Sermon
Sunday, July 3, 2005
by the Reverend Pamela P. Snare

"Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:28-29)


Humility is at the center of our first reading and our gospel reading for today. Zechariah the prophet describes the Messianic king, God’s Anointed, as "humble and riding on a donkey," meaning a man of peace because he is not riding on a horse, the mount of a warrior. Jesus describes himself in today's gospel as "gentle and humble in heart."

Humility and humble are both derived from the Latin, humilis, meaning "low, slight, small." And humilis is derived from the L. humus, meaning "earth or ground." Webster's defines "humble" as "having or showing a consciousness of one's defects or shortcomings, not proud, not self-assertive, modest, unpretentious, unassuming." Humility is defined as "absence of pride or self-assertion."

Flannery O'Connor once wrote in a letter to a friend, "Humility is not a virtue that is conspicuous in the Southern character." I would agree with her, but I would go even farther and say that humility is not a virtue that is conspicuous in the human character. Humility does not come naturally or easily to any of us, I believe. Just think of soccer games: we love to win, we hate to lose. Or verbal arguments: we love to be right, we hate to be wrong . Or school grades: we love to be the best, we think something is wrong with us if we are not. Or road rage: we want to get anywhere faster than everyone else. Or for women and girls, if we are not a size four, with pearly white teeth and silky hair, we are made to think that we are not what a woman should be. Or for men and boys, if we are not muscular and athletic, we are made to think that we are not real men.

Not only within ourselves do we have these compulsions to be the best, the brightest, the fastest, to attain to some idealized and false notion of what is attractive and what it means to be a man or a woman, but we are also bombarded by our culture with notions of competition, ambition, and self-assertiveness as laudable, commendable, desirable--as virtues. Oh yes, and the other great ground of competition and ambition that I neglected to mention is work - our jobs, our profession. Humility is not valued by our culture; we could even say that it is considered a debility. Thus Thomas Merton was moved to observe, "Humility is a virtue, not a neurosis."

Listen again to the definitions of humble and humility: "having or showing a consciousness of one's defects or shortcomings, not proud, not self-assertive, modest, unpretentious, unassuming; absence of pride or self-assertion."

What are we to do with today's gospel, my friends? "Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest....learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls."

I am going to be frank with you. This is where the rubber meets the road in the Christian life, in the journey of faith. Humility is an acquired virtue, and it requires living close to the heart of God--years of living close to the heart of God. Because the heart of God is humility, and if we do not desire humility, if we resist the model and teaching of Jesus, then we will stay far from God, we will not find God. We will never be happy, we will never know joy, we will never know peace, we will never be at rest. We will never live in the truth, we will never be secure - in ourselves because of God's love for us.

How do we get there? Well, it is a daily struggle for me and for the people I know who have embraced humility, it is a daily struggle for them. Chapter Seven of the Rule of Benedict lists twelve steps on the ladder of humility. I will share with you a couple of the ones that have become most helpful to me.

Benedict writes, "The first step of humility....is that we keep the fear of God always before our eyes and never forget it. We must constantly remember everything that God has commanded...while guarding ourselves at every moment from sins and vices of thought or tongue, of hand or foot, of self-will or bodily desire..." This is a tall order. It means beginning every day and being mindful throughout the day that God is beside us, that he is conscious of our every act, our every thought, our every word. It requires us to fan the flames of our love for God, to ask ourselves, who do we desire more to please? God, or others and ourselves when what they want or what we want is opposed to God? It requires us to ask, what will further the cause of God in this situation and what will hinder it? Do I want to be God's vessel, or an obstacle in his path? Sometimes this is as simple as not becoming irate or impatient with the new clerk at the grocery store who hasn't learned the codes for vegetables or how to work the cash register promptly. Can we have patience? Can we have compassion? Can we simply be kind rather than angry, or gruff, or curt? (If the grocery store example does not work for you, then think of driving, being on the road.) Let us not fool ourselves. Our characters, the habits of our hearts, get molded and formed in just such mundane and everyday trials. And it is remembering God, being conscious of him and his presence all the day long that enables us more and more to negotiate such trials in serenity and peace and patience. If we negotiate these small trials daily with a consciousness of God and his presence, then we will find ourselves much better equipped to negotiate the greater trials of our lives in patience and trust. I can guarantee you one thing from personal experience. You will feel better when you leave the grocery store if you summon God's help for patience and kindness and understanding than if you do not. "Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

"The second step of humility is that we love not our own will nor take pleasure in the satisfaction of our desires; rather we shall imitate by our actions that saying of Christ's: "I have come not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me."

This is a hard one for us, my friends, but let me tell you, is it ever liberating! There are several keys to putting this into practice and to accepting its wisdom. We first must come to trust in our hearts that God's will and God's plan for us is better than anything we could dream up. It requires an opening of our hands and a willingness to accept our lives and our identity from the hands of God. It requires an acknowledgement that we do not always know what is best for us, and that God doesn't just work through us, but through others for our good. So we are not in control and we do not need to think or act as if we are in control. We are free to receive the meaning, the shape, and the events of our lives from the hands of God.

A couple of months ago, I wrote to Sister Sarah at the Benedictine monastery in Normandy where I spent my sabbatical, telling her when I would be coming for my annual retreat. But not only that, I told her where I wanted to stay, the schedule I wanted to keep, and what I wanted to study. I mailed the letter. The next morning I woke up filled with remorse and immediately wrote her a "declaration of repentance" as she called it, asking her to forget all the desires I had expressed because "I did not want to do my own will but the will of the one who loves me." So, I was putting the plans for my retreat in the hands of God by way of her and Mother Prior, and what they thought would be best for me. In her next letter Sister Sarah admitted that she laughed to herself when she read my "declaration of repentance". She wrote, "Pamela, God and Benedict do not forbid us from expressing our desires, indeed God knows the desires of our hearts already. We are simply to express them, but then let them go, entrust them to God, entrust ourselves to God, disencumber ourselves of our desires so as to be able to receive gladly and freely what is then given to us." I pass her wisdom along to you. It is extraordinarily liberating to say what one thinks, to articulate what one desires, honestly and without pretension to God and to others and then to let it go, to be indifferent, unattached, to what is decided or what comes to be, trusting that God is working and we do not have to control our lives or the lives of others. I can also tell you this from experience: letting go of one's own will and desires and expectations is not only liberating, it allows God room to surprise us with things that are better than our own will or desires or expectations. It gives God room to work. But most importantly, it is the model of our Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Father, if it is your will, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I want, but what you want."

If you are weary, if you are carrying heavy burdens, if you are feeling the oppression and the pressure and the stress that come from competition, greed, anger, and self-assertiveness, try the medicine of humility. It is not a neurosis. It is the divine remedy for what ails us. It frees us from ourselves and our interior compulsions--the compulsion to prove ourselves; the compulsion always to be right; the compulsion always to be better than others, academically, professionally, athletically, physically; the compulsion to judge others, and to compare ourselves with others.

We are the beloved of God. He has made us his sons and daughters. We have no need to prove our worth to others or ourselves. Indeed, we cannot prove it. He has given us our worth, and we ascend to him through humility. Come to him. Learn from him. You will find rest and freedom and healing for what ails you. Amen.

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