Lesson #4- Humble Thyself In The Sight of the Lord (and the farmers, and your neighbors, and your work, and . . .)

One More Farewell Party

The last three posts of this series will focus on the power of the gospel, both through individuals and through the church. But before we get there, Rebecca and I can’t help but mention what must be one of the most dramatic lessons of our time here in our own lives. It could be summed up this way: we know less than we think we know, we can do less than we think we can, and we’ve messed it up more than we thought we did. Or in our oft-repeated phrase, “(Fill in the blank) is just really, really complicated.” But in light of the previous posts on what the poor have to offer us, and about how complex the culture and structures are, if we want to use Biblical language, I think what we’re really talking about is the importance of humility.

So you show up thinking, “Hey, I’m educated, I’m a “doer,” Jesus is on my team! Let’s help some poor folk!” And then you actually meet some of those people, and their authentic faithful dependence on God shines light on your own materialism, and shames you in your spiritual whininess. And then you see how hard they work, and how the system is stacked against them so that your projects and plans somehow seem very small. And then you find out that your thoughts, your attitudes, your involvement in the world is actually part of the problem, that you’re part of the system, that you’re “the man!” And suddenly you find yourself feasting on a fat ‘ole slice of humble pie.

And the complexity of it all becomes overwhelming! And you begin seeing that all your simple solutions don’t work, mainly because you don’t understand as much as you thought you did, nor are you as smart as you thought you were. At least that's our story. And I think for us, and for lots of fairly well-intentioned folks like us, you come to an almost existential crisis.

So what do you do? For starters, you take off the Superman outfit, put away your Messiah complex, and start afresh. And as far as we can tell, the only place to start is where the earliest Christians started: “Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord.”

And that’s what the next post is all about.

Peace,
Michael