Humility Goeth Before the Rise

Sirach 10:12-18; Psalm 112

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14

Robert Coles was astounded. There was no irony in her voice, just a simple question. Such humility had Dorothy Day that she identified so completely with the so-called “nobody” as to remove all distinction between them. That encounter changed Coles’ life.

There’s a story trending that might prove illustrative for our gospel today,

“There was a university professor who went searching for the meaning of life. After several years and many miles, he came to the hut of a particularly holy hermit and asked to be enlightened. The holy man invited his visitor into his humble dwelling and began to serve him tea. He filled the pilgrim’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring so that the tea was soon dripping onto the floor. The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. “Stop!” he said. “It is full. No more will go in.” The holy hermit replied, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions, preconceptions and ideas. How can I teach you unless you first empty your cup?”

At its core this is story of humility, of recognizing our limitations and understanding how our pride can hold us back from learning and growing. Many of our world’s religious and spiritual traditions give humility a place of honor among the virtues. With all the irony seen, humility is held in high esteem. In the Divine Comedy, Dante holds up humility as the most important of the capital virtues, standing opposite pride which is considered the worst of the deadly sins. Pride, according to Dante, is “love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for neighbor.” For Dante, pride, indeed, goeth before the fall. Humility, on the other hand, is radical dependence on God, total trust in God and surrender to His will. In Jacob Bidermann’s medieval miracle play, Cenodoxus, superbia (pride) is the deadliest of all the sins and leads directly to the damnation of the famed Doctor of Paris, Cenodoxus. Pride was what sparked the fall of Lucifer from Heaven. Vanity and narcissism are good examples of these sins and they often lead to the destruction of the sinner, for instance by the wanton squandering of money and time on themselves without caring about others. Pride is seen as the misplacement of moral judgement.

Despite the religious importance given to humility, it doesn’t seem all that highly prized as one of our contemporary society’s favorite virtues. Indeed, humility can be...well, humiliating. When you walk into a bookstore today, you are likely to find a whole section devoted to the secrets or habits or ways of successful people. Rarely is humility mentioned. And I doubt that there would be much interest outside of the monastery for the “Seven Secrets of the Lowly and Humble.”

As football season gets under way, we will notice again those big foam fingers that tout our team is #1. I’ve never seen a foam finger proclaiming that our team displays the virtues of temperance or honesty or humility. The European soccer leagues give out what is called the “Fair Paly Award” each year but, as one commentator suggested, it is really “an award for the team that cheats the least not the one that plays the fairest.”

And notice our obsession with reality shows – the forerunner of the craze was “American Idol.” Notice the title itself touts the choosing of an idol – “an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship.” Thousands of people desiring fame, if only for 15 minutes. Could you imagine a program about people seeking to cultivate virtue: “So You Think You Can Be Temperant?”; “Dancing with the Hermits”; “American Humility”? It would seem an absurdity to have a televised competition rewarding someone for displaying the greatest humility.

Counting Crows had a song a few years back called “Mr. Jones.” A line of the song goes,

"We all want to be big big stars, but we got different reasons for that Believe in me because I don't believe in anything and I want to be someone to believe."

But it’s not just about becoming rich and famous. Go back to that bookstore and there is a whole self-help section with books like “Awaken the Giant Within” (Anthony Robbins), “The Hero Within” (Carol Pearson), and “Achieve Anything in Just One Year” (Jason Harvey). For thirty dollars or less if you are a club member, you can buy a books that will apparently be your roadmap to awakening your inner giant and your inner hero. And you can achieve anything you want. I do wonder what Dante would think! More importantly, I wonder what Jesus would think.

In our narrative from Luke this morning, we find a story about pride and humility. Jesus had been invited to yet another dinner party at the home of leading Pharisee, likely an important figure in the local community and broader religious circles. Why these figures keep insisting on inviting Jesus to their dinner parties is a bit confusing – except that they think it will make them look better in the eyes of their colleagues. But every time that one of these upright religious men invites Jesus to dinner, Jesus rocks the boat. At another Pharisee’s house, Jesus was the invited guest at a dinner party where a disreputable woman showed up, throwing herself at Jesus feet and weeping.

In today’s story, Jesus arrives at the home of a Pharisee for a meal, maybe he makes a little small talk and then the dinner proceeds. Jesus watches all of the other invited guests play a game, seeing who might get the place of honor, sitting next to the really important figures. Jesus watches. Then Jesus tells them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.

And then Jesus utters the great saying, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Before Jesus leaves the party, he tells his host, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’

Eminent Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles tells a story of an encounter with Dorothy Day. Day had been living and working for years with the poor in the slums of New York City. At the time of the encounter Coles was in Harvard Medical School, studying to be a psychiatrist. Coles admits that he was quite “proud of his status” and “proud that [he] had volunteered to work with Dorothy Day.” When he arrived to meet with Dorothy Day, she was deep in conversation with a very disheveled man, presumable one of the street people that he had come t help. Day didn’t notice Coles when he had come in, so in tune with the man with whom she was conversing. We they had finished their conversation, Day turned to Coles, asking, “Do you want to speak to one of us?”

Coles was astounded. There was no irony in her voice, just a simple question. Such humility had Dorothy Day that she identified so completely with the so-called “nobody” as to remove all distinction between them. That encounter changed Coles’ life.

In a culture that prizes “the secrets of highly successful people” and urges us to “awaken our inner giant,” it might sound rather counterintuitive but all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

The beautiful part of this scripture and of the Christian experience is that we are called by Almighty God to live lives of humility and sacrificial service. But the difficult part is that we are called to live those lives right now, today, among the broken and damaged people whom we meet every day. That is the difficult part. Amen.