summary points on humility

Summary of the marks of HUMILITY

In the Jesus community, humility is a significant characteristic. In this text, humility calls us to

…engage seriously with Jesus about who we are and what we want. Humility seeks guidance. 

James and John ask for what they want.  Are we engaged with Jesus in personal and communal prayer and study?  Would anyone  out there know it?

…be honest with ourselves about ourselves. 

Are you able, asks Jesus….considering it, they say yes.

Are we honestly willing to go where Jesus goes? Can we rely on his presence instead of our own ability? Is this a mark of THIS Jesus community?

… lay aside our own desires for the sake of the one deep desire to know God and live the Jesus way

Jesus doesn’t try to take on what’s not his call.  He lets God be God and take care of the other stuff.  He is just not into position and privilege, but focused on his own mission.  Is this a Jesus community trying to take on too much?  What’s our call?

… let go our paradigm of power

The disciples are locked in conflict over place, position, status.  They have none of their own, for Jesus followers were pretty much from the bottom of the social heap.  They are locked into the empire system of hierarchy, and getting more means getting better.  Jesus says, ‘it will NOT be so with you.’

This was dramatically countercultural in Jesus’ day.  The Empire then, as now, relies on power, coercion and control to maintain dominance and prerogative.(Matt Skinner online)

It’s countercultural today as well. Our society’s way is status, rank and privilege.  Humility is a weakness. Servanthood is for folks we pay to do it. 

“It shall not be so with you”   We are called to be different.

… shift from an attitude of self to one of service

I’m not going to pretend this is easy.  We may not be crucified for it, but it IS a hard process; we have so much to change that is so ingrained in us. And change from the inside out is tough work.

A conversation this week about the current political scene and the role of the church, brought this clear to both of us in the conversation—the struggle for power is all about gaining the votes of those who will gain most by their candidate.  Who we vote for generally will be all about what’s best for us.  In our current reality, it really is all about me.

But the humility paradigm is different—what will be more likely to bring about the best for the worst off? 

The humility of serving one another, not just those in the Jesus community but serving ALL, says Jesus, calls for different thinking, different behavior, different ways of leadership.

Lastly, the characteristic mark of humility calls us to

…be freed from what enslaves us in order to serve instead.

Our text ends with Jesus’ own self-giving example…to give up life as a ransom for all.   Ransom is something paid to free a slave, to free us from what enslaves us.

In the Jesus community, the humility of knowing oneself demands we ask ourselves, what’s enslaving us?  From what do we need to be freed in order to really follow the Jesus way and really participate in a Jesus community?

Jesus shows us the way of humility.  Will we follow?