Memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo, Bishop
A couple years ago, I went to a talk at the University of Dayton where the presenting professor defined virtue as “points held in tension.” His easy example was courage. Courage is the tension point between cowardice and reckless folly. Today’s gospel provides us a tension view of humility.
The parable Christ tells seems to primarily revolve around pride and humility. The dynamic of self-deprecation and false humility seems absent. And in a certain sense it is. The parable characters who represent a humility that ignores inherent dignity are absent because they did not respond to the invitation. When a host throws a party, there are those who are too busy, or those who have other priorities but there are also those who see their invitation as a formality extended to them, but without true meaning behind it. They can even look at their invitation and say, “I have no place there.” This response is our first point. A destructive view of self that receives God’s invitation as intended for others, by merely a formality for us.
The other point is certainly pride. Pride is the claiming of a seat that asserts my dignity over another’s. The temptation to see myself as the true guest of honor and not to be satisfied with the honor of being a guest in the first place.
The tension point is humility. Neither denying my self-esteem to the point of rejecting the invitation nor elevating myself above others or equating my worth with the company of guests I keep. Instead, seeing my worth in the host’s desire for my presence.
As this plays out in the spiritual life, it is intimately tied to truth.
It is lies from the world, the flesh, or the devil that we hear when we begin to believe that God extends empty invitations. Accepting these lies confuses the relationship that we have with God as creature to creator, even child to Father. The invitation of God is always authentic.
It is lies again to link social honor and standing with worth and dignity. It is lies that tells us that if we don’t seize esteem for ourselves then we will not be loved or accepted.
Humility is the truth that the same Lord who told Peter to arise and become a fisher of men, invites us into His life and to His banquet. He has invited us since the moment we were loved into existence.
Humility is the point held in tension between the lies telling us that we make or destroy our own worth. It is the truth that the worth and dignity of every human being is inherent from the Creator who called them forth. Who invited them to life.
- Spencer Hargadon