文章基本信息

标题：Lost virtue
作者：Hanson, Mark S
期刊名称：The Lutheran
印刷版ISSN：0024-743X
出版年度：2004
卷号：Nov 2004
出版社：Augsburg Fortress Publishers

Lost virtue

Hanson, Mark S

God gives grace to the humble

Humility seems to have fallen on hard times. I am not certain when its decline began. A few generations ago, when psychology became a prevailing perspective on life, humility was criticized for contributing to low self-esteem. It is certainly not an attribute for survival in a competitive society.

Critics confuse humility-faith's response to being an unworthy recipient of God's grace in Christ-with being worthless. They overlook Jesus' words about the greatest commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind." And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

The daily struggle is between neighbor-love and a self-love marked either by pride or humility. Presbyterian pastor Frederick Buechner captures this tension: "Self-love or pride is a sin when, instead of leading you to share with others the self you love, it leads you to keep yourself in perpetual safe-deposit" (Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, page 73; HarperSanFrancisco, 1993).

I am persuaded by those who say humility is valued and expected in women. Often the result is self-deprecation and shame. This tragic consequence must be held in tension with claiming humility as a gift of the Spirit for both men and women.

Humility has not fared better as a quality esteemed in leaders or nations. Candidates and political parties seek to portray strength, resolve and decisiveness. Humility as a fitting response to the awesome tasks entrusted to the elected tragically seems absent. Humility also should mark our witness to what God is doing in our lives and ministries because of the world's complexity and because we cannot know for certain what God is doing.

All Saint's Day is a fitting time to reflect upon humility. Saints are forgiven sinners living by faith, witnessing to God's love, serving humanity, caring for creation. Tony Hendra captures this in Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul (page 4; Random House, 2004):

"Saints are driven to humbling themselves before all the splendor and horror of the world because they perceive ... something divine in it, something pulsing and alive beneath the hard, dead surface of material things, something inconceivably greater and purer than they."

A fitting last word: "Clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another for 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble'" (1 Peter 5:5b).