 |
| Why yes this is the Tower of Babel. (The antithesis of all things humble) |
(Augsburger PRT 5) I am finding humility is a difficult
topic. The first time I assign the
attribute to myself apparently it ceases to be true. I guess “humility claimed is pride renamed”
and all that.[1] Yet, if we are to know humility
as it could be we might first ask what does lack-of-humility look like (well I
would anyway). If I might be vague for a
moment, and don’t worry I’ll eventually explain, pride has a propensity to grip
personal identity with more complexity than it would seem, and that pride even occurs
when we think we are acting humble.
The Kingdom of I
Pride is most often understood as self-exaltation and that
would not be wrong. Augsburger
illustrates that self-exalting pride lends itself well to spiritualities of
superiority, self-confident domination, misuse of others, egotism in being
right and disregard for others. This is
the pursuit of perfectionism and a quest to maintain a “holier than thou”
status.[2] We have seen this kind of
spirituality play itself many times throughout history (This was Jesus’ and
Paul’s contention with Pharisees and other covenant-people and it is many
people’s contention Constantinian forms of Christianity and on it could go).
It is in
self-exaltation that it is easiest to see pride, at its core, always lives
comparatively. This means that “one is
not proud simply of being brilliant, handsome, beautiful or successful; one
becomes proud by evaluating the self as more brilliant, handsome, beautiful or
successful than another.”[3] The
perfectionist quest can only be attained through comparative processes, but true
humility is not in the conscious-self who lives in competition constantly
measuring self up to others.
This brings me to my next point. Humility is often thought of as
self-abasement in which we demean ourselves to the point of self-hatred, but
this too is actually another form of pride. Humility is no more self-abasement
than it is self-exaltation. Any humility that devalues or denigrates itself
will first, easily be self-absorbed, and second, inevitably come to see others
as equally worthless.[4]
Moreover, this self-absorption begins
the comparative process again except now it is in the the form of being
“humbler than thou.” I think we can see this
simultaneous self-debasement and self-exaltation happening with the Pharisee in
Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisee is
billing God for his credit due saying that he has sacrificed and humbled
himself to great lengths and thanks God that his humility is better than the
tax collecting outcast who is praying across the way. Meanwhile the tax
collector humbly prays for mercy without any comparative regard for the
Pharisee (Lk. 18:9-14). Perhaps it the
Pharisee is more exalting than debasing, but the point is intact and we can see
such pseudo-piousness only pretends humility either way it goes.
Habitual Humility
So then what is true humility look like (wait, do I lose my
humility by claiming to know the answer)?
Oh well here it is (it’s really Augsburger’s anyway): True humility can
see both the self and other as worthful and will neither exalt nor devalue either. Humility, as thought by Madeline L’Engle, is
the act of becoming self-forgetful in exchange for complete concentration on
something or someone else.[5] “Whether
this happens in the creative moment, in love for the neighbor, in an act of
compassion for another’s pain, in the practice of service for others, in the
performance of any skill, art or profession, such concentration on the welfare
of other is both the deepest forgetfulness of the self and the fullest
realization of the self.”[6]
Lastly,
humility is embracing our imperfection. We should be self-effacing whenever we
make attempts to speak about things like virtues, goodness, or moral high
grounds. Without modesty (holding what
believe with an open hand, not clenched fist) our egos will easily revert back to
leveraging control over others by what we claim to be true.
Standing vis-à-vis with such
embrace is finding the humor in humanity.
This is not to judgmentally laugh at the failures of others, but to recognize
our hollow pull of self-preference that detracts from concern for others. We can recognize, laugh at and deny our own
pretenses and not always take ourselves so seriously.
Humor teaches us
humility; humility inspires our humor. It helps us see ourselves for what we
really are—a bit of dust, a flash of light that burns for a brief second; it
nudges us to see life for what it truly is—the search for, not the possession
of, truth. One can hold to truth with
deep commitment and at the same time handle it with humor. Reverence and irreverence belong together
like conviction and imagination, like mature respect and childlike impudence.[7]
Therefore, habitual humility can be a significant sign of
Christlike discipleship where we can live in sincerity of joy in service,
modesty in our own abilities and the unflinching ability to smile at and walk
away from our pretenses and self-awareness all for the good of another.
[1] David Augsburger Dissident
Discipleship (Grand
Rapids, MI: Brazo Press 2006), 99.
[2]
Ibid, 120.
[3]
Ibid, 119.
[4]
Ibid, 118.
[5]
Ibid, 119.
[6]
Ibid.
[7] Ibid, 103.
No comments:
Post a Comment