Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
This homily is about humility. However, I would like to begin elsewhere. Last Monday night, I spend a few late hours accompanying the two families as they came to terms with the death of their six-years-old daughters, Penelope Jasko and Eleanor McBride. They were killed in a senseless crash caused by a man fleeing the law in a stolen police cruiser. In my twenty-five years of priesthood, I cannot remember doing anything as difficult as praying with families as they stood before the bodies of their little children. That night was an incredibly difficult night for everybody, most of all for the grieving families.
It is not my intention to dwell on the tragic crash or to reflect upon it. This homily is about humility. I learnt something about humility that night. Before I talk about the lessons I learnt, let me read for you the very first verses from today’s first reading. The author of the book of Sirach says, “My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God” (Sir 3:17-18). I define humility as, posturing. Humility is the posture, or the stance we take in the presence of God, of others, and creation.
- Humility – Our Stance Before God. That night at the hospital, as I began to search for words to pray with the families before the coroner could take the bodies away, there were emotions welling up. Besides grief, there was anger, there was the inclination to cry “Why?” before God, there was even the temptation to question God. But I know better. God is the author of life and God is our destiny. That night, no matter how I felt at that time, it was the time for me to take a stance before God that honored God as Creator and Destiny. To take any other stance would be an act of arrogance, or pride, even idolatry. So I surrendered. I decided to let God be God and lead the family in a prayer, entrusting the children into God’s holy and life-giving hands. I am not saying that doubts, questions, and conflict with God have no place as we grow in faith. But they cannot be our permanent posture before God. To be humble before God is to surrender our life, our living, all we have and are, our death and our dying unconditionally to God.
- Humility – Our Stance Before Others. That fateful night and in the subsequent days, attention turned to the man who caused such unspeakable tragedy. For that matter, think about the man who took an assault weapon and gunned down nine people in the Oregon District. Or think about the man in El Paso who wanted to kill immigrants. A humble person would never do these things. Humility is how we posture ourselves before others. The parable that Jesus shares about people choosing places of honor at banquets, is about posturing. Not merely at banquets, but the stance we take in relation to others in society and in the church says much about us. For example, prejudice and racism is are not attitudes of a humble person. Clericalism, the abuse of children, domestic abuse – the are examples of the abuse of power stemming from arrogance and pride. Name-calling, condemning others, judging them, gossiping, considering ourselves better than others - these are not actions of a humble person. Perhaps an illustration will help. Since the fatal crash that killed Penelope and Eleanor, I have spent extensive time with the family on multiple occasions. Not once have I heard any family member express any unchristian words, thoughts, or feelings for the man who robbed the two children of their life; or, for that matter, robbed the two children of their promising and beautiful future. I am not saying there may not be anger or the desire for law to take its course. They have only focused on grief and recovery, aided by their very strong faith in God and the love the community has shown them. In fact, the other day when I was with them for a communion service, we prayed for the man. Now, that is humility. Humility is the stance we take in relation to others, even when people may have done us harm.
- Humility – Our Stance Before Creation. Beside the tragedy of the children’s death, there is another tragedy that I have been grieving that last week – the fire in the Amazon rainforest. For that matter, the entire globe is dealing with extremely erratic weather patterns. Scientists and the Pope himself are telling us that human beings need to change our posture, our stance in relation to the earth. In the past, the we understood our relationship with the earth as ‘dominion’. It was based on an exploitative understanding of the word ‘dominion’ in Genesis. We did not understand that the kind of dominion God gave to us is the kind of dominion that God has over us. We are God’s children. We must care for the earth like we care of our children and for the sake of our children. I am getting more and more convinced about this – that the end of the world is something that we will do to ourselves. It is all about posturing. Human beings need to realize that we are an integral part of creation rather than masters of creation. Unless we take a posture and stance of humility before God’s creation, we will destroy creation, and that includes ourselves. With the Amazon fires blazing, with weather pattern’s changing, with low-lying areas sinking, with global temperatures rising, it’s time to stand in humility before God and God’s creation.
Very soon, on this altar will lie and God of all glory and power. Yet, he humbles himself to give us our human dignity. If we humble ourselves like him, we will be exalted. But if we only exalt ourselves, believe His words, we will be humbled.
- Fr. Satish Joseph