Proper 21, Year A                                                                    Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
September 25, 2005                                                                 Psalm 25:3-9
St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church                               Philippians 2:1-13
The Rev. Linda McCloud                                                          Matthew 21:28-32

The Humility of Christ Jesus           

            We all probably know that nothing helps our humility like humiliation.  I got a good dose of humiliation recently at the Fall Clergy Conference at Honey Creek.  I’d like to claim that the incident was not my fault -- that the tree was leaning and was in my “blind spot” as I backed my car out of its parking space.  But the bottom line is that it was my fault.  I backed right into a tree.  I might have been able to keep it really quiet.  The damage wasn’t very noticeable.  But in fact I backed into that tree right in front of two other priests.  There was no hiding it.  It was humiliating.  The person at my insurance company asked, “Were you hurt?”  “No.” I said. “But my pride was wounded.”   

            Before we go any further, let’s take a look at the words “humble” and “humility.”  These words have their roots, so to speak, in the Latin word “humus” which means “ground” as in “earth.”  On Ash Wednesdays, we get the reminder:  “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  And we respond:  “Amen.”  On that occasion, we get close to the ground.  We get into our most honest relationship with God. 

            When we say that someone is “grounded,” we might mean that they know who they are and that they are behaving in like manner.  Theologians speak of being grounded in God.  They speak of God as the “ground of our being.”  It’s all about humility and knowing who we are in relation to God.            

            Today’s scriptures are all about relationships.  In healthy relationships, we take full responsibility for our own actions.  Humility means taking the blame for our failures and taking the credit for our successes.  Our scripture reading from Ezekiel says we have no one but ourselves to blame for our behavior.  When we don’t take responsibility for our own behavior, the Prophet calls on us to repent.  We have heard repentance defined as turning around, making a one-eighty.  I have another pet definition for repentance which I found in the writings of Thomas Keating, monk and priest.  Keating says that repentance is “changing the direction in which you are looking for happiness.”  It takes a lot of humility to repent – to admit we are wrong – and then to change our behavior – to change the direction in which we are looking for happiness. 

God is all about relationships.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are constantly in Trinitarian relationship.  The Three Persons of the Holy and Undivided Trinity are always facing toward each other.  This is how Jesus could claim unbroken relationship with God the Father, even though Jesus was on earth as a human being.  The mystery is too great for any of us to explain.  We can only explore the depths of it.  We can only attempt to have an open relationship with God in which we are always facing toward God and not turning away from God.   

            Sin – our turning away from God – is what separates us from God.  When Jesus died on the cross to reconnect us to God, Jesus took that sin and separation upon himself to the point that it seemed that God had forsaken Jesus.  When we sin, especially knowingly, we turn our face away from God.  God is always looking for us to turn our face toward him and enter into the joys of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God.     

Theologian Mark McIntosh says, “Jesus on the cross is God finding us in all our brokenness and isolation and coming to be with us in an irreversible and liberating way.”[1]  St. Paul put it like this:  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (II Corinthians 5:21)  When we accept the restoration offered to us through Christ’s death on the Cross, we are restored to fellowship with God and become truly ourselves.  This allows us to walk in humility – knowing who we are in relation to God. 

            As a religious virtue, humility means walking a balance beam between thinking too highly of ourselves and not thinking highly enough of ourselves.  It means knowing our capabilities as well as knowing our limitations.  If we do not assess our capabilities fairly and fully, we are in danger of having “false humility” which is closely akin to pride.  The danger is not so much in thinking too highly of ourselves, but in not thinking highly enough of ourselves.    

            Humility, in essence, is an honest appraisal of ourselves – a sober assessment of who we are.  Humility is closely akin to meekness, which I like to define as “power under control.”  A thoroughbred race horse in full gallop at the Kentucky Derby is power under control, because it has been “meeked” to obey its trainer.  For Christians, humility means being submissive to God – being “meeked” to obey God. 

            If you look up humility in the dictionary, you might find Jesus’ picture as an illustration.  Jesus is fully God and fully human, and he never denied being who he is.  But to more fully identify with us humans, Jesus humbled himself.  He got close to the ground.  Although Jesus suffered humiliation, nobody humbled Jesus.  Jesus humbled himself. 

            The first way in which Jesus humbled himself was by being born into the human family.  In his birth he fully subjected himself to the mercy of human parents.  Tiny babies and small children are so vulnerable, so fully dependent.  Jesus volunteered to do that.  He was also born as a citizen of occupied territory, thereby subjecting himself to government powers as well as to religious powers.  Jesus volunteered to reveal God to us.  Jesus is the human face of God – the fullest revelation of God to human beings.  As human beings, the only way we can see our true selves in is relation to God who created us.  Jesus is the full measure of humankind by which we compare ourselves.  We are our completed selves only in Christ Jesus.  God’s grace and the Holy Spirit make up what is lacking on our part. 

            Another way that Jesus humbled himself was by being baptized.  Those coming to John the Baptizer were coming for a baptism of repentance.  Jesus was like us in all things except that he was without sin.  So why would Jesus come to John the Baptizer to get baptized?  One reason could be that Jesus was participating in the corporate repentance of his people.  Tax collectors and other sinners were getting baptized and so was Jesus.  Can’t you just see Jesus queued up in the line to get baptized?  I wonder who was in front of him and who was behind him.  Jesus was humbling himself to identify with his people.  Matthew’s Gospel devotes the entire third chapter to Jesus’ baptism.  Maybe that’s because Matthew was a baptized former tax collector.   

            Jesus humbled himself and became obedient . . . to the Father’s will . . . to death. In this way, Jesus voluntarily renounced his right to divine privilege.  Death is the final humiliation for anyone. Our Epistle today says that Jesus “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”  Crucifixion, as you know, was reserved by the Roman government for murderers, bandits, and pirates, but most often for those who rebelled.  It was a death designed to bring to its victims public shame and humiliation.  Jesus’ self-giving love brought him to this place.  He was showing the self-giving love of God to the world he had created.  This was how he would restore all people to himself.  Jesus was modeling the pattern of the Trinitarian God by giving himself – by facing towards humanity and becoming a part of it.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are constantly giving themselves to each other.  Their love spills over into the world in Jesus Christ.   

            Salvation is possible for us not because Jesus brought us helpful hints for happy living.  Salvation is possible for us because in Jesus, God bet the farm.  God risked being God by becoming human.  That’s why the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so important.  Jesus came through death, hell and the grave and thus showed us that he is capable of healing even the darkest parts of the human condition.  Because of Jesus’ humility to die and be raised from death, we need no longer be terrified into hiding from God.  We can embrace all that God has for us.  We can turn and face God.  We can seek our happiness from our relationship with God.   

            Because Christ Jesus humbled himself, God gives us many chances for relationship.  We have opportunities to repent, to take communion, and otherwise open our souls to God.  When we come to this altar for communion, we share in the humility of Christ Jesus.  When we do that, we can always be assured that God is at work in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.