Humility is not our favorite virtue. We (21st-century, North American Christians) favor the others: kindness, hope, courage. Intuitively, they feel like attributes to be added to our personalities, traits to be cultivated through trial and error, and frankly — values that we translate more easily into the language of king and country. Humility is different. We suspect that it’s about becoming small, less valuable, weak, or even untrue to who we are and what we count as strengths. I remember teaching an adult education class in my former context, and when the conversation turned to humility, a gentleman in the back snorted and then explained, “I don’t like door mat Christianity.”

We don’t know what to do with humility. It’s centrality to the Gospel of Jesus Christ — and our discomfort with it — almost begs the question: would we actually choose this religion if we got to choose?

In his book, Befriending Silence: Discovering the Gifts of Cistercian Spirituality, Carl McCollman says part of our problem with humility is that we’ve confused it with humiliation:

“...few Christian values have fallen further out of favor in our aggressive, competitive society. The very word seems weak, dysfunctional, or denigrating. Just as obedience has become equated with submission so humility appears to be the same as humiliation, which no one thinks of as a virtue.”

He wonders whether humility is, after all, a form of selfhatred. And he goes on to ask the question that was, perhaps, close to the heart of the gentleman in my former congregation who said “NO” to being a doormat: “We regard humility with distrust because we suspect the idea has sometimes been used to oppress people or to describe a kind of passivity that may not be particularly praiseworthy.”

Do you recognize yourself in that distrust?

McCollman goes on to remind his readers that the word “humility” comes from the Latin word humilis, meaning “on the ground.” Going back further, it relates to “humus,” meaning “earth” or “soil.” There is something very earthy about humility.

It reminds me of the second creation story in Genesis. Scooping it up in a handful, God took dust and formed a man, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

Could it be that humility is about getting all earthy again? Not small, not less valuable, not helpless, but moldable? Closer to God? In need of God’s breath moving through us?

It’s the humility that the Apostle Paul describes as the cornerstone of Christ Jesus’ essence and way:

“...though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

In a dramatic reversal of the ancient garden scene, where a “down-to-earth” Adam and Eve don’t stay down for long, Jesus freely surrenders. Where our foremothers and fathers misused their freedom and their ability, desiring and even attempting to “become like God,” Jesus remained moldable, close to his creator, in need of God’s breath — even when it meant doing things that would get him in trouble, even when it set him on a difficult course. The culmination of that course — the beginning of the end — is what we mark when we celebrate Palm Sunday, or Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

Though our own humility will not — God willing — require the course that Jesus’ life took, it does and will demand a like-surrender: can we put aside our pride and learn afresh from God every moment of every day? If we do, we will find ourselves in the company of Jesus, and there will be moments from his life that we find reflected in our own.

Are we ready to grow down? Into our dustiness? Into God?