1 Peter 5: 5 The Humble Brag
‘I am the
most humble person in the world!’ We know
immediately there is something wrong with that statement — even if we’re not
quite sure what. If someone is humble
they do not think of themselves in comparison to others. In fact, the person who makes that statement
is ironically prideful about their humility — which means that he or she is
basically not humble. There is an
interesting variation on pride which I have run into recently; it has been
coined as the humble brag. The person
who humble brags gets to blow his or her horn and yet appears on the surface as
being humble. It can go something like this, “I am so humbled and honoured to
be awarded this great award or honour. I
don’t deserve it but it is wonderful to be able to do the great things that I
have done.” In effect the person is
saying, “aren’t I wonderful I have done
these great things and am humble as well.
Quite a neat trick, the humble-brag.
Today’s
first reading sets out a very stark contrast between pride and humility, “all
of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God
resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble”. Peter is very clear – God exalts in the
humble and not the proud.
This is a
change from the assured Peter who proudly claimed that he would never desert
Jesus. And we know Jesus had him pegged,
“Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I tell you, this very night, before
the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’”
Pride does
not get very good press in the bible.
Here are a few of the verses which deal with pride: Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty
spirit before a fall (Proverbs); One's pride will bring him low, but he who is
lowly in spirit will obtain honour (Proverbs); For people will be lovers of
self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents,
ungrateful, unholy (2 Timothy); When
they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another,
they are without understanding (2 Corinthians). I could go on but I’m sure you get the idea.
Pride is definitely frowned upon by God and by the first
Christian leaders. With this very
clearly negative view of pride I’m surprized that it’s opposite, humility
didn’t make it into the Beatitudes.
Let’s look at humility – the state of being humble. Here are a few examples of how humility is
viewed in the bible: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count
others more significant than yourselves (Philippians); The reward for humility
and fear of the Lord is riches and honour and life
(Proverbs); Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself
will be exalted (Matt.); Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt
you (James). Our Epistle set out
humility in opposition to pride – God resists the proud, and gives grace to the
humble. Another passage gives a similar
comparison, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is
wisdom” (Proverbs). We can see that it
doesn’t seem that pride and humility can exist at the same time. That is why that first statement I made is
just wrong. If you are truly humble you
are not going to believe you are more humble than everyone else or even anyone
else. You aren’t going to compare
yourself to others — you just are who you are.
From this we can see that as Christians we are to strive
to be humble rather than proud. There is
an implication in some of the passages that we should strive to be humble
because we will get our reward in the next life, the reward for humility and
fear of the Lord is riches and honour and life; humble yourselves before the
Lord, and he will exalt you. There is an
implication from this that humility is not its own reward. We must be bribed to be humble. It doesn’t seem to be something that comes
naturally to us.
Indeed our culture today certainly promotes pride as a
good thing. We are not encouraged to
downplay our accomplishments and abilities.
We are told that to be successful we need to trumpet our accomplishments
in social media. If we are in business
we see that those who don’t promote themselves don’t get customers — at least
not many. It seems that the sizzle is
more important than the steak. So it
seems that to be a Christian then is to be counter cultural — to be against the
culture. I guess that shouldn’t come as
a surprise to us. As Christians we are
told to turn the other cheek; to go the second mile; to love our neighbours —
better, to love our enemies.
One of the reasons that true humility is difficult is
because it is natural to compare ourselves to others. We want to know how we are doing and the way
we seem to do that most naturally is in relationship to others. We seem to receive that lesson right from the
cradle. We are told directly or
indirectly that we should be like others – and by implication do better than
others. We are given marks in school and
by implication are those marks better marks the others —where do we stand in
the class. Even our play is turned into
competition — we are taught that winning is good and losing is bad or at best
it is an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and by learning win the next
time. We win awards in life – medals in
sports and academia — we get the job and after that the promotion. By implication others do not succeed and
therefore we conclude that we are better than others.
In this context then it is a real challenge to be
humble. In our world to be humble is to
put others before you. It seems to means
that others are more important than you.
How are we to develop humility?
How are we to become truly humble? Is it something that we can work to become or
is it something that will be given to us as grace from God? One of the best definitions of humility that
I have come across is by Sister Jane — an Anglican Nun. She defines humility as ‘seeing clearly’ — to
be humble is to see clearly. When I
first read that I was puzzled by that.
How was humility related to seeing things clearly? Well I first thought that if we clearly see
ourselves as we are we will know that we don’t compare that well to others at
least some others in the world. No
matter how much we succeed there will be others who are better than us in
whatever way we judge ourselves. Even
world champions are not the best in everything or even many things.
However, on reflection I believe that to see clearly
means that we can see what is truly important in life — we can see what is
truly important to God. I don’t believe that
God wants us to be better than others.
God wants us to be the person that God intends us to be.
God does want us to develop and grow and become fully
mature human being. I believe that we
have a human need to be better than others because we believe deep down that
that is the only way we will be of value — the only way we will valued by
others and by God.
If we can truly come to believe and know that God loves
us unconditionally — that God loves us because we are God’s beloved children
then we can just be the people of God. That
is something to be proud of. Amen.
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