Humility

I sometimes think that this little story in Luke - about not sitting at the head of the table - should
be subtitled the “Epistle to the English”. In a strangely upside down sort of way most of us
probably feel quite good about our chances of getting this bit of Jesus teaching right. After all we
generally do not like to assume or cause fusses, we tend to know our place and often estimate
that we are less important than we really are - at least on an individual level.
But then there is the next part of the reading - the bit about hospitality to those with whom we
might not naturally associate - I wonder how we fare with this. The thought of letting people off
the streets into our houses is, perhaps, less easy to grasp.
Yet these two ideas, those of humility and hospitality do go together. There is a typical
misunderstanding of humility - that it is all about being self-effacing and quiet which is
misleading. The humble person, apparently, does not acknowledge that they could possibly be
good at anything or ever raise their voice above a whisper.
I have known few humble people who have been like this. Humility is not about avoiding
everything, about staying quiet it is about something else - it is about letting go of our
assumptions about how important we might be and allowing ourselves to be on the same level
as the people we meet every day.
So let me give you the three Es of humility.
Encountering
Engaging
Embracing
Jesus never asked his Disciples to be people who would sit in a corner and hope that the
world would not notice them - in fact, in the Parable of the Talents, where a man buries his
master’s money, instead of investing it, Jesus says quite roundly that we are not called either
to hide away, or even to maintain the status quo - we are called to something much bigger, to
encounter the world around us.
Humility is not about being shrinking violets - it is about encountering the world in such a way
that we are open to it, that we listen as much as we speak, that we try to understand those
around us.
We cannot really encounter a world which we are disengaged from. Whilst there are a few
people who God calls to live in a place away from the rough and tumble of every day life - for
most of us this is not the case. Whilst we can begin to believe that because we have insulated
ourselves from the noise of other people, from their arguments and factions that we have
somehow cultivated a little bit of piece and humility for ourselves - this is not how it works.
Hiding away from the challenges of the world is not an open posture, and we cannot be humble
without being open.
Once we have allowed ourselves out of our shells enough to encounter the world we are
called to engage with it. This can be a hard task - after all the world does not seem particularly
interested in Christianity - but I wonder whether that is precisely because for so long Christians
have been cultivating a strange, if frighteningly transparent, sort of humility.
Whilst we do believe that we have been called into relationship with Jesus Christ and that this is
the best of the best we do not have all the answers to all the questions - either as individuals or
as an institution. As I mentioned last week there are times when the words simply run out and
we have to listen for the voice of God, there are times when we cannot explain or make sense
of things but still, still in those dark moments of silence, we find that we believe.
This honesty - this willingness to lose face, to say that we do not have all the answers and yet
we still believe, that we still find God is listening - somehow, this is part of humble engagement
with those around us. When we don’t know there is no shame in saying we don’t know - we
cannot pretend to engage as those who have all the answers nailed down when we don’t -
instead we offer something more trustworthy that our own words - Jesus Christ.
So this engagement is two way - both humble engagement with the world and offering all of
ourselves to God. Without that communication between ourselves and our savior - without
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and a vital and lively relationship with that same Spirit we are
condemning ourselves to listening rather a lot to our own answers which soon become hollow.
Humility allows us to remain silent - to ask people to listen, to see for themselves what this place
is, it allows us to trust that God is bigger than all our doubts and will give us everything that we
need.
Humility is sometimes painted as rather dour and miserable. This is where we come to
embracing - we have to embrace the world but we also have to embrace what God has given
us and who God has made us. There is nothing wrong with being good at something - there is
everything wrong with pretending not to be.
When God gives us a gift it is to be used - holding onto it - standing away and hiding it - seems
fairly antithetical to humility which asks for honesty and openness.
Now I am not saying that we should go around with bright orange t-shirts on, advertising the fact
that we make a fantastic chocolate cake or that we can design a pretty good poster. But when
it comes to it, especially in the life of the Church, we should offer back to God the best that we
have and the best that we are. As a community we should be sharing gifts - one of the biggest
lessons we have to learn in life is that no matter how good we are at something we will not be
the best at it all of the time.
Humility about gifts spreads not only to sharing what we can do but also to embracing what
others offer - embracing it and learning to overcome our own hurt feelings and competitiveness.
This is a hard thing to do - I know that when I feel I am quite good at something and
someone comes along who might have new, different or better ideas I can feel a bit territorial.
But the Church of Christ is bigger than each individual member - we cannot all act
independantly and then hope that, somehow, things will come together in the end. We have to
trust that God has given us gifts, in this community, for a reason and that God will use us as
God’s hands and feet - but we also need to know that without the humility both to offer service
and to let go of things which we believe define us, but necessarily do not, then we are simply
treading water instead of swimming ahead.
This sort of humility, this encountering, engaging and embracing of the world and our fellow
Christians is certainly all to do with hospitality. Without real humility, the ability to set ourselves
down before Christ, we are unable to truly welcome others but we we shed our fears and open
ourselves up. humbly, to the richness of life in Christ and in Christian community we cannot help
but reach out to others - not as mousy grey sort of people - but as Christian’s - full of life yet
humble in gratitude before that life’s source.