Humility

Pastor Judy preached last Sunday. Her "Thrive" series topic was on humility.

Humility is a strange thing, the minute you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it.

 

The problem of how one practices humility proved to be a problem for the early church.  Early dessert father’s solved the problem by going off into the dessert alone where the competition and strain of community life were essentially non-existent.  Then along came St. Benedict in the late 5^th century who felt that monks alone in the dessert became their own idols and were usually nothing like Christ.  St. Benedict saw community life as essential to becoming like Christ and that humility was the cornerstone of that community life in that the stress of living in community assisted transformation into Christ-likeness.  So St. Benedict came up with a “Rule” to order community life.  Communities were made up of 12 monks with an abbot.  And they all lived by Benedict’s “Rule,” although, I must tell you that this was not as easy as it sounds.  St. Benedict’s first group of monks tried to poison him!

 

That aside, what Benedict concluded was that in order to grow in humility, one dare not focus on humility, but focus instead on the love of God and love of neighbor.  Benedict’s suggestions here are timeless and became the dominant structure for corporate religious life for over 1,000 years.

 

St. Benedict's 12 Degrees of Humiliated, Slightly Adjusted to be of Use to Us Today

God focused:

1. Fear God, have healthy respect for the creator and author of all life.  He is to be obeyed and served because he is God and we are not.
2. Follow the Lord’s will and not our own.  We should endeavor to look at life as God sees it.  He is the center of the universe and it is about him, not us.

Community focused:

3. Submit to others.  Get input from others.  Take advice.  If you know more than everyone else, you’re in trouble. 
4. Persevere with a superior’s instruction.  This develops our character.  Life never goes exactly our way; this helps develop us.
5. Share candidly, openly and transparently with a trusted friend (for monks it was the abbot).  Allow someone to hold you accountable.  This helps us take responsibility for our actions and speaks another viewpoint into our ego-centered minds.
6. Be content.  Accept willingly the challenges life presents.  Doesn’t mean we don’t correct bad circumstances (our trusted friendship help us here), but there are some things we simply are forced to just accept.  
7. Put ourselves lower than others.  We can do this in safety in Christian community where the community works to look out for the best interests of others, lifting others up and helping one another to understand how we need each other’s service.
8. Follow the rules/laws set forth by the community.  Enough said.
9. Speak carefully, words that are thoughtful, truthful, encouraging and helpful.
10. Check that our laughter does not come from the ridicule of someone else, that it comes from joy, delight, appropriate humor.  Laughing at someone else’s expense feeds our ego!
11. Use reasonable words and a humane tone of voice.  Our speech should lift up, not tear down or destroy others.
12. We must be aware of our physical posture, that our body language and manner of dress do not serve to distract or offend others.

 

We live at a time when many people are suffering and struggling.  Job losses, home foreclosures, economic uncertainty coupled with the usual stress and strain of life in terms of health problems, personal conflicts and destructive addictions.  These are tough times.  Humility is NOT a slapping down, the loss of self-esteem, groveling and being devalued.  On the contrary, it comes from just the opposite.  Jesus knew he was God.  He knew and had confidence in the work of the Father, so he did not have to struggle but surrender to his life of service doing the will of the Father and the results were incredible!  In Christ we are God’s treasure, his beloved children.  We have a future and a hope.  Humility is not demeaning, but it is a firm conviction of God’s power and authority in the midst of our circumstances that frees us to focus on the needs and concerns of others. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking about yourself less!  Friends, for us today, in Christ, we are called to humbly serve God and to humbly serve each other, to minister to the hurting and struggling around us even as we ourselves hurt and struggle.  We can trust God with the outcome.

Pastor Judy