Learning from Jesus: Choose Humility
Jesus is a great teacher. Jesus describes a fully trained student as becoming “like their teacher.” This emphasis on character development and spiritual maturity stands as an important corrective to much of what passes for education today. Perhaps the greatest invitation that Jesus ever gave to his students is this: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
The main thing that Jesus teaches us concerns being “gentle and humble in heart” in imitation of his spirituality. This passage is well known because it offers rest to weary souls, and who’s soul is not weary facing the demands of life which constantly drain energy while our pride relentlessly pretends that we have it all together! We read Jesus’ statements about “take your cross and follow me” and God’s will being done, not our own, and we cannot imagine that Jesus was serious when he said “my yoke is easy and my burden is light!” The problem is, of course, that we are doing our imagining from a heart that is not yet gentle and humble, and a mind that is not yet “the mind of Christ.” Gentleness and humility lead, Jesus says, to a rested soul, and this trilogy of virtues – gentleness, humility, and peace (rest) – are both the path to and the fruit of spiritual maturity.
Humility is not considered a virtue in present day America; honestly, it has always been suspect to those seeking to advance themselves. The burning question and source of friction among Jesus’ first students was, “Who is greatest in the kingdom of God?” Each of these students paid a high price to follow Jesus and wanted to end up on top because of their investment. Jesus continually confounded them with wisdom like this: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3-4)
“The way up is down.” Such thinking sounds like non-sense to the heart controlled by pride. Therefore, the greatest offense to our pride is the call to humility! “Why would I voluntarily humble myself?”
Because both the aversion to humility and the willingness to exalt oneself are operative in every person, Jesus raises this topic often, usually employing stories to help his students think deeply about and be impacted by his teaching to choose humility.
What choosing humility might look like in a social setting:
When [Jesus] noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:7-11)
Jesus attended a lot of dinner parties, especially early in his ministry when the religious leaders were trying to define him. Like most social occasions, these dinner parties were full of posturing and positioning for status. Watching this at one particular party, Jesus gives what sounds like great, if somewhat jaded, advice for all social climbers: “take the lowest seat so that you will be honored when your host moves you up to a better seat.” Imagine how easy it would be to follow Jesus’ advice: scan the room, discover the worst possible seat, then go and sit there. The logic of this strategy is unassailable, highly likely to promote you publicly to a more prestigious seat. And yet, as you scan the room, settle on the least desirable seat, and begin walking that way your pride starts reacting with all sorts of objections. “You can’t be serious, what if you get stuck in this humiliating seat for the entire evening?” “Why would you refuse to take a great seat, worthy of your position, just in the hope of being singled out for advancement? A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush!” Even if you decided to “fake humility” for the honor of the thing you would find it difficult to carry out, because pride despises humility, even if it is faked! That is why Jesus recommends this practice and your motivation does not really matter. Your pride will react to being humble or even just pretending to be humble.
What choosing humility might look like in a religious setting:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)
Jesus makes it clear that the corrosive influence of pride cannot stay internal, assessing ourselves only, but always spills out into the world around us through judgment of others. Upon seeing this play out, Jesus told a story of humility and pride in a religious situation. Two men praying in the temple, one so full of pride he could not say enough about why God was lucky to have him on His team, the other so sorrowful he could not even look up to heaven. People go to the temple for a lot of reasons, but presumably one of those reasons is to receive gifts from God. Jesus points out that only the tax collector went home justified. I think it is interesting to notice that both men received from God exactly what they asked for! The Pharisee could not think of anything he needed, so he asked for nothing. And nothing is what he received. The tax collector could think of nothing to offer to God, but desperately asked for mercy, which he promptly received. The moral of this story is not that God loves humble tax collectors and hates arrogant Pharisees. The moral is that we can only receive from God when we are humble enough to admit our needs and ask God for his help. That is a great blow to our pride, especially if it is played out in public. The worst sort of pride is “religious pride” where we consider both God and others as lucky to have us!
The Paradox of Humility and Exaltation:
According to Jesus we do not get to choose whether we will be exalted and humbled, both of those things will happen to us. But we do get to choose who does the exalting and the humbling, and to some extent when these things will happen. When we choose to exalt ourselves, we become targets for all those who love to humiliate others.
But if we choose humility, God responds.
Listen to these words from the Russian Saint Tikhon:
“God descends to the humble as water flows down from the hills into the valleys. God creates out of nothing; and if we sincerely recognize ourselves as being nothing, he will recreate our hearts. This new creation…produces as it were a ceaseless hunger and thirst after the grace of God; for humility does not consider what it already possesses but seeks what it has not yet…Humility is a learning compared with self-satisfied ignorance, for one who learns in this school of divine wisdom, the more he partakes of divine gifts the better he sees his spiritual misery and, out of real want, he seeks in sighing. The lonely path of humility leads men to the Highest.”
Practicing humility protects us from the refusal to see our true condition, a false knowledge that keeps us ignorant, over-inflation of self, the consequences of pride, and critical assumptions about others. That is quite a lot to gain from a spiritual practice that seems like a loss.