“If ignorance makes beasts of us, arrogance makes us like demons,” said Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.[1] It’s a chilling way to put it. It sounds these days like a warning.

The readings this Sunday are about humility, about not just the good of humility but the necessity of humility. True not just in the realm of religion, not just spiritually, humility is a virtue necessary in every aspect of life—for the individual, spiritually and morally, and for the collective, socially and politically.

Aristotle taught that the “good citizen should know and have the capacity both to be ruled and to rule.”[2] He wouldn’t have used the word humility, but that’s what Aristotle in a sense meant, to be the sort of person who has the moral capacity to lead as well as to follow. Incapable of such humility, especially if that person is a leader of any kind, bad things are sure to follow. As Cicero put it, “whenever rash and audacious men had taken the helm of the ship of state great and disastrous wrecks occurred.”[3]

Now that’s all I want to say about that. I am not talking about any one leader or politician but rather about too many of them to count. Anyway, I’m just reading off the warnings of history, hoping such ancient words don’t tell our future. And also, again anyway, I’m more worried about my humility and yours and ours together. The world’s arrogance I can do nothing about.

Spiritually and morally, humility is about recognizing a truth and power greater than oneself—God, ultimately. If civic humility is about being able to know when both to lead and to follow, spiritual and moral humility is about being able to know when to submit oneself not only to God but also to what is sometimes called tradition and authority.

Here’s where we talk about things like obedience. And yes, there are many distinctions to be made and cautions to be offered, but the basic point is that to be a humble person one must renounce the idea that the self is the final arbiter of truth, that it is I who decide what is true and what isn’t true, that it is I who judge the truth rather than that the truth judges me.

For unless a person dethrones himself or herself, to put it that way, one remains not only an arrogant and potentially dangerous fool, one also remains spiritually blind. That is, one is unable to see God or his truth at all; that is, whatever you see that you think is God is more likely a self-serving, constantly self-affirming idol—and, by the way, welcome to our contemporary religious world.

To see God, the true God and not some self-imaged idol, one must first become humble. Saint Augustine’s accounts of his own conversion repeatedly make this point. “For I in my pride was daring to seek what only a humble person can find,” he said.[4] What Augustine had to renounce was the sort of arrogance found throughout the Gospels, the arrogance that denied Jesus, that denied the very idea that a Galilean carpenter, no matter what he said or did, would ever be the Son of the Father. The Pharisees and Sadducees and others who denied Jesus denied him because they were certain they knew better, certain at least that they would know God’s messiah well before any of these peasants knew anything.

But even if they were intrigued by this Jesus of Nazareth, they still wouldn’t give in, for that would risk the judgement and scorn of one’s peers; as John put it, “for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”[5] And so they refused to submit to Christ, refused to be seen, refused to follow. Like me sometimes, like you sometimes too, perhaps; you know, those times when we feel we need to keep our Catholicism quiet—“for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”[6] This advice is not just about good manners; it’s about God and truth and Jesus Christ. Do I humble myself before God’s truth? Do I humble myself before Christ’s teaching? Do I humble myself before Jesus’s command to love, to share what I have with the poor and with my brothers and sisters? Do I humble myself before Christ’s command to forgive? Or do the cares of the world, or what others may think of me, sway me away from the obedience that I know will save me in the end and that may even make me genuinely happy in the meantime?

And which may even make me a better man for others, or a better sister. I’ve preached too long here, so I can only mention it briefly; but it’s pure truth. Isn’t it beautiful how humility makes a person truly charitable? “Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”[7] We know instinctively, don’t we, if we are even slightly moral, how beautiful this is? Anyway, this a profound and profoundly beautiful truth, the mystery of the unity of faith and love of God and neighbor. Of course, I could go on, and I want to, but we’ve got to go; so for now let’s just say this: let’s get low together and go together, humble and beautiful like this. For it’s the way of Jesus, the only way to eternal life. Amen.

[1] Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God II.4

[2] Aristotle, The Politics 1277b

[3] Cicero, On Invention 1.3.4

[4] Augustine, Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany 1.6

[5] John 12:43

[6] Luke 14:11

[7] Luke 14:13

© 2025 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield