During the week before last, my wife and I enjoyed a wonderful two-day visit to Lake Placid. On our second day there, driving down towards Whiteface Mountain from the village, we passed a touristy place called North Pole, NY, which brought back some very distant memories for me, as our family had visited the area when I was well under the age of 10. The only things I remember about that trip, lo these many years ago, was Santa's workshop at the North Pole (which even then struck me as funny, as we had travelled south to get to this North Pole), and, secondly, the very steep drive up Whiteface Mountain - a chore for a fully-loaded car's engine on the way up, and its brakes on the way down.
However, I shall retain quite different memories of
the trip just 10 days ago. The scenery
in that part of upper New York State is quite lovely. We stayed at the charming old Mirror Lake
Inn, in a room with a spectacular view of the Lake. We walked, we shopped, we sat on the dock in
the Lake and we had some wonderful meals in the famous dining room of our
hotel.
I was blissfully unaware before we went that, in
spite of there being much newer hotels from well-known chains such as the
Hilton, the particular hotel we had chosen is still the place to stay and
to eat in Lake Placid. Our humble Toyota
was surrounded by Mercedes, Lexus, Porche's, BMW's, Infiniti's etc. from New
York City and New Jersey in the parking lot.
Other visitors might have thought we were staff members parking in
patrons' spots. I had managed to find a
package that included breakfast and dinner each day so that, when added up,
staying at this hotel was less expensive than a combination of the
Comfort Inn with meals out.
In spite of the charm of the building, the fabulous
meals, the views and such, it was the staff that impressed me most. Unfailingly gracious, never returning anger
for anger, not critical towards even the most obnoxious New Yorker, they are
either good examples of how unfailingly courteously Christians should behave in
all circumstances, or they are as well-trained as U.S. Marines. Humility: St. Peter exhorts us at the
beginning of today's Epistle reading, "All of you be subject to one
another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth
grace to the humble."
Whether the staff at the Inn are all, as I suspect,
just trained so well to behave very courteously in all circumstances, or
whether perhaps they are genuinely humble Christians, their demeanour is truly
quite appealing.
The Greek word that St. Peter uses, and that the
King James translates as humility, is one of those long tongue-twisting words: tapeinofrosune
meaning
"lowliness of mind" and which rightly understood therefore signifies
so much more than just humility.
When we consider humility in its various guises, we know that there is an irritating sort of fawning or cringing humility; and, there is also the phoney type of insincere humility. St. Peter is speaking of lowliness of mind, which is something that goes much deeper than humility, and we might catch on right away if we think of how our Blessed Lord described Himself as "meek and lowly in heart."
We might also take note of the term that St. Peter
uses just two words before. He says,
"be clothed (we might also translate this as girded) with
humility." This is no less
significant and we might even say extraordinarily suggestive. Might he have been thinking of a particular
episode in the Upper Room, the very night prior to our Lord's Crucifixion? Jesus, Peter's Lord and Master, girded
Himself with nothing but a towel and came to Peter to wash his feet - the
lowliest duty of a servant. Remember
Peter's reaction, "Thou shalt never wash my feet." After being told by Jesus that if He didn't
wash Peter's feet, Peter would be out of the herd, Peter gushes, "Lord,
not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!" It is extremely unlikely that Peter would
ever forget that episode, and, therefore, extremely likely that he might have
been recalling it when he wrote the words that we heard today, and what he
meant by "lowliness of mind."
"Lowliness of mind." Is there a Christian virtue more important,
yet harder to achieve? Yea, it is
generally one of the last virtues to be mastered. If we have learned honesty, truthfulness,
temperance, self-control, patience and many other things, we still find it so
very hard to have the lowly mind. We
might think that the prolonged "me generation" in which we live is
the best, or worst if you will, example of this; however, when we consider the
very frequent exhortations on this subject in the pages of the New Testament
Epistles, we see that it has ever been so.
The failure to practise humility appears to have been commonplace among
the very early Christians. Even though
growth in the earliest days of the Church was sometimes spectacular, it would
appear that the Church's witness to her Divine Master may have been oft-times
gravely impaired by the tendency in her members to have a weakness for seeking
the pre-eminence. Not enough like Mirror
Lake Inn employees, and too much like some of her wealthy patrons who love the
attention. Less like our Lord Who girded
Himself with a towel…
How often did our Lord teach that lowliness of mind
was the first essential of the Christian character, the one thing needful? It comes up so frequently in His teaching and
is the lesson perhaps reinforced more often than any other in his discourses
and parables.
And St. Peter, just hours after the washing of the
feet in the Upper Room, must certainly have learned, once again the hard way,
the import of his Lord's message - not to think of himself more highly than he
ought to think, not to trust in his own strength alone - through his bitter
experience of failure and shame outside of Pilate's Judgement Hall. Who better to enforce this lesson about the
need for lowliness of mind?
Nevertheless, we should acknowledge that, apart from
that one dreadful episode in which he denied his association with our Lord,
Peter was actually, by nature, a humble-minded man. Elsewhere in the Gospels, not least in the
episode of the washing of the feet, there is a very real and sincere humility
which is one of the things about Peter that makes him so very lovable. In spite of his sometimes apparent thickness
of brain, he was an apt pupil who had learned the truth of the saying that
"God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble." In having learned this lesson so very
thoroughly himself, he felt bound to pass it on to his fellow-Christians.
His first two sentences tells us that we must
practise lowliness of mind in two directions.
On the one hand, towards our fellow-men.
And here we should recognize that it is not just our conduct towards
them; but, perhaps even more importantly, I suspect that St. Peter is
emphasizing the way in which we think about them. The words, "be subject to one
another" are fair enough as a translation of the Greek; but a perhaps even
more accurate translation in terms of communicating St. Peter's intention would
be, "gird yourselves with humility of mind towards one another." Which is to say, it is not so much of
submission to other people that St. Peter is thinking, but rather, of the
danger of esteeming ourselves better than they are.
The thing that we find really difficult to believe
about ourselves is that we can possibly be worse than other people whom we know
- the difficulty of the Pharisee in our Lord's parable who could not bring
himself to believe that was as other men are, much less as "this
publican." But is it not precisely
the people who are so blissfully unaware of having any merits of their own at
all, and who are so very ready to admire the good in others whom we find so
altogether attractive? I shall certainly
remember the workers at the Mirror Lake Inn moreso than the hoity-toity folks from
New York City.
If on the one hand we must practise lowliness of
mind towards our fellow-men, then, on the other hand Peter tells us even moreso
towards God. "Humble yourselves,
therefore, under the might hand of God."
Peter had most likely written this letter from Rome after the horrible
persecution of Nero had begun, and many would be tempted, as he himself had
been tempted, to trust in their own strength, thus forgetting the utter need of
God's grace if they were to stand firm "in the evil day."
God has made the lowly mind a condition of our
salvation. He makes us go to Bethlehem,
to kneel at the Cross, to be washed in water even though we are physically
clean, to eat bread and drink of a cup, and to say our prayers like little
children. And it is only when our
attitude towards Him is just that of little children who have no power of
themselves to help themselves, that He can do anything for us or in us. He will not force His grace upon us. He resisteth the proud; but to those who have
the lowly mind, His grace is given.
While contemplating all of this: St. Peter's letter, the living examples of humility, not least among Christians I have known, and even perhaps among the staff of the Mirror Lake Inn, Gary Sokolyk sent me an email this past week. To be sure, the gist of the quotation that Gary included, was not focussed just on lowliness of mind, humility; however, in mentioning the absolute need for the death of pride - the vice that contrasts the virtue of humility - it is noteworthy. Gary prefaced the quotation in saying, "I thought you might enjoy this, because it is somewhat reminiscent of things you have said." Gary may have been thinking of my plea exactly one year ago on this particular Sunday for us all to avoid being critical of each other, or reacting badly to insults and such that weren't even insults in the first place - in other words to do all that we can to displace our creaturely pride with God-given humility. Gary continues, "It is a brief excerpt from the text of a lengthy talk given at a retreat in England. The friend who brought it to my attention couldn't tell me who the speaker was.""We come to the Church and we remain in the Church in order to save our souls, and nothing else. Church is not a hobby, a game, a private interest, a pretence, or even a community. It is our soul's salvation. We achieve this by first being ourselves and then being the best of ourselves. If there is anything else, it is all secondary. We must never lose this perspective. If we do, then we are out of perspective and on our way out of the Church.In order to save our souls, we first have to know ourselves, searching out and discovering our own faults, sins and failings. Then we have to take issue with them and fight, however slowly and weakly, and begin to tame them and never give up this battle. We will know when we are not doing this, it is when we start dwelling on the faults of others.If our personal pride is hurt in the course of Church life, thank God; that is what we are there for."
God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the
humble.
ANNUNCIATION OTTAWA CLRK