Suggested Readings: Joshua 5:9-12, Psalm 32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32
Humility, confession, forgiveness, and joy tie these passages together. Below we spend a little time focused on humility.
Novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch writes that “Humility is not a peculiar habit of self-effacement, rather like having an inaudible voice, it is selfless respect for reality and one of the most difficult and central of all virtues.” Echoing Murdoch’s first claim, C.S. Lewis explains that “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.”
Trappist monk Thomas Merton takes us further, writing that humility is a grace that “makes us realize that the very depths of our being and life are meaningful and real only insofar as they are oriented toward God as their source and their end.” Some of us may bristle at Merton’s transcendent focus, but perhaps that is because our view of God is too small and infused with too little mystery.
Humility is a precondition to true confession, to full forgiveness, and to deep joy found in our passages. Author Brian Doyle writes that:
Humility is the road to love. Humility maybe is love. That could be. I wouldn’t know; I’m a muddle and a conundrum shuffling slowly along the road, gaping in wonder, trying to just see and say what is, trying to leave shreds and shards of ego along the road like wisps of litter and chaff.
Doyle’s beautifully uncertain prose models humility for us.
In our Scripture passages, humility led the prodigal son home. Humility paved David’s path from murderer and adulterer to “man after God’s own heart.” Even Jesus “humbled himself” in submitting to a criminal’s death on the cross, becoming the proverbial Passover lamb and providing us with the ultimate example of humility. While humility may seem like losing our lives at times, the grace of humility can lead us along the road to real life and joy.
Haskell Murray
