Christian humility

Feast of Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen

As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.  Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.  Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah.  The greatest among you must be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.  (Mt 23:8-12)

It is very apt that we celebrate the feast day of St. Basil the Great today during the Christmas season.  St. Basil, who lived in the fourth century, countered the teachings of the Arians who believed that Jesus was simply a human being, albeit a very special human being, who could not possibly have a divine nature as this would imply more than one God.  St. Basil held firm to the belief in the Trinitarian God, constantly preaching and writing about it.

During this Christmas season, we celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world, God becoming man so that we might share in his divinity.  Who could have imagined such a gift?  And it was pure gift.  We didn't work for it, we didn't earn it; we didn't then; we don't now, and we will never deserve it.  It was a gift of God’s love, a gift of God’s mercy, pure and simple.

As St. Paul described to us in yesterday’s passage, through this gift, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God, heirs, if you will, of God’s kingdom.  This is incredibly magnificent.  What a gift!

Ironically, through this gift, God has lifts us higher than we were before the Incarnation, yet he also humbles each of us as He offers this gift to each and every human being, ignoring the false distinctions which we can make among ourselves.  To accept the gift, we also have to accept this essential equality among all humanity.

I often have trouble with this.  Pride misleads me.  I easily think that I am somehow more deserving, somehow more believing, somehow more holy, somehow more loved and more exalted, just somehow more than others who are obviously somehow less than me. 

And when I fall into this trap – truly the snare of the devil - when I start believing that titles and plaudits make me more exalted than others, I have refused the gift of Jesus.  I act as one who knows or cares nothing about Jesus, God-made-man.  I love only those who love me.  I hate those who hate me, and I reject the universal brotherhood and sisterhood that Jesus calls each of us to live in, that the kingdom of God is all about.  I have chosen hell over the salvation Jesus won for all of us by humbling himself to become one of us.

Accept the gift.  Reject pride.  Love unconditionally and universally as God loves the world.  See in each and every person one whom Jesus was born for and one whom Jesus died for, as he was born and died for me, as he was born and died for you. 

Be humble, and accept the exaltation God has prepared for you, an exaltation beyond your wildest imagination.