The Humility of God

In today’s first reading, Philippians 2: 5-11, St. Paul puts before us Jesus’ model of humility.  “[T]hough he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.”  Every day, false sacreds emerge for us. Those might be anyone or anything we elevate to the level of the Sacred, anything or anyone we put on a  sacred pedestal, as the serpent elevated the fruit on the tree in Paradise. “Eat of it, devour it, possess it, and you will be like God,” Satan insisted.  This temptation surrounds us every day. Someone gets an award; we do not.  Our mouths water! Someone is given recognition or praised in our presence while we stand in the background, hardly noticed, if acknowledged at all.   Our hearts ache.  Someone outperforms us, or we imagine being outperformed. We feel a twinge of jealousy or envy. If only we were this person or that person, if only we had this job or that job, this degree or that degree, these opportunities or those opportunities, we tell ourselves; then, we, too, would accomplish great things! Etc. Etc. Etc.

 This is not the path Jesus models for us. It is not what religious life is about nor what being a Christian is about. Jesus, Paul reminds us, “…emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and, found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”  He wasn’t here to show us how to gather accolades.   All of those  aspirations to be “Kings” and “Queens”  in our own right, to belong to an exclusive club, are deaths to which we  must die and rise with Christ in humility and love.  Jesus calls us to repentance and to conversion. Are we open today to being transformed by Christ and reconciled with God in the depth of our being, not on the pedestal of something/someone  we elevate to replace the Divine in our lives. What a challenge! Something only grace can accomplish in us.

Forgiveness, Love, Gratitude

Today's Gospel, Lk 7: 36-50, tells the story of Jesus' dining in the house of a Pharisee named Simon. Simon is putting on a dinner for the elite--a dinner in our day known as a black-tie dinner that is only open to invited guests who are expected to be wearing tuxedoes. In walks a woman Simon despises and says to himself in effect: How can Jesus allow this woman to anoint His feet, wash them with her tears and wipe them with her hair. Does He not know "what sort of woman she is" (Lk: 7: 39)? He also looks down upon Jesus and says in his heart: If this man is a prophet, He should know better than to allow this woman to come close to Him, much less touch Him (cf Luke 7:39:).

 Our prayer, based on this Scripture passage, might go like this:

"Lord, You sent this morning's Word to transform my innermost being, as You tried, in today's Gospel, to open Simon's heart. Help me. Transform my self-righteousness into the humility of this woman who recognized her sinfulness and is grateful for Your gift of forgiveness. May I step down from my pedestal of looking down on people as the Pharisee looked down upon this woman. I, too, am a sinner. I belong prostrate before You beating my breast, not on the stage tooting my horn and certainly not judging others or excluding them from my company."

 

Walking humbly with your God

In today’s first reading,  Micah 6: 1-4, 6-8,  the prophet spells out what the Lord requires of us:  Only to do the right and to love goodness and to walk humbly with our God.  God is not asking that we engage in a strict, ascetical penitential life but that we choose what is right, embrace goodness, and live a life of humility.  No heroics, just simple living, doing good things throughout the day: helping a person struggling to bring a load of groceries up the stairs, preparing a meal for the people I love,  doing the laundry, pitching in to get the dishes done so the whole family can relax, making a phone call to a friend, helping a child with homework, taking time to  listen to what kind of day our spouses/community members had, listening to someone overwhelmed with grief, doing an honest day’s work, saying “thank you” to the person who bags my groceries, etc.

As I reflected upon the phrase “walk humbly with your God,” I was touched by the image.  How can any one of us,  mere human beings, walking side by side with God, strut  about like  peacocks, saying by our demeanor: look at us, how great we are! And yet, how often do we not do that.  This is God walking beside us day and night, counseling us, affirming us, challenging us, comforting us, strengthening us.

 I then looked up Eccles. 3: 17, which reads:  “My child, be gentle in carrying out your business, and you will be better loved than a lavish giver. The greater you are, the more humbly you should behave, and then you will find favor with the Lord; for great though the power of the Lord is, he accepts the homage of the humble.