Humiliation Galore
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
I was reading a book recently and
the author (Richard Rohr) said that he prays to God for one humiliation every
day. I enjoyed most of the book and it was
not an easy book to enjoy. It was about suffering and what we can learn from
suffering. When I got to the part about
humiliation, I started to struggle with the book a little more. I understand that humility is a wonderful
trait to have and it is certainly one that is important to have as Christians,
but humiliation? The author’s
perspective was that humiliation is an opportunity to learn something about who
we are, deep down underneath it all—underneath the veneer that we hope other
people will see. The way that we respond
to humiliation can say a lot about who we are.
We can respond by getting angry and lashing out at people. We can shut down and give up. Or we can take
a step back and ask ourselves why that thing humiliated us and what it means
for us as followers of Christ.
On my first Christmas as a deacon, I
read the Gospel for the first time. I
had practiced…a lot. I said the word
Quirinius (Governor of Syria) about 100 times.
I was ready. But for some reason
I could not get my microphone to work. I
spoke as loud as I could but I was convinced that no one heard me, which meant
no one heard the Gospel. I was sure I
had ruined Christmas and the rector would hold this against me forever. I know it does not sound humiliating, but it
was for me. That was all I could think of for the rest of the service. As you can imagine, it turned out fine. I was loud enough and Christmas was not
ruined.
In some ways, knowing that it was
not a big deal hurt my pride more. My
big moment and it did not make a difference to anyone whether the mic was on or
not. In the end, it was an important
lesson for me as an ordained person. It
reminded me that it is not about the person speaking; it is about the words and
who those words come from. I could give
you any number of examples of little humiliations that I have learned from…but
definitely not one a day. That seems
extreme.
When we talk about Jesus, especially
in the washing of the feet, we talk about humility. We don’t normally talk about humiliation,
perhaps because that word has such negative connotations. He was
and is the most powerful entity in the world and he constantly had to defend
himself and explain his motivation and his actions. He had to let other people tell him what to
do. He let his own disciples deny,
betray and abandon him. For most
important and powerful people, any one of those things would be a huge blow to
their ego. It did not seem to faze
Jesus, at least not in terms of his pride.
In fact, it was as if he welcomed these opportunities for humiliation. For him, they were not humiliations. They were
opportunities to display love, a love that was sacrificial, a love that was not
about what he would receive in return.
I have often pondered what the
difference between humility and humiliation is.
Even when you look it up, you get different interpretations from
different sources. Most people would say
that humility is a good thing while humiliation is almost entirely bad. What I
find interesting, is that they have the same Latin root. The meanings are not really
that different.
The Gospel of John is unique in many
ways. In the scene describing the Last
Supper, Jesus does not take bread and tell the disciples that this is his
body. He does not take the wine and tell
them that this is his blood. Instead, he
used an entirely different representation of love. He took off his outer robe
and tied a towel around his waist. Then
he washed his disciple’s feet. This in
and of itself, is humiliating enough. Servants
were the ones who were supposed to wash feet.
But here he was, God in human form, washing the feet of his
disciples. What made it worse was that
he was washing the feet of Peter who he knew would deny him. He was washing the feet of Judas who would
betray him in a matter of minutes. He
knew exactly what was going to happen.
He knew that all of these people would turn their backs on him. He chose to wash their feet. Was that humility or humiliation? In retrospect it was an act of humility. Yet most people, had they been in that time
and place and known the circumstances, would have perceived it as
humiliation. What kind of God kneels
before peasants and washes their grimy feet? It was also humiliating for the
disciples. This was a man who they
respected and admired and now he was touching their feet. In doing so, it was as if he was seeing through
the veneer. He saw the unclean parts of
their soul. I know this discomfort can’t
be that hard to imagine for those of you here tonight. Very few people come up to have their feet
washed. It’s embarrassing. It’s
uncomfortable. I get it.
Yet for Jesus, this was such an
important act, that he asked his disciples to wash one another’s feet. “For I have set you an example, that you also
should do as I have done to you. Very
truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are
messengers greater than the one who sent them.
If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” This is what Jesus told his disciples. He did not ask them to drink wine and eat
bread. He asked them to wash one
another’s feet. It was not enough to
understand the idea of love or humility.
“…you are blessed if you do them.”
What liturgy allows us to do is to
experience parts of our faith in a more tangible way. We don’t just say things. We do them.
So you can ponder humility, humiliation and love, or you can wash
someone’s feet or have your own feet washed.
And if you are just not going to do it, think of another way you can
humiliate yourself in the next 24 hours.
Don’t just think about it. Do
it. Then learn from that humiliation and
remember that our Lord Jesus Christ died in one of the most humiliating ways a
person could die. Most other things seem pretty small in comparison.
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