Be Humble – Not Humbled

Eternal God in the words of my mouth, may your Word be heard; in the mediations of our hearts, may your Word be known; and in the faithfulness of our lives, may your Word be shown. Amen

“You picked this scripture because of the election, right?” That was the question put to me at the beginning of Bible study this week. Matthew does focus on those who “do not practice what they teach,” “love to have the place of honor,” the best seats in the house and “to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces [and board rooms]. This does sound more than a little like some of our politicians. The text, however, was chosen by the lectionary committee that group that picks Sunday scripture passages for mainline Protestant churches -- long before the 2008 Presidential election was on the horizon. Matthew wrote it to highlight the failings -- not of the politicians of his time -- but of the religious leaders -- those scribes (the lawyers of his day) and the Pharisees (the keepers of Jewish religious orthodoxy). It was these religiously leaders with whom Matthew’s fledgling group of Jewish Christian followers of Jesus were at odds. On first blush it does seem to capture the less than positive characteristics of many of our political leaders. Yet, I think we get better than we sometimes admit in our leaders. And, we should never forget that we get in our leaders a reflection of the body politic, albeit sometimes a caricature. So when we criticize our leaders we should not forget our collective and individual role in the political process.

Indulge me in a comment on the election. No, I am not going to endorse a candidate – not only does the IRS frown on such actions but more importantly, it is not my role or place to tell you who to vote for. As Jim Wallis -- the liberal evangelical -- has said “God is neither Republican nor Democrat.” Instead our faith can help us to understand what is important in life and that just may guide us in making our highly personal electoral decisions. Though I suspect I need not say it to a group such as this – please vote. What a privilege we have to pick our leaders -- and from candidates -- though they have major and important differences on critical questions -- who share a passionate love of this nation. No matter the size of one’s ego, no one would go through the crucible of a Presidential campaign without a commitment to serve and to see this nation reach its best ideals. My hope is that as a nation we will go into the polls Tuesday and vote based on the real choices before us -- not the ones often misleadingly portrayed by the campaigns. And that we will make our individual choices not simply for tomorrow but for the tomorrows of our children and grandchildren.

Now back to today’s text. I confess I like some of it and some of it gives me pause. Who doesn’t like the criticism of those who are self-important -- all those people who only talk a good game – those TV evangelists who turn out to have feet of clay. And what about those folks in the society photos always sitting at the head table? Or the lions of the boardrooms, photographed relaxing beside house number four in the Islands? Who doesn’t like it when the high and the mighty are brought down a peg or two? But then we get to the part of the text where Jesus’ describes how we are to be. “The greatest among you will be servants. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” That seems to be going overboard. Do I really have to humble myself? Be the servant of others?

What does it mean to be humble? I suspect often when we hear that term our mind pictures a “nebbishy” person, head down, eyes averted -- the one who gets pushed around and suffers in silence -- the person who is not only self deprecating but often lacks confidence and self esteem. But that is not what true humility involves. Frederick Buechner remarked that

True humility [being humble] doesn’t consist of thinking ill of yourself but in not thinking of yourself much differently from the

Where have we heard that before? Think of last week’s passage from Matthew involving Jesus’ exchange with the Pharisee:

He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

The essence of the great commandments is love of God and neighbor. But what we sometimes forget is that our love of neighbor is to mirror our love of self. A loving relationship with another depends upon a love of self. If we do not love ourselves then our love of another is often worship not love. Love is based on mutuality, respect and equality of worth. Not that we are all the same or that we have identical gifts, we don’t. Some of us test better; some of us are more creative, more musical, more outgoing, and more athletic. No, we are different in many ways, thank God. But when measured by God’s love of us as part of creation, we are all equally worthy of love. What Buechner was reminding us is that being humble is not thinking less of ourselves but in thinking equally well of others. Thus, the first challenge to being humble in Jesus’ eyes is to never depreciate one’s own worth. We are priceless in God’s eyes and should be in our own.

But equally important is the other aspect to humility -- how we see our neighbors. Do we really see them as ourselves? Do we really love them as ourselves? Sometimes we don’t because we fail to see their worth. We judge them by the trappings of our world – the indicia of success. Do they have a good college education? Do they have an important job? And as we answer these questions, we find them wanting and unworthy of our love and kindness. Hey simply don’t measure.

On the other hand at times isn’t there a touch of envy that separates us from our neighbor? Think of the fine art of the “put down” – a form of humor that we all laugh at -- though sometimes we realize that it is cruel. My favorite example of this form of humor is a story told of George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill both masters of the put-down. Apparently, Shaw sent this note to Churchill, “’[Enclosed] are two tickets for the opening night of my new play, one for you and one for a friend, if you have one.’ Churchill sent the tickets back with this note: ‘I cannot attend the opening night. Send two tickets for the next night, if there is one.’”[2]

There is part of us that likes to get the upper hand -- nothing satisfies our envy as well. Isn’t that the reason we like this story -- not only is it clever but each man sought to trump the other and one did. It’s often why we play games. Not because of the beauty of the sport, the elegance of the shot -- no, it’s because there are winners and losers. And we like being the winner – “exalting”, if you will, over another.

Today is the Sunday nearest All Saints Day -- the day when we recognize the Saints known and unknown, important and not, who have embodied their faith and made this world and the church better places. When I think about the Saints, people like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind. They were not self-effacing or self-deprecating. Indeed, they had confidence in their worth that sprang from their sense that they were God’s beloved. But equally they were humble in the true sense – they believed we are all children of God—no matter the color of our skin or our financial circumstances

Like you I have met a number of saints in my lifetime --names unknown to the public but people who humbly made a difference. One was Roy. I first met him nearly thirty years ago. He was the little man with the bow tie who said hello to you every time you visited his church. He always had a smile on his face and a warm word, even if he had not seen you in months. He was for years a middle level personnel supervisor in a government agency in Washington. To the public at large he was nothing special – never in the society section of the newspaper, never at the head table -- just one of those hard working folk who every day do their job.

When he retired he joined the board of a small organization of the Congregational Church that had run for generations a retirement home for ministers. Unbeknownst to many of us he was a genius at investment and took a few thousand dollars of the home’s endowment and turned them into millions that went to endow a new retirement home. Also unbeknownst to most of us, for years he visited people in the retirement home, mostly widows, to help them with their finances or to take them to the doctor. At one point he learned of a place in Massachusetts that collected stamps and resold them to support a charity there. He contacted the major banks in DC got them to collect their used envelopes. He picked them up and took them to the home where the residents steamed the stamps off, dried them and sent them to the people in Massachusetts. Roy was particularly pleased that over time he returned thousands of dollars to the banks in checks they had been missed in those opened (supposedly empty) envelopes. In his spare time he trained people at church to be greeters and liturgists. He never talked about his service. All this was done without fanfare and the blowing of a single trumpet. Indeed, most knew him simply as the friendly, elfin man -- there every Sunday to greet friends and newcomers alike.

In his final few months I had a chance to chat with Roy. After assuring him that someone on Deacons was covering all of his tasks, I asked him why he had done so much. He down played what he had done but went on to say that he always looked at it as if he was doing for others what he knew they would do for him. He saw every day as an opportunity to meet and help another of God’s beloved creatures. He embodied the best of humility. He thought well of himself and rightly so, but he also thought equally well of his neighbors.

[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking A Seeker’s ABC (New York: HarperSanFransisco, 1993) p. 48

[2] James Cox, Best Sermons (Vol. 1) (New York: Harper & Row, 1988) p.217 (from a sermon by Mark Trotter)