In today’s Gospel, we read about the parable of the Pharisee
and the tax collector.
Humility is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as “the
feeling or attitude that you have no special importance that makes you better
than others; lack of pride.” I think this gets it right for the most part. We
must certainly guard against having a high opinion of ourselves and our
importance relative to others. The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable made many false assumptions
about his spiritual state (being justified before God). He pretends to sit in
the position of God in judging himself not like the rest of humanity. What a
statement! Yet, I have caught myself on occasion, perhaps more than I would like
to admit out loud, looking down on another person, feeling bad that they just do
not ‘get it’ or being glad I am not like them due to some perceived personality
flaw in them. I conveniently ignore my many faults and idiosyncrasies. How good
we can become at finding the speck in our neighbor’s eye while ignoring the
beam in our own. Jesus’ teaching here provides another safeguard against habits
that lead us away from God and away from the love of our fellow man.
When we think too highly of ourselves, we can become
enslaved to self-delusion. And likewise, the same thing can happen when we think
too little of ourselves. There is a happy virtue in the mean between these
extremes. I think this is what it means to be humble. It means to have the disposition
of rightly calibrating ourselves to God. We are indeed highly valued by Him, created
in His own image, and redeemed by the blood of His only begotten Son. But we are
also creatures. We live alongside other creatures who are also created by God
for a purpose. I suspect one root of religious pride is placing finitude upon
God. If God loves me so much, there must be less to go around for others. And
since God chooses to love me and show me things about Himself, I must be more
special than other people. Nothing could be further from the truth. God is
infinite and God is love. God is, therefore, infinite love and there is no way to
exhaust it or get to the end of it. God can love all His creation without there
being any competition for divine love. There is no limit to God’s action or His
attention. Pride threatens when we think that because God is working in your
life in a profound way He is not at work in the lives of others in an equally
profound, but perhaps undetectable (to us) manner.
Returning to the question of humility, I think we find in it
a willingness to let God shape our thoughts and minds, patterned after the Lord
Jesus. It means doing the things Jesus said to do as part and parcel of being a
disciple. It means not planting our flag and thinking we have everything
figured out. It is resting in the confidence that God does have things
figured out. We are fellow sojourners with many other people who are struggling
with something in one way, shape, or form. When we think our momentary respites
from trouble are strictly our own doing and the troubles of others are all their
own fault, we take up the position of the Pharisee. We then justify ourselves
by our deeds, and not by the grace of God. May the Lord help us instead follow
the penitential attitude of the tax collector in the parable, who goes home justified
for understanding and seeking after the Lord and not himself.
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