Clothe Yourselves with Humility
James 4:6-12
Rev. Shannon Jordan
But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.’
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?
We are in a sermon series on clothing ourselves in Christian virtues. What is Christian virtue and why does it matter three weeks after a natural disaster? And this week is about humility—we may think we have more important things to worry about than being humble with all of the destruction and devastation around us.
Christian virtues are the character traits that Christians have that guide their moral compass—and allow us to speak, think, or act the way that God wants us to—to be more like Jesus.
The reality is that humility is so incredibly important when we are stressed—when things aren’t going our way—when things are hard. So try and stick with me. If you can’t, this sermon will be on YouTube and our website, so set a reminder on your phone to go back to it later!!! I was surprised for me how relevant and critical clothing myself with humility is—and how easy it is to overlook. It is the second most discussed topic in scripture behind love. We can’t fully love others, we can’t fully serve others, without humility. As soon as we love or serve others to make ourselves look good, or competent, or all together, or valuable, or needed, as soon as we do that, we are serving and loving from a place of pride and not humility.
CS Lewis says in his chapter on Pride in Mere Christianity, “According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”
And the last paragraph of his chapter is:
“If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell them the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.”
Hopefully you are wondering if you are prideful now. Before we get to humility, we have to understand the flip side of it, Pride. Pride in our context is a tricky word. Vanity is actually better. You can tell the difference between Pride and Vanity if you look at synonyms of the two words.
According to Google, synonyms of pride include: pleasure, joy, delight, gratification, fulfillment, satisfaction, dignity, honor.
Synonyms of vanity include conceit and self-conceit, narcissism, self-love, self-admiration, self-obsession, egotism.
The issue is when we let the parts of ourselves be the center of our worlds without restraint. We all have parts of ourselves, pockets of pride, that need to regularly be clothed in humility.
This morning we have one of the most pivotal passages as our affirmation of faith—Phil. 2. We will say that together in a bit.
All through scripture—not just our passage this morning.
Matthew 23:11-12: “The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted
Luke 14:11: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
1 Peter 5: Humble yourselves.
So many of the Proverbs talk about humility and the downfall of pride.
We see over and over in the gospels the pharisees and the religious elite being proud in the way they were sure they were right and how they weren’t willing to listen.
It is hard for us to grasp how Jesus’s understanding of humility was so different than the culture in his day. Then humility was knowing your rightful place in a very hierarchical society. Know who is above you and who is below you, and you act humble to those above you but you could mistreat those below you on the scale.
Jesus exploded that thought. Jesus mixed with people all over the social spectrum and Christians did too. We are to love one another. We are to submit, or be humble, to one another.
If we believe that being humble is important, and clearly writers from the New Testament to CS Lewis point to Christ as our model for humility. Where does God want you, Where does God want me, to be in our humility? Where are there pockets of pride in our lives and how do we clothe them in humility?
As I have reflected on this for the last couple of weeks, there are four questions we can ask ourselves to see where we have these pockets of pride in our lives.
First, what makes you happy, and why does it make you happy? Are you happy because of the joy it gives you, or, are you happy because of how others will see you as a result? Are you happy that you had a personal best in golf, or a run, or are you happy that you did better than someone else? Or are you excited to let others know how well you did? Will telling someone how well you did be about sharing joy, or one-upping? For Christians, we can slide into vanity over our spirituality, or our helpfulness, or our generosity. The question to ask ourselves is what if no one knew what we did? How good are we at doing random acts of kindness in secret?
Second, what makes us sad or angry? If the idea that “it isn’t fair” comes to mind, or “they should have_____” is the refrain, then likely there is some thought that we deserve to be treated better. Yes, sometimes we should be treated better, but we should also be very quick to give people the benefit of the doubt. I had submitted a prescription refill last week on my app, and it was supposed to be ready, but then it wasn’t going to be ready when I needed it. I went to the pharmacy in self-righteous anger at their poor customer service and not doing what they were supposed to do. When I got there a sign informed me about their computer issues. They did have my prescription, but their wifi went out and the computer turned off so they had my meds but didn’t know who it went to—I had time waiting to clothe myself in humility.
Third, what do we desire? There is a wonderful litany of humility in the Catholic Church—the prayer begins with you praying for Jesus to deliver us from certain desires that keep us from living humble lives– a prayer for Jesus to deliver us from the desire to be loved, praised, honored, preferred, consulted, approved.
Ouch.
Fourth, what do we fear? The litany continues asking for deliverance from fear of certain things: of the fear of being humiliated, despised, corrected, forgotten, mocked, or wronged. Of course, someone doing these things to us is wrong, but our fear of it shows areas of pride and our fear of these things can cause us to mistreat others, and can impact our relationships, keeping us from loving others the way that God wants us to.
Ouch.
Some signs that we can tell there are pockets of pride include
Who do we judge in a negative light?
How teachable we are.
Do we listen to others?
Do we show compassion?
Or are we sure we are right?
Do we know that our way is the best way?
Are we trying to fix or convince or change others because we know the best way? We know the right way?
What if we instead wondered if we could be wrong, or at least not all right?
What if we stayed open to others experiences, beliefs, and understandings?
What if we let someone with whom we disagree get the last word in? How badly would that hurt?
Where does God want you to clothe yourself with humility?
I do want to highlight something important. Being humble is not about sinking into “worm” theology. Where we see ourselves with shame and disgust at our shortcomings. Tim Keller often said about humility that it isn’t about thinking less of ourselves. We are beloved children of God, created in the image of God. It is about thinking about ourselves less.
There is incredible freedom in that. There is freedom in keeping our focus on God. There is freedom in not trying to keep others happy, to stop taking ourselves so seriously. This gives us space to pay more attention to others. To let go of envy and anger and hurt that are caused by vanity. To listen better, to love better, to give space to others.
A friend shared a prayer she would use before going in to teach elementary school to clothe herself with humility…
Not my words, but thy words.
Not my thoughts, but thy thoughts.
Not my actions, but thy actions.
Amen.