Humility is not saying, “I’m wretched, I’m no good, I can’t do it, I’m pretty useless.” Look at the epistle reading for today. The author writes: “you have not drawn near to an untouchable mountain and gloomy darkness.” If we truly were no good that would be how God would deal with us — we’d be out of touch, we wouldn’t dare draw near to God. But the epistle goes on: “No, you have drawn near to the city of the living God, to myriads of angels in festal gathering, to the assembly of the first-born enrolled in heaven, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.” In other words, humility is knowing that because of our connection with Jesus, because we share humanity with him, because we have become his disciples, we discover our true dignity and worth. Humility is drawing near to God not because of all the great things we have accomplished but because we belong with Jesus. Humility is discovering that our true place is at the side of God.
As the Old Testament lesson put it: “Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.” That is to say, the more you accept yourself as the beloved creature of God, not needing other peoples’ recognition to feel good about yourself, the more you are truly alive. Whether others honor them or ignore them, humble people are not upset because they know the dignity, the worth, the value they have in the eyes of God. If others can’t recognize it, that’s there problem and their loss.
Jesus provides us with a guideline to help us measure how humble we have become. The humble person is open to sharing the suffering and the burdens of other people in life. When we are going through a hard time there is a great temptation to close in on ourselves, to lick our wounds, to want somebody to care for us. But when we are humble we realize that we are loved and care for by God in all things. A humble attitude makes us want to share the consolation we have received from God with those who might not have the grace we have. That is why Jesus tells us to invite the beggars, the crippled, the lame and the blind to our dinner parties. In humility we discover that we’re all in the same boat, we all need God the same way, all of us only make it because of God’s presence. We have humility once we stop dividing the world up into the haves and the have nots, the winners and the losers, the good and the bad. We have humility when we can reach out to others to celebrate the unity, the oneness we possess before God.
Jesus becomes our Lord when in all humility we make living for God in unity with all God’s people our one desire and choice.
