A cartoon read: "My sermon today is on humility, and in my opinion, it's one of the finest pieces ever written." Continuing our series on “How to face life’s challenges”, I come to Jesus’ teaching that we need to do so with HUMILITY. Jesus often talked about the need for this virtue. We heard today Jesus’ story of the religious man and the notorious traitor (for that’s how the Pharisee & Tax collector were seen in his day). They both went to prayer in their church building, but the prayers of the self-satisfied religious man didn’t get past the ceiling, whereas the repentance & humility of the tax collector were met with the mercy & forgiveness of God. So why did Jesus so praise humility?

1. Humility gives us the right perspective on life. We tend to think, don’t we, that our problems are all important. We are easily overwhelmed by life’s challenges. It will help us to see our situation in the light of God’s view of life, and by comparison with the needs of others. William Beebe recounts, “Theodore Roosevelt and I used to play a little game together. After an evening of talk, we would go out on the lawn and search the skies until we found the faint spot of light-mist beyond the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. Then one or the other of us would recite: "That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one billion suns, each larger than our sun." Then Roosevelt would grin and say: "Now I think we are small enough! Let's go to bed." (Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 3.)
If we add that perspective to Jesus’ great theme that God is our loving heavenly Father, we will be humble but hopeful that our problems are within the compass of God’s almighty power. As the author Madeleine L’Engle has observed, “We can be humble only when we know that we are God's children, of infinite value and eternally loved." But when we have that right humility we will see the challenges of life from the right point of view, which will help us face them. Here’s an amusing example: ‘A young woman went to her pastor and said, "Pastor, I have a besetting sin, and I want your help. I come to church on Sunday and can't help thinking I'm the prettiest girl in the congregation. I know I ought not think that, but I can't help it. I want you to help me with it." The pastor replied, "Mary, don't worry about it. In your case it's not a sin. It's just a horrible mistake."’ (Haddon Robinson, Preaching Today, Tape No. 80.)

2. Humility opens us to God’s resources. A second human tendency is to try to face life’s challenges in our own strength, using our own limited resources, instead of turning to God for his help which can so much better enable us to overcome our problems. It is told that ‘When as a young man Robert Morrison had first sailed to China, he was asked, "Do you really expect to make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese empire?" In reply, Morrison spoke more prophetically than he knew: "No, sir, but I expect God will."’ ("Hudson Taylor and Missions to China," Christian History, no. 52.) That’s the kind of humility which leads to God’s power being set loose to change the world for the better. Martin Luther is reported to have said, ‘God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him.’ (Martin Luther, "Martin Luther--The Early Years," Christian History, no. 34.)
When we humbly acknowledge our weakness and turn to God for his help, he can do amazing things, but we have to learn to get out of the way sometimes. ‘Humility is the key to experiencing God's power.’ (Jim Cymbala, Leadership, Vol. 14, no. 4.) This will also lead us to be more prayerful people, and that will make a huge difference to the way we cope with life’s challenges. Archbishop Joseph Bernardin has written, ‘If we are honest, we must admit that much of our time is spent pretending. But when we turn to God in prayer, we must present our real selves, candidly acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses and our total dependence on him.’ (Leadership, Vol. 3, no. 2.) Prayer is the key to unlocking God’s resources, which we need to successfully face life’s challenges.

3. Humility will change our priorities. There’s an African proverb which says, ‘Smooth seas do not make skilful sailors.’ We tend to look at the short term, but God is interested in forming our characters which are going to go with us into eternity. We need to be humble enough to let God have his way in our lives, which may well involve our facing difficult challenges. How do we judge success in life? Here are some wise words, ‘I think we need to be constantly reminded that Jesus, by the standards of cultural success models, was a miserable failure.’ (Gordon Mac Donald, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 2.) That’s part of Jesus’ point in today’s gospel story. People thought of the Pharisees as the success story, but the humble taxman was the success in Jesus’ eyes. Some of you like the writing of Max Lucado. Here are some wise words of his, ‘Someone can be a good third baseman, but not a good pitcher. If I'm called to play third base, I'm going to be the best third baseman I can be. It was a liberating moment when I realised I didn't have to be great at everything.’ (Leadership, Vol. 13, no. 3.) We need to be humble to come to that liberating realisation. We must allow God’s priorities to take hold of us, as we will be thinking next week, so we can be set free to be all we were meant to be. C.S.Lewis put it like this, ‘To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin; though we shall not be well so long as we love and admire anything more than we love and admire God.’ (“Mere Christianity. Christianity”)

4. Learn from children. On one occasion Jesus asked a child to stand in the middle of a group of his followers, and told them to learn from children the attitude of humble trust, which we need towards God, our heavenly Father. Today we are baptising little Andrea, who as yet is totally dependant on her parents, and who entrusts herself to them very simply. In baptism we shall entrust her to God, and her parents & godparents will make simple responses to express that trust. It takes a certain humility for us to learn to do that as adults, but it is the key to facing life’s challenges in the strength of God. John Bunyan, who wrote the great Pilgrim’s Progress said, ‘He that is humble ever shall have God to be his guide.’ So may we today ask God to help us be humble in the face of life’s challenges, so we see them from the right perspective, get our priorities right and are open to God’s resources.