© 2024, Dr. Tamilio

Have you ever heard the song, “It’s Hard to Be Humble”?  Mack Davis sang it.  As one source said, this 1980 hit by Davis was “a humorous ode to his own perfection and ego.”[1]  There’s nothing like writing an ode to your perfection.  Here are some of the lyrics:

Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble

When you’re perfect in every way

I can’t wait to look in the mirror

Cause I get better lookin’ each day

That’s just the chorus.  It gets better.  In the first verse, Davis croons:

I used to have a girlfriend

But I guess she just couldn’t compete

With all of these love-starved women

Who keep clamoring at my feet

Well, I could probably find me another

But I guess they’re all in awe of me

Who cares? I never get lonesome

Cause I treasure my own company

Who does this guy think he is: a cross between Paul Newman and Robert Redford?  How absolutely spectacular do you have to think you are to sing a song like this?

There are people who love themselves this much.  Either that, or they’re desperate for attention.  All you have to do is go to social media platforms like TikTok, ones that give you the ability to do a live feed (meaning ones that allow you to broadcast yourself live), and you will see it.  So many people gazing into their iPhones and reading the comments that people write about them.  “You’re so cute!”  “You’re so talented?”  Is this what we have become as a society?  We fawn over the adulation we receive from people we do not know nor will we ever meet.  It reminds me of another song — one by the Fab Four:

All the lonely people

Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people

Where do they all belong?

It’s sort of a rhetorical question.  The singer (Sir Paul McCartney) seems to be voicing their concerns with the second question.  It is as if he is saying, “Do they know where they belong?  Have they found it yet?”

The problem is that the world is filled with people who are trying to figure out how they belong.  The opposite is worse: people who feel they do not need to find a place to belong because people should be flocking to them.  After all, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.”

The Gospel lesson for today is about such a dichotomy: it is about honor and humility.  We see that in the conversation between Jesus and two of his disciples: James and John, the sons of Zebedee.  They want the seats of honor.  They want to flank Jesus when he is in heaven in all his glory!

At first, Jesus challenges them.  “You think you can handle it — everything I have to go through.”  Actually, his exact words (in verse 38) are, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”  They say they can.  After all, it is hard to be humble when see yourselves worthy of sitting on thrones next to Jesus.

This upsets the other ten disciples, the same way the class resents the teacher’s pet.  “What makes them think they are so great that the Lord would favor them over the rest of us?”  What follows is a discussion about honor and humility.  Of course, being a disciple of Christ is a tremendous honor: to have been hand-selected by Jesus out of any number of possible candidates!  But, as Jesus says in Matthew’s version of this story,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you.  Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28).

In other words, being a disciple of Jesus is a servant role.  Didn’t Jesus do the same thing?  Didn’t he wash the feet of the disciples on the night that he was betrayed?  Doesn’t the very last line of today’s Gospel Lesson repeat the refrain that Jesus came to serve not to be served?  I’m pretty sure that this is to be the attitude his followers are to take as well, not to be concerned about which throne they will occupy in heaven.

But maybe the two conjoined.  Maybe there is a great honor to assume the servant role.  John Piper says that by being in the servant role (and being humble about it) gives honor to God.  Piper says, “that humility agrees and is glad that God gets all the credit for choosing us and calling us according to his purposes, not our merit.”[2]  Maybe that is why Jesus tells a man who seeks to follow him, “Why do you call me good? … No one is good — except God alone.”  That was the last verse of the Gospel Lesson for last week, by the way.

One thinks of the words of John the Baptist.  “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).  The glory is to be Christ’s, not ours.  John Piper also says that by giving the glory to God — even if our discipling successes are due to our own unique abilities — giving the glory to God acknowledges that our abilities are gifts that God has given us in the first place!  He writes, “Whatever talents, whatever intelligence, whatever skills, whatever gifts, whatever looks, whatever pedigree, whatever possessions, whatever wit, whatever influence you have, put away all pride because it is a gift, and put away all despair because it is a gift from God.”[3]  Doesn’t Jesus say in the Gospel of Matthew that “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (23:12)?

As Christians, we have received our prize already.  The glory is already ours.  We have been invited into a unique relationship with God, because of the saving work of Christ.  The hard work has already been accomplished, and it wasn’t done by any of us.  Jesus deserves the praise.  He deserves the honor.  We give that to him by serving him — by humbling ourselves through our ministry.

There is a great line in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the third installment in the Raiders of the Lost Ark series.  Indy (played by Harrison Ford) is searching for his father (played by Sean Connery) who is being held captive by the Nazis.  Both men are also in search of the Holy Grail.  After Indy gets into an elaborate boat chase (and fight) with members of the Order of the Cruciform Sword (those who have vowed to protect the Grail’s secret), he is asked by one of the members of the Order, “Ask yourself, Dr. Jones, why do you seek the Cup of Christ?  Is it for His glory, or for yours?”  It’s a great line — one we all need to ask ourselves, and certainly one that James and John should have asked themselves.  I’ll give the final word to Peter, who, in his First Epistle writes, “All that we do should be for his honor and glory — and we rejoice in being called to proclaim his praises” (2:9).              Amen!

[1] Taken from genius.com.

[2] John Piper, “Greatness, Humility, Servanthood,” taken from desiringgod.org (online).  Published August 30, 2009.

[3] Ibid.