereas Adam stepped over a line and found humanity a curse, Jesus stayed behind the line and made humanity a blessing. One tried to be God, one was content to be a human being. The irony is that the one who tried to be God did not do too well as a human being, while the one who was content to be human became known as the Son of God.”

Which takes us back to the parable. Maybe what humility is about has to do with being content. Content to be seated anywhere around the table, anywhere in the room. As long as we're invited, as long as we're there, present, in the room with our host -- that's the main thing. That's more than enough.

Jesus' parable on humility fits with the sacrament of holy communion. It wouldn't seem so, because there are no special places of honor in the church. Presbyterians seem to care a lot about where they sit, but our ushers don't generally reserve seats. Not do they usher certain people to the front of the sanctuary (frankly I wish they would, to fill up some of these seats). We don't have preferred seating in church.

But considering who our host is -- The one we worship and serve,
The one who saves us and strengthens us, The one who comforts and guides us -- is it not an honor just to be in the room, to be a guest at the banquet?

Really, coming to church is itself an act of humility. When we consider what this Savior has done for all humankind, we are grateful to be included. That as he has called men and women over the centuries to come and follow him -- that he calls our name and beckons us to follow -- that is a humbling thing.

Just being here is an act of grace. As we receive the bread and the cup, as we hear the words the body of Christ broken for you and the blood of Christ shed for you, we recognize that we are honored guests at Christ's table. We don't need to call attention to ourselves; we are his people by grace. By grace we are nourished and fed; by grace we are joined to one another as sisters and brothers, as friends; by grace we are not alone.

And it is by grace that we go out from here to be Jesus' disciples in the world.
We are no better than anyone else. We honor every person. We let Jesus' words live in us, his promise: for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

For us, for now, that is enough.