Humility – March 12, The Fourth Friday in Lent

Just as there are some serious sins that seem to creep in and hurt our spiritual life in significant ways (like pride) there are also some virtues that help to combat these sins.  Yesterday we talked about how pride can hinder our spiritual life in all sorts of ways.  Pride is truly devastating and something that we all probably struggle with but there is hope.  The hope we have in overcoming our pride is allowing the Holy Spirit to bring about a spirit of humility within us.  Let’s look at the Gospel of Luke again.

Luke 18:9-14 NIV

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

As we highlighted yesterday, Jesus talks about how pride has no room in the heart of one who truly desire to follow God.  After making this clear through the example of the Pharisee (one who is suppose to be truly following God) Jesus talks about a humble tax collector.

We probably don’t have any strong thoughts about tax collectors, but to Jesus’ audience the mere mention of a tax collector would fill them with angry thoughts.  Just as the pharisee was the typical “righteous” person, the tax collector is the typical “unrighteous person.”  Tax collectors were known for treating people unfairly, taking unfair amounts of money, and abusing their power.  They were not well liked, and they certainly weren’t considered righteousness but in this story something is different.

Jesus sets the person who many would consider despicable up as the example to follow in this story and says that the person they usually think about emulating is the person who they should not follow.  Why are things reversed? Pride and Humility.

The reason Jesus sets the tax collector up on a pedestal is because he was humble.  Humility is mentioned all throughout the scriptures as a trait of holy people and this is what God desire from us.  To love God and to love other so deeply and purely that we are humble in every way.   Humility is the way of Christ and is the call of the Christian life.

Pride has no place in our lives and the only way to cast it out is to seek humility.  We need ask God to make us humble and give us a deep love for him and for others.  Humility may not sound like something that you desire, especially when the world is constantly telling us we need to assert ourselves as “#1” or “the best,” but we must realize our need for it.  This is, afterall, the mind of Christ as Paul tells us in the Philippians passage we’ve so often referenced this Lenten season:

Philippians 2:3-4 NIV

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

Let us strive to be humble, loving others and considering their interests above our own.  Society tells us this is not the way to success, but the scriptures tell us that this is the way to true success – holiness!

Closing Prayer:

O Lord and master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.  But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.  O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother or sister for blessed are you always.  Amen

– The Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem