What is Humility?

A question I’ve received a few times is about how I chose the name of this blog. The basic answer is that humility is one of my top personal values. Almost 20 years ago I sat in a Tokyo Joe’s eating lunch while waiting for my son to get out of a summer program and I wrote down my top goals and values. They really haven’t changed much since then. One of the values I wrote in my notebook was:

Serve and listen: be humble and add value in everything you do.

What were the other values I wrote down? Not so fast. You have to at least buy me dinner before I share them all.

Humility is core to Christianity because Jesus modelled it for us. He washed his disciples feet and died on the cross. He told us:

Luke 14:11

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

There is a long tradition of upholding humility in our faith. My former church used to sing a sending song at the end of every service based on Micah 6:8.

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?

Those are clear words by which we can live out our faith. So, I named this blog after that verse. Justice is something we do, it’s an action. I’ve been told by people smarter than I am that the word, “kindness,” is a kind of pale translation for the original concept here that was closer to the loyalty and sacrifice you’d show your spouse or God shows Israel. It is about service and commitment. To me, walking humbly with God, my God, means talking a journey together without taking that relationship for granted. It reminds me of my favorite lyric in John Denver’s song Rocky Mountain High: “Talk to God and listen to the casual reply.”

I suppose one could focus on the word, “require,” in the verse and suddenly this feels onerous. I see it as freedom. This is good news, my people. God doesn’t require ritual sacrifice or dedication to dogma. God wants to walk beside us to work for what we all want anyway, justice and a meaningful life. Humility is a new way of life, a new way of walking with God, a new way to treat each other. Service and listening leads to meaning.

It’s not so much a requirement as a direction toward full humanity. Humility isn’t about getting saved. We are already saved. Humility is about living a Christ-filled life.

Pride is the sin that leads to every other sin. It’s the original sin. According to one of our foundational myths, the serpent told Eve it was OK to eat of the fruit of the tree God said not to eat of. Why? Pride. The serpent said, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.” This call is one of pride, one we all suffer. This kind of pride – really, all kinds of pride but especially pride that puts us on level with God in our own hearts – leads only to a further realization that we are infinitely below God. There is an infinite gap between created and creator. For many people this realization that we have nothing to be proud of leads to even more striving to prove God wrong. It can lead to a cascade of many other sins as we try to elevate ourselves at any cost. It can lead to us replacing the true God with a god that we find easier to control, one who seems to fit our prideful worldview. For others – sometimes even me – the realization of that infinite gap between created and creator leads us to fall on our knees in worship.

God doesn’t want either of these responses. God wants us to walk humbly in the garden together.

Pride leads to certainty and certainty is ruinous. Fundamentalists, and really any other kind of black-and-white thinkers, are almost always wrong and when they are right, they are most likely accidentally right. This isn’t a political statement. You can be a conservative politically and not be a fundamentalist. I have family members who are black-and-white leftists committed to socialism beyond what seems logically warranted. I’ve only rarely met an atheist who wasn’t a fundamentalist.

Theological certainty is the best indicator you’re heading down the wrong path. I don’t think theology gives us clear answers and it certainly doesn’t give us anything to be proud about. One only need look at the hundreds of Christian denominations to start wondering if theology leads to anything important at all. If someone tells you they completely understand the concept of the trinity, all they are really telling you is that there is an enormous amount they haven’t even heard about regarding the Trinity. If someone says they are certain about a particular form of baptism, a day you should worship on, whether to cross yourself after communion, or any host of theological differences, the only thing reasonably certain is that they haven’t really examined any of those ideas. Insisting that you are confidently in the right only telegraphs to me how wrong you must actually be.

Contemplative prayer is a great way to reduce prideful thoughts and cultivate humility. First, it clues me in to messages that are coming from my ego, my false self so I can recognize those false and prideful thoughts. Part of my prayer practice is to sit silently and try not to let my thoughts interfere as I silently wait for God. Note that I didn’t say I try not to think or that I fight my thoughts. It’s more like I sit and watch the thoughts. Sometimes the thoughts come fast and furious, like trash that needs to be burned off. That’s fine. By detaching from my thoughts, I learn that they are separate from who I truly am. So when a prideful thought comes up I can disconnect it from my sense of myself, which is a great way to disconnect pride entirely. Contemplative prayer teaches me to see my ego-driven thoughts and my emotional reactions as just warning lights on my dashboard. I can choose what to do with the warning light, I am not the warning light. This is all very abstract, so let me share some examples to see if they resonate with you?

• False ego thought: “I’d better just do it myself if I want it done right.” What I think I’m saying: “No one cares as much as I do.” What I’m actually feeling: a prideful sense of superiority. How the real me can respond: “What pain am I trying to cover up with pride here, why do I want to be seen as superior?”
• False ego thought: “I do a lot for this congregation and I can’t believe they would ignore my thoughts about their welcome statement.” What I think I’m saying: “I’m standing up for what is right.” What I’m actually feeling: a prideful sense of entitlement. How the real me can respond: “What is God trying to show me in my discomfort, why am I being led to this place?”
• False ego thought: “There are plenty of volunteers at parent night.” What I think I’m saying: “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”  What I’m actually feeling: prideful self-centered beliefs that my time is more important than someone else’s time. How the real me can respond: “God is giving me an opportunity to meet caring people tonight, I can skip dinner for one night.”
• False ego thought: “I work hard, why does so-and-so make more money?” What I think I’m saying: “God why is life so unfair?”  What I’m actually feeling: inadequacy through pride-driven comparisons. How the real me can respond: “Just sit here with God: He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

If pride leads to a multitude of other sin, practicing humility is a great breaker switch.