Humility and Lent

Today I had a psychological evaluation. It’s one of the many important steps in discerning a vocation in the Church of England. One step at a time, working towards studying and then being ordained a priest.

I didn’t quite know what to expect. I was hoping for a lie detector so I could try and create elaborate stories and see if I could outwit the machine. I was, sadly disappointed. No machines. No electric helmet. No cattle prods. Just a very sombre German man in an armchair asking me a lot of questions.

One thing I am beginning to understand about this process of discernment is that you have to talk a lot about yourself. Over and over again with different accessors, they all probe and poking to see the real you. Beneath the mask, as it were.

I am however profoundly surprised that even as I am asked the same question for the 100^th time, there is always a moment where a choice is laid before me.

I imagine Morpheus from the film the Matrix, hands extended with a blue pill in one and a red in the other. But in this scenario, the choice is put before me: ‘Do I want to remain shallow? Do I want to give an answer that is easy, satisfactory, and keeps me safe. Or do I want a tougher road. One that cracks me open and asks more of myself than perhaps I am able to give? Do I choose certainty or do I choose the wilderness – unsafe, but magical.

Do I choose to dive as deep as I can into my being and their then sit there for a while in the darkness?

We are in lent. A time of journeying with Christ in a wildness of choices and questions that examine our souls. Christ’s outstretched hand takes ours and we fall headfirst into the unknown.

How much will this journey change me? Am I strong enough? And if I make it, I don’t think I will be the same.

If I said the word Humility to you, what comes to mind? Take a second. Humility?

One of its definitions is this: In its essence, it recognises one’s strengths and weaknesses without feeling superior to others.

Humility…

At the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, ashes are applied to our foreheads in the form of a cross, and the words are said, “From dust we are made and to dust we shall return.”

Let me be clear. This isn’t a reflection on value. What you are worth is not tied to the transient nature of our earthly being –  this being ‘of dust’. But rather the humility of understanding that we are not of this world and all the power systems that would attempt to consume us and to bind us to it.

Or as Julian of Norwich puts it – “Knowing the Truth of being loved rather than the obsession of unworthiness”

This morning, we all awoke to another day of bombing, raids, war, violence, theft, and genocide on our planet. The cycle doesn’t end. And it is growing ever harder to keep up with all the lies we accept about our neighbours; all the ways in which we ‘other’. And the times each of us own the pain of looking the other way.

Our world has abandoned the idea of humility, of asking ourselves where we have fallen short. And instead, we point the finger at each other, in an attempt not to face the inward spaces of ourselves.

The problem is this. Humility cannot exist in a place where another’s sin is greater than yours. Humility cannot exist in a space where I hold another outside of the grace of God’s forgiveness. Humility and forgiveness are different sides of the same coin. We cannot ask for forgiveness if we are unable to admit we need it. And to be a people of humility we cannot withhold forgiveness from ourselves or from others.

If we are unable to learn this lesson. If we are unable to reject our ego, pointing our finger at one another. we will continue to hold each other apart, creating a void where reconciliation is impossible. A barrier that cannot focus on anything but our differences and that which makes ‘the other’ a threat.

The truth is, this whirlwind, this tornado that we see each day on waking up, where “seeing” each other, where understanding one another, is deemed dangerous, is a farce. A farce that begin to sell us a lie. A farce that tells us we are somehow not all of flesh and blood, divine and loved by the same God. And this farce, this lie, the one that seperates, destroys, ‘others’, and manipulates the truth, becomes a breeding ground for hate.

We see this hate all around us. A hate that builds walls. This hate that convinces our ego that we are different from each other.

I was reading our gospel verse today and the reading from Great Expectations. Observing both the pharisees and Miss Haversham. It’s striking that both wore particular clothing that conveyed a sense of self-righteousness, of law and culture, rooted in time, woven into a rich tapestry and but devoid of humility and forgiveness. A place where their faith had turned into religion. A place where great expectation of what could be, turned into exclusion and death. A starting place of hope and possibility, now distorted into separation and segregation.

The warning of the gospel is clear. we must be a people of humility. Our world depends on it. We must learn that from dust we are and to dust we shall return.

We must start valuing one another above everything else in this life. Above what I deem to be right or wrong. Above the injustices carried out against me. Above the unforgiveness. Above the pain. Above the false theology of rigid graceless morality. Above my unworthiness masquerading as exclusion.

My favourite passage of the bible is 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, commonly known as the “Love Chapter” in the Bible. And the reason for my admiration is that it doesn’t just tell you what true love looks like, but it defines love. Not just as an emotion, but as action. And at one point it says, “Love does not insist on its own way.”

This breaks me apart in the best of ways. It reminds me that the humility we are called to, the lesson of humility we must learn time and time again in our lives, is a call to live and love in a way that does not require anything in return. It is a love that flows outward. Forever humble. Forever forgiving.

God forgive us where our faith has calloused. Where we point the finger because we are too afraid to imagine that Your love it big enough for us all. Forgive us where we shut our eyes instead of seeing each other. Where we have refused to extend your love to our neighbour. Lead us to humility. Forgive us.

From dust we are, and to dust we shall return.

Amen.

For context, the gospel reading and first reading are below…

Gospel Reading: Matthew 23:1-12

First Reading – Excerpt of Great Expectations

“She was dressed in rich materials – satins, and lace, and silks – all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on – the other was on the table near her hand – her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass…

But… I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone.”