Sunday March 21, 2010

First Presbyterian Church
Ripley Tennessee
March 21, 2010
5th Sunday of Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21
John 12:1-11
Perspectives of Humility

There are some ways of displaying humility that are more powerful than other ways. There are varying reasons and motives for displaying humility or feeling humble. There are times that demonstrations of, or feeling of humility are more appropriate than other times. Generally I think we can agree that humility or humbleness is appropriate when we perceive something to be much more important than self.

When we perceive ourselves to be less than someone or something or feel overpowered by a situation in life, we feel humble; we feel smaller; we feel inferior. Sometimes, in our human nature, we compensate for that inferior feeling we get through various methods of revenge, intrigue and retaliation that are old as Cain and Able.

Sometimes our reaction is humility and sometimes our reaction is rage.

This morning I want to spend some time visiting with you about one of these two reactions we have when we have occasion to brush up against overpowering situations or personalities. I want to visit about the reaction of humility.

One definition of humility states in part: modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, etc.; now my words – in relation to another person or thing or situation.

I had an experience once that I think taught me a lesson. I was helping my father when he was at an advanced age. His health had declined and he was precariously living alone. I worried about him. I was all he had left. I tried to help him as best I could. However, he was a very proud and stubborn man dealing with the advancement of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

I remember one afternoon, I decided to go to his house and build a railing at his front steps. I was worried about him falling as he had already fallen and had hip surgery.

The only problem was that I had to sneak in and build it when he was not there. Number one, he would get mad at me for trying to help him, and number two, I probably could not build it to his satisfaction (roll of the eyes). Never the less it had to be done.

I chose an afternoon that he would not be home, loaded up all my tools, equipment and supplies and headed off. Sure enough, he was not home and like a summertime Santa, I got straight to my work. The work progresses according to plan for a while. Then I hit a snag. You know like you always do. In my stealth and cunning, I had forgotten to take several design features into consideration.

I could not make it work! I had a problem. Things began to snowball rapidly from there and the simple became complex and an afternoon project turned into four afternoons of torture. My humility of servitude began to be assailed and confronted by my own personal levels of comfort. I began to think, “This is ridiculous, I have done enough.” My humility began to erode as my frustration grew.

It was after about the second or third trip back to the lumber yard that a thought occurred to me. “If an act of kindness becomes too much trouble, was it ever a true act of kindness to begin with?”

In other words, I will be kind to you, but my charity will only extend so far. I do not want to put myself in a position of being taken advantage of. I began to wrestle with that thought. Your answer will vary from one situation to the next and from one recipient’s attitude to the next. We will treat appreciative folks better than those who feel entitled or who are demanding, I have found to be the general rule. Yes I said general rule…not the golden rule.

There are several ways we can take stock of our humility in general or in any specific situation.

First
Do I see what I am doing as humble? We must begin to think in Christian terms and temper our actions and especially our re-actions keeping this humility in the front of our minds. Jesus is our model of humility. When faced with a reaction or an action we must use Jesus as our standard. Is our response adequate for Him?

The popular bracelet that folks wore, especially our young people, was WWJD. That stands for What Would Jesus Do? That is a wonderful overture. It is a wonderful thought. But again, it runs the same risk of everything in popular culture; the risk of becoming cliché; rendering its usefulness only to those circumstances where everyone can see your humility demonstrated. True humility is present in spite of the absence of witnesses.

Second
Is what I am doing seen by others as being humble? Here, I suggest that we look around ourselves to friends, neighbors, those we respect, the Bible and fellow Christians. These are the people who hold us accountable. These are members of the Body of Christ.

Living life sometimes can get us very disoriented. Life can turn upside down, sometimes within the span of a phone call, the visit of a friend, or a conference with a doctor. It is at times like these, that our humility is brought out to the forefront and put on display. Our fellow members of the Body of Christ help us keep our bearings, they support us, they nurture us.

By the same token, it is these same members of the body of Christ that are called upon to straighten us out when we all occasionally get to big for our britches. Sometimes we feel a bit more important than we really are. Some of our actions can sometimes be motivated more from the standpoint of self than the standpoint of Christ.

By acknowledging that we are a MEMBER of the body, we can constantly maintain our bearings of humility.

I am reminded of a great story. There was a man standing in a very long and slow moving checkout line. The casher was obviously having trouble of some sort and was doing the best he could. Before long, and we have all been in this situation, the crowd began to grumble. One man became especially bold after several egged him on. He really began to voice his frustration to the point of protest.

He was humbled however, by a man who turned and noticed that the boisterous complainer was wearing a “Promise Keepers” shirt. Promise Keepers was a broad sweeping and very popular men’s movement that stressed honor and duty and Christian values. The man confronted the loud mouth and said, “Hey buddy, if you are going to act like that, take off the Promise Keepers shirt!”

Third
Is what I am doing seen by God as being humble? Thinking about Mary and her act of humility, I frankly don’t see any of us stooping to this level of self humiliation. That is what it ultimately is. An act of humility, to be humble, is to at times, from the perspective of others, allow yourself to be humiliated.

The strength and gift of God through the Holy Spirit is being able to keep this humiliation in context. We worry about our humiliation before men, who are equals and we defend against that. Humiliation in the secular world equals very bad. Oh NO! I never want to allow myself to be humiliated.
Friends, that is exactly why we don’t reach out to others the way we should. That is why we have become introverted. That is why we don’t ask people their names when we feel we should know them. We are protecting ourselves against humiliation.

I once walked up to a lady in Church, shook her hand and welcomed her to church. She replied, “Conner, I am Charlotte. I was your fifth grade teacher. I have been a member here all my life!” You think I wasn’t humiliated. But what I learned was that the world did not end. I developed a motto: If I can survive the Charlotte Gordon incident, I can survive anything!

What Mary did, she did out of an act of pure humility; first, in washing Jesus feet. This in itself is an overt act of humility and servitude. Second, she washed his feet with an incredibly valuable pint of ointment. She used the nard as a means of expressing the incredible value of Christ relative to the value of anything man made. Lastly, as if to really put things over the top, she didn’t just use linen or a cloth, but the very hair of her head.

Now ladies, Imagine your husband or father coming into your house from the garden or the field or from working in the yard; or in my case it may be coming in from hunting. Now imagine his boots caked with mud and dirt from working outdoors.

Now add to that, the image of washing his boots with Clive Christian No.1 from Saks Fifth Avenue. It sells for $2,350 an ounce. What Mary used was worth about a year’s wages, so that would be about right. Have you got that image?

Now, in your mental image, begin to use your hair to wipe all that off his boots until they are clean enough to come in your house. That is how vast Jesus was above Mary from her perspective. That is how humbled Mary, whose brother had just been raised from being dead by Jesus, was to have this man in her home. That is, from Mary’s perspective, what it took to display her humility to the greatness of Christ who sat before her.

I resolved my frustration with my father that day by remembering the 20th chapter of Exodus verse 12; “Honor your Father and Mother…” This holy perspective placed my father above me and lowered myself to a subordinate position.

This Easter season, search your heart; look deep inside to see where you need to grow spiritually. Do you have the perspective of Mary sitting at the feet of the master? Or are you somewhere else looking on watching Mary absolutely humiliate herself?
AMEN