The Peripatetic Preacher Thinks About Humility

Because I am a United Methodist clergyperson, and have been for nearly 50 years, I am much concerned with the upcoming called session of our General Conference to be held in St. Louis at the end of February. At this meeting only one topic will consume the time of the delegates, namely what to do with our long-debated problems with human sexuality. Since 1972 we have had a contentious phrase enshrined in our Book of Discipline that serves as the constitution for the activities of all United Methodists, both lay and clergy. “Homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,” it states, and with that single phrase all subsequent General Conferences have wrestled mightily. The result has been sharp divisions and much expressed anger, both of which has led us to the February meeting. Now, in the way of United Methodism there is hardly any guarantee that the meeting will solve anything. Though it may well lead to a split in the denomination.

The purpose of this essay is not to rehash the ins and outs of the arguments that will be uttered in St. Louis next month. I have long made my opinion known about this matter: I have said for many years that I think the church is quite wrong in this matter. As I understand it, no person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought be denied the full acceptance of and inclusion in the church. Persons are to be ordained by dint of their call and their commitment, and their sexuality, if it is expressed in full devotion to one person, whether that person be of the same sex or the opposite sex, has nothing to do with it. The so-called “clobber” verses of the Bible have no effect in making this decision, since two things are true about the biblical verses that have been used to exclude same- sex relationships: first, the verses were written two millennia and more ago, and can have little to say in a modern world where we have learned vastly more about the complexities of human sexuality, and second, each of the seven verses may be heard in ways that do not in fact exclude any who would be faithful followers of God and Jesus. I have suggested that those who hide behind a restrictive view of the Bible’s comments are in reality disguising their own deeply held prejudices against those who are quite different from them.

Yet, too many of us talk as if we have the last word on these matters, including me. I readily admit that I have thought long and hard about the Bible’s supposed ideas in the matter of human sexuality, but I must also admit that the last word has hardly been said. I merely ask that those who disagree with me about this, and I have had more than a few heated discussions with them about this, would do well to admit the same thing; in short, they need to hear as do I what the furious Job thunders to his so-called friends after they have excoriated his opinions about God and the ways of the world for several painful chapters: “No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you” (Job 12:2)! No one of us has a corner on the market of wisdom, and that leads me to think about the meaning of humility.

I am led back to that very famous prophetic line from 8th century Micah, phrases most of us can surely utter by heart. “God has related to you what is good, O mortal! What does YHWH seek from you, except the doing of justice, the loving of unbreakable love, and the readiness to walk with your God” (Micah 6:8). You will of course note immediately that I have left out a treasured word from my translation of the lines. The reading “walk humbly” is traditional, but I fear that that reading is misleading in several ways. First, note a few of the English synonyms for the word “humble”: “modest, reserved, unpretentious, unostentatious, self-effacing, unassuming, submissive, meek, servile, deferential, subdued” among many others. I trust you can catch something of the tone of these terms; humble in our language has assumed the idea of submission, of servility. Well, you might say, is not that the way we should be in the face of God, meek and unassuming? I think not! The first two requests that God has for those who would do “what is good,” according to Micah, bears none of the flavor of such words. The doing of justice is an active and forthright commitment to the righting of wrongs, to leveling the playing fields of life, especially for those who need a leg up to make the good life possible. “To love chesed,” that Hebrew word that nearly defies translation, is to embrace a devotion and a commitment that is nothing less than God-like; in the same way that God refuses to break God’s covenant with us, so we are called by God to act in the same fashion with our fellow creatures in the universe, and I would say that includes human and animal and plant creatures as well.

To translate “walk humbly” may not be wrong exactly, but it does as I said mislead. The Hebrew adverb is quite rare; the root occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible, though also twice in the Apocryphal Book of Sirach. Perhaps only at Prov.11:2, the other use of the root, can we make some headway toward understanding. There the term is used as an antithesis to “presumption.” Thus, the person characterized by s’nua’ is one who is conscious of human limitations and may be said to be “modest and in control of oneself” (so Helmer Ringgren in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament). Such a reading may suggest one who is thoughtful, filled with genuine wisdom.

Thus, for Micah, the truly good man or woman does justice, embraces unbreakable devotion, and becomes thereby a thoughtful and attentive walker with God. I fear that “humble” smacks of servility and obsequiousness, ideas that will plainly not do for Micah, nor I think finally for us who seek true humility. We can be alert to our human limitations, yet not cease our diligent search for justice and God’s love. In that rich context, we may face our limitations with honesty, admitting what we do not finally know fully in the glaring light of the search for justice and love.

What then do I ask my colleagues who will deliberate in St. Louis next month? I would ask each of the delegates to deliberate in rich humility, seeking always for the justice and love of God, and echo those famous words of Oliver Cromwell when he memorably wrote to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland in 1650, “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ to think it possible that you may be mistaken!” May it be so!

(images from Wikimedia Commons)