Humility as the container of grace- Jeremiah 1
Humility as the container of grace
There is a pattern that
we often see when prophets first encounter God. First, God will call the
prophet. Then the prophet will protest that they should not be the one to do
what God is asking. God then reassures
them that He will be with them to help them carry out their task.
I find it
very interesting that these faithful people show a reluctance to respond to
God’s call. When God first calls Moses out of the burning bush Moses
responds, “Who am I that I should go
to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Ex 3:11); “What if they do
not believe me or listen to me … I have never been eloquent … I am slow of speech and tongue… Please send
someone else” (Ex 4:1, 10, 13). We see a similar reluctance from Jeremiah who responds to Gods call
saying, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young” (Jer1:6). In
addition to Moses and Jeremiah, we see this reluctance in the stories of Gideon,
Saul, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. We see this in the lives of saints as well. St. Augustine of Hippo was dragged
against his will to his ordination as bishop.
Certainly, being God’s prophet is a rare privilege, and so in
some ways reluctance is a bit of a surprising response. There can be a certain prestige to being a prophet. People listen
attentively to the prophet as they believe they hear messages from God spoken. If
the prophet is speaking positive words from God then the prophet is much loved
and respected. This desire to be regarded with honour and to have people’s
attention has sometimes led to the rise of
false prophets. False prophets speak the words people want to hear rather
than the words God wants to be communicated. They like the spotlight. False
prophets desire to please people. They speak falsely declaring peace when there
is no peace to be had. The desire to be held in high regard by the people as a
prophet who speaks the words of God can be powerful. Sometimes their desire to
please people overpowers their ability to give an accurate word from God.
Certainly there is a
positive side to being God’s prophet, but
there are also reasons people would not want to be a prophet. Quite
often they speak words from God that seem foolish. Their words sometimes go
against the grain. Sometimes the words
they speak are not pleasing to hear. Prophets often point out sin and
corruption that has been accepted as normal, or which is hidden. Sometimes they
are upsetting messages that point towards a coming destruction. Their message
is often countercultural. And because their message is not pleasing to the
people the prophet will sometimes be persecuted and rejected, sometimes even
killed. This might be why many of the prophets felt reluctant to accept God’s
call. The life of a prophet is not an easy life.
I sometimes think of the difference between true and false
prophets like the difference between
good acquaintances and good friends. Acquaintances want to make you feel
good and they usually want peace, so they will say nice things about you, or at
least they won’t say anything negative. They might even bend the truth a little
in order to make you feel good. It is kind. A good friend, however, will tell
you the truth- even if that truth is hard to hear. A good friend will encourage
you, but they will also give you a kick in the pants when you need it. And
speaking that hard word will be difficult for a good friend because they care
about you. An acquaintance might criticize you, but it doesn’t often involve
pain on their part. A good friend will tell you what you need to hear, but not
always what you want to hear. That is what a prophet will do. They will tell
you what you need to hear from God, but not necessarily what you want to hear.
The reluctance of the prophets to respond to Gods call might
have something to do with having to speak difficult words to people who would
rather not hear them. But, I think there is also something else going on here.
Numbers 12:3 says that “Moses was a very humble man,
more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth”. I don’t think
it is a coincidence that Moses was considered was both extremely humble and one
of the greatest prophets to walk the earth. There is something about humility that allows God to work through us in
particularly powerful ways.
As we read through the Bible there are certain general principles about God’s character
that are expressed. One of these principles is found in the book of Proverbs 3:34 “God opposes the proud, but
shows favour to the humble”. This begs the question, ‘what is it about humility
that matters so much?”
One way to answer this is to look at the opposite of humility, which is pride. The author C.S. Lewis said this about pride:
“There is one vice of
which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he
sees it in someone else; … There is no
fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more
unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we
dislike it in others.”[1]
Pride has been called the root of all Sin. It is that part of us
that turns away from God and rejects Him thinking we can do better on our own.
Pride is feeling better or more important than other people. Pride causes us to
use people for our own ends. It is essentially selfishness. It is pride that caused
Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. And It is pride that ultimately leads
us to all other sin. In stealing we think we deserve to have something someone
else has. In murder we believe we have the power to decide if someone should
live or die. In not honouring the Sabbath or our parents we believe we are
self-entitled and deserving of what we have received and so have no desire to
give thanks and respect. All sin has pride as its root.
If pride is where all sin originates, then it
makes sense that the opposite of pride, humility, would be the source of all
virtue. Humility is marked by selflessness, and
respect. Humility is not depression or self-hate. Humility is seeing yourself
clearly before God. Humility is being aware of your limitations and sins, but
it does not mean rejecting your strengths. It means the reason you do something
is less about you and more about others. Humility is recognizing that we are creatures-
created by an amazingly wise, powerful, and loving God. Humility is recognizing
that we are His and that He knows how best to live and that He deserves our
love, respect, and service. Humility is
the natural position of the human heart in the presence of God.
Christ was the perfect
example of humility.
He is the King of kings, but was born as a human baby to poor parents and laid
in an animal’s feeding trough. Christ
did not deny the reality of who he was. He did not have low self-esteem or
pretend he wasn’t the son of God. Humility is seeing yourself accurately. That
is how Jesus can say “before Abraham was, I AM” (Jn 8:58) and ay in the gospel
according to Matthew (11:29), “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I
am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls.” There is no contradiction between his knowing he is the son of God and
being humble. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians Christ’s humility is set as
an example for us (Phil 2:8)- “being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a
cross!” Jesus selflessly places the good
of others and the glory of God before his own wellbeing and comfort. Jesus also instructs we who would be students
saying (Matt 23:12) “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those
who humble themselves will be exalted.” Jesus exalted humble
fishermen and tax collectors and made them his apostles. He ate with outcasts
and those on the fringe of society. Jesus valued humility greatly and so did
his early followers.
St. Paul says (Romans 12:3) “Do not think of
yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober
judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
Paul is teaching us to see ourselves accurately. The development of humility
was extremely important for the early church.
The pursuit of
humility has been a major pursuit by Christians throughout history. It is
the historic belief of the church that humility
is essential for a person to be used by God in a powerful and ongoing way.
So Christians have sought to purify their hearts and minds from egotistical
actions and desires so they can better be used by God and so they can be drawn
closer to Him. Through a variety of practices,
like prayer and fasting, Christians have
sought to learn that they are completely reliant on God for their existence.
They want to live in that knowledge at all moments. Of course the Holy Spirit
is already working in us to draw us to humility, but this is where we can be
effective with our effort. When we work with the Holy Spirit and allow
ourselves to be made humble by the Spirit we will become like someone kneeling before God with our hands open and
empty. When our hands are not full of our own ego then God fills them.
It is this empty-handed humility that we see in Jeremiah and that is why God can use
him so effectively. If Jeremiah was made to be a prophet, but was full of his
own pride, then it would be easy for him to not hear God and hear his own
desires instead. If he was full of his own pride, then he might use God’s
message to gain wealth or prestige instead of glorifying God and calling people
to serve Him. If God was to try to use Jeremiah when he was full of his own
egotistical desires, then he would not be able to handle the desire to misuse
God’s power living in him. Only a humble self-less person is capable of having
God’s power dwelling in them and not being overcome by the desire to twist that
power to their own ends.
The philosopher Peter
Kreeft said it this way, “Spiritually,
our strength is our receptivity, our active passivity to God, our emptiness …
if we come to God with empty hands, he will fill them. If we come with full
hands, he finds no place to put himself. It is our beggary, our receptivity,
that is our hope.”[2]
Jeremiah’s reluctance is evidence of his
humility. Jeremiah
recognized his humanity before God’s power. Jeremiah knew his people and knew
that God would ask him to do something that was not in his power to accomplish.
Jeremiah knew that he had nothing to accomplish the task. Only God’s power
working through him could do what God was asking.
It is the way of God to
use the humble to do great things- To use a shepherd boy who was the smallest of his brothers
to be the greatest king of Israel- To take a group of slaves and make them His
chosen people- to use fishermen and tax collectors to be his apostles- to use a
man on a cross to bring salvation to the world. I wonder what God could do with
little St. Timothy’s church in Edmonton?
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