Weekly Words

Humility

Humility is one of the most overused and misused words in our everyday discourse. Often we label anyone who is shy, soft-spoken, or insecure – humble. Even less compatible with humility are low self-esteem , low self-image, and low self-worth. Cornel West, in his book Restoring Hope, commented on humility in a conversation with historian James Melvin Washington and pastor James Forbes when he asserted, “You can’t have humility without confidence and security. If you’re insecure, you’re not going to be humble. In fact, it might make you sadomasochistic.” Though I knew he was on to something by connecting confidence with humility, it was difficult for me to wrap my mind around exactly what he meant.

As I was working on a sermon a few weeks ago, I was reading and re-reading a passage in Philippians chapter two. In the fifth through eighth verse it says, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself … and became obedient to the point of death.” Though this text is so rich with theological possibility and so eligible for theological disagreement, I believe that it provides a great road map to understanding the relationship between confidence and humility. The reason West argues that you are not going to be humble if you are insecure is because humility is a choice to not allow what is best and brightest in us and about us to consume our relationship to the world. However, if insecurity and low self esteem destroy our ability to cherish the good in us, we can never make the choice to be humble. Humility does not deny one’s greatness. In the midst of greatness, humility reminds us that we are still created to make a contribution to the world through service. In this passage, Jesus has every reason to make the world about him (he was made in the form of God), yet humility drives Jesus to exist for the world.

On one hand, being engrossed with ourselves makes it extremely difficult to submit ourselves to the kind of service that gives a contribution to the world. On the other hand, without the confidence and the security that God has equipped us with, we will not substantially impact our environment for the better. So I want to challenge those of us who have been giving false credit to others and ourselves for being shy, soft spoken, and insecure. I also want to contest those of us who have been giving ourselves too much credit by assuming the world revolves around us. Most of all, I want to encourage someone to make the choice of humility, not because you have to, but because the world needs you to. Ahhh, so there we have it – I am confident when I realize the world needs me, but my humility never allows me to think the world is about me.

Humbly in Christ’s Love,
Pastor B.A. Jackson