Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Comment Point: Has Pride cost you? What is the price of humility?)
This was the first time ever that I was shopping for new car tires. Of the numerous options, I settled for the top of the line Michelin tires. Partly I did this because the salesman at the counter told me that it would cost me $ 176. I could not get tires so cheap in India. My eyes popped out when he gave me the printed bill. He had meant $176 a tire. The total was $704 + tax. That was my one pay check! I I had to save my manly pride. I pretended I was cool and for the first time, I broke a principle I live by and charged it to my American Express. This, after all, is the land of the brave and the free. I am not sure if the salesman at the counter was impressed or not, but I learnt it the hard way – pride is expensive. Pride costs.
If we take today’s readings from scripture seriously we realize that the cost of pride is more than just financial loss. Pride can cost us our salvation. The first reading earnestly requests us to “conduct our affairs with humility. The greatest benefit of doing so, according to the author, is that we will “find favor with God.” (Sir 3:17-18). Jesus is even more radical in this regard. He puts it in no uncertain terms, “…every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Lk 14:11). No wonder, then, that in the Catholic tradition pride is counted as one of the seven deadly sins.
In three points I hope to reflect on the sin of pride and the virtue of humility. As I read it in the scriptures, pride and humility have to do with posturing. Pride and humility are about the position we take in the presence of God, in the presence of others and in our own estimation.
1. Our posture in the presence of God. The real question is this: How do we position ourselves before God? The last couple of months, I have been led to examine not only the quality of my prayer life but also how I conduct other aspects of my prayer life. For example, it is not common for me to think, “Today, I will pray later in the day; or that I will get back to quality prayer starting next week; or that today, I will spend my prayer time doing some good for others.” All these are valid arguments. But here is the problem with these arguments. God becomes dispensable. Does God have to be available when I am available? Should it not be the other way around? So here is a question for all of us: Who calls the shots about how we spend time, how we allocate our finances, how we manage our relationships, or how we worship? If we find that God has little say in these areas then it is time to reexamine our life. Humility should lead us to position ourselves right before our God.
2. Our posture in the presence of others. Most people will not have trouble with the first point. We naturally accept God as superior to us. In the scriptures there are many measures of humility. For example, Paul says in the letter to the Philippians, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves,” (Phil 2:3). Today’s Jesus offers a rather strange measure of humility. He says, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors…. Rather, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and blind.” In this way, Jesus draws out of any false or shallow sense of humility. Humility is not merely about wearing unbranded clothes, doing charity, or even hesitation to talk about our achievements. Humility is who we identify ourselves with. In Jesus’ time, the poor, the crippled, the lame, and blind lived on the fringes of society. Who are on the fringe of society today? Immigrants, addicts, the unemployed, those whose homes are being foreclosed, the homeless, children in foster care? And how much room do they have in our lives?
3. Our estimation of our own selves. I was talking to a few people who were at a social justice meeting the other day. And they were telling me about how at the end of the meeting one of the speakers made a comment that went something like this: “We just have to admit that that the poor are different than us.” The problem with this guy is his estimation of himself and how he postures himself in his own thinking. I said earlier that in the Catholic tradition Pride is considered a deadly sin and humility is a virtue. Humility becomes a virtue when its practice becomes instinctive. We can call ourselves humble people when instinctively we know our true dignity in the presence of God - helpless sinners redeemed by the limitless love of God. We are humble people when instinctively we assign the same dignity to every human person. Sirach tells, us “Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.” Jesus tells us, “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
As we bring ourselves to the altar let us identify with the bread and the wine. These are unpresumptuous, simple and humble objects from everyday life. Yet God exalts them and makes them the body and blood of Christ. If we identify ourselves with the bread and wine, if we become unpresumptuous, humble and simple, God will exalt us in eternity.
- Fr. Satish Joseph