The Humble vs Pride Challenge

‘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.  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. 

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);  Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves.

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 its 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.

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. 

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 at 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 than we can just be the people of God.  That is something to be proud of. 

 

Becoming Like Children

The concept of becoming like a child has been constellating in my mind in the last couple of weeks.  I can’t say I thought of the bible passage until a few days ago when I realized there had been a number of examples of this that were coming together in my life.  The bible passage that finally broke through into my consciousness was Matthew 18: 3, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. 

This started with reading Maggie’s Memories, a book of letters by Margaret Duncan Borden to her grandchildren.  The letters were compiled by Eldon Hay who is a cousin (although I haven’t quite figured out the actual relationship — it’s something like a second cousin once removed.  Eldon and his wife Ann attended our open house (open cottage) a few weeks ago and gave us a copy of the book as a cottage warming present.  The book is subtitled “A Covententer Childhood in 19^th Century Botsford Parish, New Brunswick.   The letters are delightful recollections of a child’s life in a very different age.  As Eldon notes in the introduction, “Written as a series of vignettes ranging in time from earliest memories to the first stirrings of womanhood, the letters conjure up a remarkably vivid picture of an extraordinarily happy childhood in rural New Brunswick during the 1860’s, 7o’s and early 80’s”. 

The letters capture vividly and marvellously the ethos of a completely different time and place that existed in Canada at the beginning of Confederation.  Beyond the enjoyment of reading the letters I was surprized by the association which came to my mind which was of Alice in Wonderland/through the Looking Glass.  This puzzled me at first but on reflection I believe because it was written from the perspective of a young girl but also and possible more significantly because both works capture something of the efforts of a child to navigate through a somewhat strange and new landscape.  Undoubtedly there were no Mad Hatters or Cheshire Cats or in Maggie’s Memories but there seemed to be a few characters that could appear that way to a child’s eyes. 

The next adventure in the worldview of a child was watching a video of To Kill a Mockingbird a few nights ago.  We only have a small portable TV and a VCR player (no DVDs in our cottage life) so we are restricted to movies we can get on VHS.  This work also caught the world view of a young girl, Scout.  There were monster who turned out to be friendly giants i.e. Boo Radley and evil demons who were defeated in the end i.e. Bob Ewell, the evil man who was defeated by the friendly giant who rescued the young prince, Jem. 

All these brought back memories of my childhood and how the world could be a very scary place at times.  It was a world that, if not full of monsters, contained monsters under the bed and in other dark places and giants who I was not sure were friendly or unfriendly.   I spent a long time trying to figure out how the world actually worked and what my place was in it.  The reality is that I am still trying to figure those things out.  So what is it that Jesus means when he tells us to become like children — or like a little child?  The next verse does give us a clue, 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  I find it is a real challenge to be truly humble which requires me to put my ego in the service of the Self as Carl Jung would say or in theological terms — to put the ego in the service of God.  The best perspective of humility that I know is by Sister Jane, an Anglican Nun.  She says that to be humble is to see clearly.  Perhaps that is seeing the world through a child’s eyes with no assumptions about being in control.  Blessings.