Submit to grow
I had a lecturer in college who is now one of my friends on facebook. He often writes rather bizarre and difficult to understand comments – one this week was in a similar mode. However it did have one very simple to understand sentence which said that the ‘greatest gift we can ever learn is humility.’
It’s been said that humility is a chocolate biscuit lying with the plain side up ! This evening I wanted to think about what Christian humility really is. It’s a quality which many would suggest as being essential for a Christian, and for the Church, and yet failings in this area over the centuries have often led to conflict and to misunderstanding.
In the gospel reading (Luke 18:9-14) we heard the account of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector praying. The Pharisee thanks God that he is not like other men, that he’s better than them, he almost reminds God of all the good things he does – his fasting, his giving of a tenth of his income – as if God may need some reminding !
On the other hand the tax collector, standing far off, wouldn’t even look up to heaven. He assumes no position before God – he approaches him with true humility and a recognition of his unworthiness.
And Jesus makes it very clear that it’s the one who recognises this unworthiness is the one that is justified. He is the one with the better understanding of God, and his place before God. And in this parable there are of course very important lessons for us.
In many strains of thought humility is associated with weakness. We live in a society which regularly suggests that you need to push yourself forward to get on, you need to try and dominate…
Those who fail to do these things often seem to be overlooked, but these things are not the Christian way. This week the Church has once again made the headlines in the news as the Roman Catholic Church seem to have made an offer to some disillusioned Anglican clergy to join them. It highlights once again our seeming willingness to be led by human desire and even ambition rather than truly seek out the way of God, which is a way of peace, and of humility and sometimes even compromise.
Again compromise, like humility, is often a word associated with weakness, and there’s no doubt it can be a sign of weakness, but in Christian terms it can also be seen as a sign of trusting that God’s will can prevail, and that ultimately his Spirit will lead people into his way as we allow ourselves to grow ever closer to him and to other people.
And that desire to be led by God, trusting in him, is where true Christian humility begins. Far from beginning from weakness, it begins from a position of incredible strength as we recognise God is in control and that his love and his mercy have already overcome any of the weaknesses and battles we may face in our lives.
And so why is it that Christianity, both individual Christians and the Church, are often associated more with the prayers of the Pharisee than the tax collector. Many people still perceive the Church to be an organisation that’s too good for them - whether they say that with honesty or with a touch of sarcasm. It’s a sad fact the people are more likely to associate the Church with the sort of humility that says, ‘I thank God that I am not like other people’ than with the sort of humility that led Jesus to mix with tax collectors and others shunned by society.
Perhaps a reason for that is that we have often so fiercely protected our territory. Like any organisation the Church, which has outlasted almost any other, has become bureaucratic, burdened with laws and practices and principles and traditions that have often led us away from the simplicity of a gospel message that preaches welcome and acceptance for all, and an unbreakable love.
Paul in his second letter to Timothy (2:1-7) talks about being a soldier for Christ and he outlines some of the humility that we should have – he talks of sharing in suffering, he talks of the soldier’s aim to please the enlisting officer, and of the athlete not being crowned without competing to the rules.
All of these things point us to a dependence on Jesus, and the need to be more like him, and that is true humility. Jesus wasn’t weak – with all the power in the world which he had, he still chose a path of simple living, of suffering, of obedience – he chose a path which revealed the most incredible love for his people everywhere.
Jesus was strong and could do those things because he knew that, whatever difficulties he may face along the way, whatever problems the world could throw at him, his battle was never going to be lost. He had come to save his people, and that was a mission that he would complete.
Today we too can have strength and we can have humility, because Jesus won that battle for us. We can approach the world with a trust that God’s will can prevail, that his Spirit will indeed lead us in the right direction, and that his power and his glory are already established into all eternity.
We all sometimes worry about all kinds of different things – it’s a natural human emotion. Many will even worry about the future of the Church here and everywhere, and in some ways it’s right that we should. We are called to serve God and we do that partly through the work of the Church, but more importantly we allow God to serve his people through us, and the more we trust him, and allow him to do that work through us, the more we will know and feel his peace as we recognise that in the end we can’t fight all the battles of the world, we can’t do all that we may want even in our own lives, but we can do what God wants us to do.
That recognition of our need to submit ourselves to God’s will is the most powerful tool of humility, and the most important symbol of strength that we can ever know.
And so we’re challenged to submit ourselves to God, to dedicate our lives to him, and in doing that, to perhaps throw away some of our wants and desires, to re-establish maybe some of our priorities and to work for God’s wants and desires as we seek to establish here and now a kingdom of an everlasting peace and love which will transform us, the Church and ultimately can surely change even the whole world.
The peace of God, a peace which passes our understanding, is a peace that is on offer for us all – it is a peace that can transform, a peace that, if we truly accept it, will change us into people living with true humility, with compassion, with understanding, and with a love that will be seen to touch people everywhere… May we accept and feel that peace in our lives, and share it everywhere… AMEN
It’s been said that humility is a chocolate biscuit lying with the plain side up ! This evening I wanted to think about what Christian humility really is. It’s a quality which many would suggest as being essential for a Christian, and for the Church, and yet failings in this area over the centuries have often led to conflict and to misunderstanding.
In the gospel reading (Luke 18:9-14) we heard the account of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector praying. The Pharisee thanks God that he is not like other men, that he’s better than them, he almost reminds God of all the good things he does – his fasting, his giving of a tenth of his income – as if God may need some reminding !
On the other hand the tax collector, standing far off, wouldn’t even look up to heaven. He assumes no position before God – he approaches him with true humility and a recognition of his unworthiness.
And Jesus makes it very clear that it’s the one who recognises this unworthiness is the one that is justified. He is the one with the better understanding of God, and his place before God. And in this parable there are of course very important lessons for us.
In many strains of thought humility is associated with weakness. We live in a society which regularly suggests that you need to push yourself forward to get on, you need to try and dominate…
Those who fail to do these things often seem to be overlooked, but these things are not the Christian way. This week the Church has once again made the headlines in the news as the Roman Catholic Church seem to have made an offer to some disillusioned Anglican clergy to join them. It highlights once again our seeming willingness to be led by human desire and even ambition rather than truly seek out the way of God, which is a way of peace, and of humility and sometimes even compromise.
Again compromise, like humility, is often a word associated with weakness, and there’s no doubt it can be a sign of weakness, but in Christian terms it can also be seen as a sign of trusting that God’s will can prevail, and that ultimately his Spirit will lead people into his way as we allow ourselves to grow ever closer to him and to other people.
And that desire to be led by God, trusting in him, is where true Christian humility begins. Far from beginning from weakness, it begins from a position of incredible strength as we recognise God is in control and that his love and his mercy have already overcome any of the weaknesses and battles we may face in our lives.
And so why is it that Christianity, both individual Christians and the Church, are often associated more with the prayers of the Pharisee than the tax collector. Many people still perceive the Church to be an organisation that’s too good for them - whether they say that with honesty or with a touch of sarcasm. It’s a sad fact the people are more likely to associate the Church with the sort of humility that says, ‘I thank God that I am not like other people’ than with the sort of humility that led Jesus to mix with tax collectors and others shunned by society.
Perhaps a reason for that is that we have often so fiercely protected our territory. Like any organisation the Church, which has outlasted almost any other, has become bureaucratic, burdened with laws and practices and principles and traditions that have often led us away from the simplicity of a gospel message that preaches welcome and acceptance for all, and an unbreakable love.
Paul in his second letter to Timothy (2:1-7) talks about being a soldier for Christ and he outlines some of the humility that we should have – he talks of sharing in suffering, he talks of the soldier’s aim to please the enlisting officer, and of the athlete not being crowned without competing to the rules.
All of these things point us to a dependence on Jesus, and the need to be more like him, and that is true humility. Jesus wasn’t weak – with all the power in the world which he had, he still chose a path of simple living, of suffering, of obedience – he chose a path which revealed the most incredible love for his people everywhere.
Jesus was strong and could do those things because he knew that, whatever difficulties he may face along the way, whatever problems the world could throw at him, his battle was never going to be lost. He had come to save his people, and that was a mission that he would complete.
Today we too can have strength and we can have humility, because Jesus won that battle for us. We can approach the world with a trust that God’s will can prevail, that his Spirit will indeed lead us in the right direction, and that his power and his glory are already established into all eternity.
We all sometimes worry about all kinds of different things – it’s a natural human emotion. Many will even worry about the future of the Church here and everywhere, and in some ways it’s right that we should. We are called to serve God and we do that partly through the work of the Church, but more importantly we allow God to serve his people through us, and the more we trust him, and allow him to do that work through us, the more we will know and feel his peace as we recognise that in the end we can’t fight all the battles of the world, we can’t do all that we may want even in our own lives, but we can do what God wants us to do.
That recognition of our need to submit ourselves to God’s will is the most powerful tool of humility, and the most important symbol of strength that we can ever know.
And so we’re challenged to submit ourselves to God, to dedicate our lives to him, and in doing that, to perhaps throw away some of our wants and desires, to re-establish maybe some of our priorities and to work for God’s wants and desires as we seek to establish here and now a kingdom of an everlasting peace and love which will transform us, the Church and ultimately can surely change even the whole world.
The peace of God, a peace which passes our understanding, is a peace that is on offer for us all – it is a peace that can transform, a peace that, if we truly accept it, will change us into people living with true humility, with compassion, with understanding, and with a love that will be seen to touch people everywhere… May we accept and feel that peace in our lives, and share it everywhere… AMEN
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