Village Shepherd

I recently heard a story about a lorry driver who stopped at a roadside cafe for his tea. He was just tucking into his beefburger and chips when the door of the cafe opened and three motor cyclists swaggered in, dressed in their leathers and clearly spoiling for a fight. They strode over to the lorry driver and began to give him a hard time. One snatched his beefburger and started to eat it, another grabbed a handful of chips from the lorry driver's plate, and the third seized his coffee and began to drink it.

Without a word, the lorry driver stood up, walked quietly to the cash desk, payed his bill and walked out.

The three bikers were a bit nonplussed, but quickly regained their composure. "Huh!" sneered one. "What a wimp! What a pathetic excuse for a man!"

The waitress was watching the lorry driver out of the door. "I don't know what sort of a man he is," she remarked, "but he sure is a terrible driver. He's just run over three motor bikes!"

At first sight that story looked as if it was going to be a lesson in humility, but perhaps it was actually a lesson in humiliation. Unless, of course, humility and humiliation are just different sides of the same coin.

The Christian gospel is hot on humility. Jesus displayed amazing humility in taking on the role of a slave at the Last Supper, when he washed his disciples' feet. And in today's gospel reading, when the chief priests and other religious officials try to humiliate Jesus by demanding to know what right he had to teach in the temple, he was able to turn the question around on his questioners and use it as a teaching point for them and the people. And perhaps they found themselves were humiliated by his clever response. Jesus had sufficient humility not to take offence at their question, which meant that he was in exactly the right position and exactly the right frame of mind to respond to them in exactly the right way.

In today's epistle reading from the letter to the Philippians, St. Paul urges his listeners to "..do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.."

In trying to follow that Christian injunction to "consider others better than yourself", there are people who have felt themselves to be always inferior to others. But there's a real difference between humility and lack of self-worth. Many, many people have little or no worth in their own eyes, and therefore assume that they have little or no worth in other people's eyes. That's a very negative state to be in, and is miles away from genuine humility, which is a very positive state. Perhaps encounters with humiliation produce genuine humility in some people, but lack of self-worth in others.

Years ago in Sunday School I remember being taught that the word "JOY" meant first Jesus, then Others, and last of all, Yourself. Even in those days I had a hazy feeling that there was something not quite right with that teaching, although I couldn't put my finger on what wrong. Now I suspect that that sort of very simplistic teaching helps to create Christians who either hide behind a false humility or who have no sense of their own value.

It's only by becoming aware of our own inner selves that we can begin to really appreciate our own good points, and until we know our own good points, we can't begin to know our own faults. Jesus said we must love others as we love ourselves, so it's very important to get to know and to love ourselves. And it's when we begin to reach that point of self-knowledge that we begin to experience God's gift of genuine humility.

St. Paul actually said, "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." In other words, we're not expected to disregard ourselves completely. Obviously we're not expected to be swallowed up by self-interest either, but to find the balance. We need to do for others what we can do without causing our own burnout or total exhaustion along the way. Those who are burnt out aren't a lot of use until they recover, and it's just as much a Christian duty to look after your own health as it is to look after other people. Those who look after the interests of others to the detriment of themselves may be guilty of a kind of false humility which denies that they themselves have any worth in God's eyes.

Many Christians, especially those who are absolutely certain that their particular way of worshipping and experiencing God is the only true way, are incredibly arrogant, although they often hide behind a kind of false humility. The Pharisees thought their way of worshipping God was the only way, and in their arrogance they missed the Messiah when he arrived. Those who are so certain of their own Christianity that they're unable to be open to any other interpretation the the Bible or any other way of worship, have not yet reached the stage of genuine humility.

Those who have reached the stage of genuine humility don't take offence when other people disagree with them. They don't walk out of church in high dudgeon never to return, when things go wrong. They don't suffer much from hurt feelings, because they have no need to keep bolstering their own ego. And although they're generally unaware of their own humility, other people pick it up because it shines out of them.

Today's reading from Philippians ends with an early Christian hymn of praise. As we gradually accept and develop God's gift of humility within ourselves, so we too can join in that hymn of praise with every fibre of our being.