The Paradox of Humility

2010 August
Holy Innocents, 455 Fair Oaks, San Francisco
Good Morning. It’s a humble honor for me to be here today
with all of you. Hmmm…humble honor – that sounds like an
oxymoron – and it is. And that’s what I want to talk with you
about today – what I am calling the strange paradox of
humility.
First, let’s unpack this morning’s text – I think some historical
and textual context might be helpful. Jesus has just been
invited to attend a Shabbat meal with a leader of the
Pharisees and in verse 7, Jesus says he noticed how the
guests chose the places of honor.” Actually, a better
rendering here is how the guests chose the chief seats – and
if you’re like me – when I hear this I immediately flash back
to my grandparents house on Yates Avenue in the Bronx –
and I remember almost always being assigned to the kids
table – over the years all of us kids were sure to make that
table the loudest table at any family gathering.
In ancient times they did not have seats, as we do at the
dinner table. Instead they reclined on couches. The ancient
Jews and Romans typically seated three at each couch and
if there was more than one couch in a room, the “chief seat”
was the middle couch and the middle part of that couch –
you get the picture. Sit in the middle of the couch of the
couch in the middle of all the other couches. Honor
dissipated outward from this most central seat.
And perhaps, the next time any of us are stuck in the middle
seat on our next United Airlines flight, we can think back and
remember that at least in the Ancient world, the middle seat
was the best seat in the house.

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The text actually indicates that as folks were scurrying to the
couches for Shabbat, like ants discovering a speck of sugar,
this ancient practice caught Jesus’ eye.
In the parable that follows, Jesus used the illustration of a
wedding, which was usually accompanied by a feast or a
banquet. And he basically says that any one invited to the
wedding should be careful not to take the chief seat, that
middle seat for fear of being asked to move and thus being
embarrassed, if not downright humiliated in front of one’s
peers and friends.
The parable concludes with Jesus’ famous proclamation,
“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those
who humble themselves will be exalted.”
This subject of humility is echoed throughout the New
Testament. Jesus refers to this many times: in Matthew,
chapter 23, verse 12, “All who exalt themselves will be
humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” In
the beatitudes, Jesus opens his Sermon on the Mount with a
statement concerning humility, Matthew, chapter 5, verse 3,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
God.”

We see this same emphasis on humility in Paul’s Letter to

the Romans, 12, 3: “For by the grace given to me (here, Paul
is talking) I say to everyone among you not to think of
yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with
sober judgment.” (Here’s our bonus points for today, this text
is also a source for the Methodist tradition’s proscription on
alcohol, thus if we were Methodists we would want to be
both humble and not drinking.)

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And it’s not just the Christian tradition that places an
emphasis on the practice of humility. In Judaism, the Torah
of the Hebrew Scriptures tells us that Moses was the “most
humble of all men upon the face of the earth.” King David
sings of his humility in 2d Samuel.
In Islam, humility is central to the faith. The “Al-Islam,” the
very term Islam, is the surrender to God in humility. The
Koran tells us, “Successful indeed are the believers, those
who humble themselves in their prayers.”
In Buddhism, humility is equivalent to a concern of how to be
liberated from the sufferings of life and the vexations of the
human mind.
In Hinduism to get in touch with our true selves, whether we
call that God, Brahman, etc. one has to practice humility.
The Sanskrit word Ahamkara literally translates into The-
sound-of-I, or quite simply the sense of the self or ego.
When this sound is stilled, we are in touch with our true
being.
Finally, Confucius tells us that, “Humility is the solid
foundation of all the virtues.”
I think we get it. In the world’s ethical, moral and religious
traditions, humility is a key virtue, a key force that has or can
have an effect on us. Humility is one of those powers or
practices that help us to act well. Humility like all the other
virtues helps us with our capacity to be human. As
Montaigne might say, humility like all the virtues helps us to
be more excellent in our humanity.
However, to understand humility in its truest sense is hard.
Cardinal Newman once explained that humility “is one of the
most difficult of virtues both to attain and to ascertain. It lies
close upon the heart itself, and its tests are exceedingly

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delicate and subtle.” Humility also seems to be quite
contradictory, “I am humble” is a performative self-
contradiction.
So then what is humility? Webster tells us that humility is a
noun, and is the state of quality of being humble. This is the
classic dictionary challenge – the definition simply points us
to another word, the adjective humble. Webster’s definition
of humble, “1. Having our showing awareness of one’s
defects; not proud, not assertive. 2. Low in condition or rank,
lowly.”
Ouch. I am not sure if you are like me, but when I hear this
definition, “not assertive, low in condition or rank,” I want to
think to myself, can’t I just go to the traditional cardinal
virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Courage – or
the theological virtues: Faith, Hope and Love -- and just stay
focused there, preferably, with a resting stop on Justice and
Love – those virtues simply seem more accessible.
Frankly, I think Webster gets it wrong. Webster, like so
many, equates humility with timidity and meekness. Our
literary traditions also play on Webster’s sense of humility.
Charles Dickens in his novel, David Copperfield, has the
unctuous character Uriah Heep mumbling his way through
the text, constantly saying, “I am the umblest person going.”
And in modern philosophy Nietzsche declared that, “humility
is the virtue of slaves.”
Humility may very well be the orphaned virtue of our age in
which the threatening anonymity of mass culture encourages
a transformation in the shift from renown to fame to celebrity
to being famous for being famous. Do any of us really care
that yesterday Paris Hilton was arrested in Las Vegas?
The early Christian tradition itself complicates our task for
understanding humility. Both Clement and Ignatius writing in

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the first century tell us to have a humble mind which for them
means “to be simple” and “to be meek.” Clement even
writes, “I am a worm.”
The Romans picked up on this strand of meekness and
timidity seemingly embedded in humility and the Roman
intellectual Celsus attacked Christianity for undermining
traditional Roman virtue. The first systematic Christian
theologian in our tradition, the great Origen, in his brilliant
text, Adversus Celsus, Against Celsus, writes, an important
response to Celsus, and he gives us our first glimpse into
the true meaning of humility. He writes, “Christian humility is
not to be unseemly or to fall on one’s knees or to cast
oneself headlong on the ground, putting on the dress of the
miserable or sprinkling oneself with dust. We are humble in
the sense of the prophets while walking in great and
wonderful things and recognizing those things as truly great.”
Origen, I think, gets it right. Humility is not contempt for
oneself, or if it is, it is informed contempt deriving not from
ignorance of what we are but from the knowledge, or rather
the acknowledgement of all that we are not. Humility is the
virtue that helps us recognize, I think, that, simply, we are
not God. Humility is the atheism of the first person: the
humble person is an atheist with respect to themselves.
Humility is the virtue of the wise. It is the virtue of Socrates,
the father of moral philosophy in the West. Socrates
recognized that he did not possess wisdom, he was
constantly in pursuit of it. Hence, his lifelong search for a
master-teacher. This gets to the paradox of virtue. Virtue is
nothing to be proud of and that is precisely what humility
teaches us. Humility is a meta-virtue. Humility makes all the
other virtues discreet, unself-conscious, almost self-effacing.
Humility, is not, however, a lack of awareness of the limits of
all virtue and of our own limits as well. This discretion is the

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mark – a discrete mark – of perfect lucidity and unwavering
standards.
Humility – true humility – is one of the most expansive and
life-enhancing of all the virtues. It does not mean
undervaluing ourselves. It means valuing other people.
Humility signals a certain openness to life’s grandeur and the
willingness to be surprised, uplifted by its goodness
wherever we find it.
Something interesting happens, too, when we approach
situations from a perspective of humility: it opens us up to
possibilities, as we choose open-mindedness and curiosity
over protecting our point of view. We spend more time in
that wonderful space of the beginner’s mind, willing to learn
from what others have to offer. We move away from
pushing, into allowing, from insecure to secure, from seeking
approval to seeking enlightenment. We forget about being
perfect and we enjoy being in the moment.
I have a few suggestions on how we might be able to
practice humility:
1. There are times when swallowing one’s pride is
particularly difficult and any intentions of humility fly out
the window as we get engaged in a contest of
perfection, each side seeking to look good. If we find
ourselves in such no-win situations, we might want to
consider developing some strategies to ensure that the
circumstances don’t lead us to lose our grace. We
might want to try this sometimes: just stop talking and
allow the other person to be in the limelight. There is
something very liberating in this strategy.
2. Here are the magical words that will produce more
peace of mind than a week at an expensive retreat:
“You are right.”

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 3. Catch ourselves if we benignly slip into over preaching
(Cameron, how am I doing on time?) or slip into
coaching without permission – is zeal to impose our
point of view overtaking discretion? Is our correction of
others reflective of our own needs? This is especially
difficult, I think, for those of us in helping or service
professions.
4. Seek other’s input on how we are showing up? It takes
true humility to humbly ask, “How am I doing?” It takes
a lot of humility to ask this question, and even more
humility to consider the answer
One of my most favorite questions is, “Would you rather be
happy or would you rather be right? “
When I think of this question, I like to think of children on the
playground. When children get into a fight you can hear
them say, “I will never talk to you again! I will never play with
you in a million years!” Five minutes later you can find them
playing with each other and enjoying each other’s company.
Adults on the other hand, when we get into a fight –
especially within family – we may not talk to family members
for twenty years – some of my Sicilian relatives may be the
poster child on this issue. Sometimes we even forget the
original reason for the fight. The reason for this difference is
that children would rather choose to be happy than to be
right and their natural instinct tells them that they will be
happier if they forgive and forget. As adults we sometimes
choose being right over being happy.
How we ask for help is another challenge – and how we
educate our children to ask for help is also important. When
a child does extremely well with a challenging project, the
first reaction of the teacher usually is, “Did you do it all by
yourself?” If the child answers “yes,” he or she will be
complimented and rewarded. If the child says, “I had other

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people help me,” a sign of disappointment appears on the
teacher’s face. Perhaps, we should reconsider our
response. When a child says “I asked others to help me,”
this is a sign that she is able to get cooperation and input
from others. A child who has this trait has a much greater
potential for success later in life.
Humility may actually be the ultimate hallmark of success. In
his groundbreaking work, Good to Great: Why Some
Companies Make the Leap..and Others Don’t, Jim Collins
examined 1435 companies in the Fortune 500 following a
major transition. Only 11 companies out of the 1435 he
studied had sustained stock returns at least 3x the return of
the market over a 15 year period following the transition –
thus, making them great by his definition. What did these 11
companies have in common? It wasn’t their industry or their
technology. Each of these 11 companies from a wide array
of fields had what he called a “Level 5” leader at the helm.
These leaders blended the paradoxical combination of deep
personal humility with intense professional will. This rare
combination defies our assumptions about what makes a
great leader. These corporate leaders were not found to be
writing books or staring in commercials for their products.
Thus, when we think of Moses, “the most humble of all men
upon the face of the earth.” Moses had true humility and was
assertive to and in service to his truth. Moses had the spunk
to stand up to Pharaoh and he even argued with God
Herself.
Jesus challenged the often hypocritical Sadducees and
Pharisees. He got angry and he overturned the tables of the
money changers in the temple.
St Francis and St. Clare have been judged to have had great
humility – yet both stood up to the powerful forces
represented by their wealthy families.

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Humility is so hard to grasp because being humble means,
loving the truth and submitting to it – Humility means loving
truth more than oneself – and it is a fundamental paradox.
Humility is a paradox of an openness that also calls us to
action on behalf of, not ourselves, but of others.
It’s fascinating to me that yesterday at the Lincoln Memorial
Glen Beck called for a return to Christian values in America,
but he did not talk of humility. William Bennett, Ronald
Reagan’s Secretary of Education, wrote an 831 page NY
Times bestseller called The Book of Virtues, and yet humility
is not included among the virtues by Bennett. How could
moral ideals so central to Christianity, not least of which in
old America, get so lost that hardly anyone has noted the
conflict between the actions and speeches of Christian neo-
conservatives and what American Catholics and Protestants
used to regard as the teachings of Christ? It seems that
modern fundamentalism has lost its memory. I am amazed
at how they have so totally ignored humility, a virtue taken to
new heights by Jesus’ words and by the example of his life
and death. The neglect of humility, I would posit has led
self-righteous U.S. Christian leaders to claim they have
insights into God’s will for America – to the exclusion of other
peoples – and such folly has led to two mistaken wars and
the worst financial crisis in our country in eighty years.
Today’s Collect asks God “to nourish us with all goodness;
and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.”
I want to conclude with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi – one
of the best examples ever to grace our planet of true humility
with fierce resolve.
“Recall the face of the poorest and weakest person whom
you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you
contemplate is going to be of any use to them. With they
gain anything by it? Will it restore them to a control over

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their own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to
Swaraj (self-reliance) for the hungry and spiritually starving
millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt
away.”
Amen.

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