By FR. MICHAEL P. ORSI
Few of us have servants these days, and it’s not just because they’re so expensive. Modern ideas about equality tend to make people uncomfortable with the idea of someone waiting on them hand and foot, doing things they would normally do for themselves.
This is why we often react negatively to certain Bible passages. An example is the scene in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus appears to be putting down His disciples as “unprofitable servants” who have done merely what they are “obliged” to do.
In actuality, the Lord is teaching them an important lesson about the virtue of humility, a virtue He holds in high regard. A few chapters later, He demonstrates humility in Himself when He washes their feet at the Last Supper.
Here in south Florida, where I live, we recently came face-to-face with humility. Hurricane Ian raged about us, devastating much of our community.
It was a leveling experience. We watched in powerless dismay as great Gulf Coast mansions with Jaguars in their garages collapsed under the wind and the rain and the waves just as did small inland condos or old orchard shacks.
It was a vivid demonstration of how little control we have over the world, a severe object lesson in humility.
Our egalitarian pretenses aside, it’s the concept of humility itself that makes us uncomfortable.
We human beings like to think we have the power to direct our own lives. That’s an illusion, of course. When we’re confronted by something like a hurricane, we realize how much of an illusion it is.
Short of those kinds of experiences, though, we work hard at convincing ourselves we’ve got it all together. We try to reinforce the illusion with such ideas as self-esteem, reveling in the thought that we’re “God’s gift.” The world is a better place because we’re in it, we believe.
This way of thinking is all too common. It’s taught enthusiastically in our schools — public, private, and religious. That it’s entirely bogus can be seen in the rates of suicide, depression, and other mental or behavioral issues plaguing the young people who are so deeply steeped in the notion.
It should be obvious that, while self-esteem may provide a certain shallow comfort, it indicates nothing about character. Criminals, dictators, and other very bad people often have high self-esteem, and it may be warranted. They can be very bright, talented, resourceful individuals.
But they’re still capable of doing horrible things. For what does their self-esteem count in judging the worth of their lives? Have they done what God would wish them to do? Is the world a better place because they were in it?
Humility, not self-esteem, is the foundation of character. Like Jesus’ disciples, we are called to be servants. And as servants (even “unprofitable” ones) we’re called to do certain things:
To Obey God’s Law. We live in a world that wants to make up its own rules and regulations, where everybody is a law unto themselves, even to defining their own reality (the current gender madness is a perfect illustration of that).
To Love our Neighbor. As Jesus said, echoing the Commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Opportunities to do that abound in our broken world, especially after the massive destruction of the hurricane. We are called to act on them.
To Be Charitable in Speech and Build People Up. This aligns with loving our neighbor; we should avoid gossip and the sort of harsh criticism that’s undeserved and unkind. People’s reputations are fragile and easily ruined. We must not make someone’s path difficult by putting unfair and unnecessary obstacles of distrust and suspicion in their way.
To Control our Passions. This includes more than just those sexual urges that come most readily to mind. We must restrain our urges to power, to wealth, to pleasure, to control other people. These things can too easily drive us, distort our relationships, destroy our lives.
Such are the obligations of a good servant, the signs of humility.
I once asked a Jewish friend why he always wears a yarmulke, the small skull cap one sees on the heads of observant Jewish men. His answer was enlightening: “To remind me that there is always someone above me.”
Humility.
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