Humble Yourself Before The Lord
We hear the same message today from both the prophet Sirach and from Jesus in the Gospel of Saint Luke. Sirach encourages us to “Humble yourself and you will find favor with God,” while Jesus says, “The one who humbles himself will be exalted.” During this past week, as I pondered these scripture passage I began wondering what it looks like to humble oneself? That made me think of a story, a true story that I came across on a YouTube video. During our Holy Father’s recent trip to South America, during the end of his visit there, he rode along on his Pope-mobile, surrounded by his security detail on foot. The Holy Father waved to crowds of people lined up along the route of his motorcade. Suddenly a little boy appeared from the crowd. He began running after the Pope’s vehicle, waving his arms and shouting out for the Holy Father. When the Pope saw him he had his driver stop the vehicle and instructed one of his bodyguards to lift the boy from the street, up to him. As the little boy was lifted, he threw his arms around the Holy Father’s neck and hugged him as tightly as he could, as if he had found his long lost grandfather. The Pope returned his hug and then he kissed the child on the forehead. The boy looked into the Pope’s eyes and said, “I want to be a priest when I grow up!” The Holy Father smiled warmly at the boy and said, “My child, today your future is set!” Then he lowered the boy back into the hands of the security guard, who gently put him back upon the asphalt. When the Pope’s vehicle began to move again, the little boy chased it up the road, waving his arms and shouting out for the Holy Father.
That, I believe, is what it means to humble oneself before the Lord. Just like the boy, we must be willing to throw caution to the wind, step away from everything that is hindering us, and pursue the Lord, calling out to Him, and wanting to be with Him. Yet, unfortunately, we often are content to sit and wait for the Lord to come to us, but think of the possibilities when it is we, and not the Lord, who is doing the pursuing.
You know, Jesus came into the world to proclaim the Good News, what we call the Gospel, which fundamentally rests on the necessity that we humble ourselves before the Lord, so that God in turn might give to all of us everything he has to give. When we humble ourselves before God, He in turn, in His love and mercy, gives us blessings in abundance!
When we stop and consider it, the Gospel can be boiled down into four simple ideas:
- That God created you. Think of how wonderful that is! It means that you are unique, gifted, and destined for godly things.
- That God loves you. Again, how wonderful that is! That He loves you no matter what. He loves you with such an intensity and a depth of feeling that it proves how infinitely valuable and unique you are.
- That God wills to save you.
- And that you will be saved if you simply humble yourself and run to him.
These four – two of which we must accept and one we must do – is what the Church calls the “universal salvific will.” That’s a high flying way of saying that God wills to save everyone, no matter who they are.
Jesus had his own way of saying that. He said, “Do not think that I have come into the world to condemn the world,” No, he said, not that, but “I have come into the world so that all might have life…” But not ordinary life, sisters and brothers, but that we might “have it to the full.” Isn’t that simply amazing? That’s Jesus’ way of referring to the “universal salvific will.”
Remember that Jesus assured us that everyone who comes to him will be accepted and that he will not turn away anyone who comes, no matter who they may be, or what they may have done. He reassures us in the Gospel that all who come belong to Him and that we are safe with Him because “there is no snatching out of my hand.” Not all the world can take us from Jesus once we’ve humbled ourselves before Him.
Remember to how Jesus dealt with really sinful people. Not the ordinary sinners like all of us, but the really notoriously sinful people – tax collectors (today’s profession is honorable, but it was not so in the time Jesus lived), thieves, murderers, prostitutes and even the religious fakes. How did he treat these? He treated them with gentleness, understanding and kindness. He acknowledged their faith and helped them build upon their good intentions. It does no one any good to concentrate on what other people lack. We only end up beating people over the head with their sinfulness if we approach things that way. Yet, when we look at Jesus, he was someone who could look inside a person and see what there was to work with. Consider the tax collector who climbed a tree to see Jesus, or the woman of poor reputation that came into a dinner party and cried at Jesus’ feet, or the Centurion who sought Jesus’ help for his slave. All these came with faith. It wasn’t fully-formed faith, but it was faith nonetheless. Or consider the woman caught in the act of adultery. She was thrown at Jesus’ feet and how did he deal with her? Well, after everyone else left them alone he refused to condemn her. Why? For he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save it. He did however tell her to reform her life and turn away from the behavior that landed her in so much trouble. That, and many more, are clear expressions of the “universal salvific will” in action.
Sisters and brothers, if we will but humble ourselves before the Lord – if we will be like that little South American boy, and throw caution aside and run toward the Lord – he will, as did the Holy Father, stop, turn toward us and lift us up into His arms. And then He will say to us, each and every one, “My child, today your future is set.”