Excellence and Humility
From Christian Wholeness (Nashville, Tennessee: The Upper Room, 1979)
Jesus tells a parable. A Pharisee and a publican go to the temple to pray. One speaks of his religiosity and his moral worth; the other could not lift his eyes because of an overwhelming sense of unworthiness. The Pharisee, aware of his own quality, thanks God that he is not like the publican. Then Jesus comments that, nonetheless, it is the publican, the one who confesses his sin, who is justified (Luke 18:9-14). We hear the story, then thank God that we are not like the Pharisee.
So the subtlety of pride continues its pervasive corruption. The parable on the other hand provokes many thoughts. What is the place of moral striving in Christian life? What value should be given to the embodiment of moral worth? Should the Christian set goals of excellence? What sort of excellence? And, what of humility? Can humility which becomes self-aware retain its character?
Jesus draws the conclusion: “Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14). Excellence and humility, is there room for both? Are they two sides of the same reality?
There are New Testament injunctions which exhort disciples of Jesus to both virtues. On the one hand, there is excellence. “And I will show a still more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31). “Approve what is excellent” (Philippians 1:10).
On the other hand, there is humility. “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5).
We are called to excellence. It is a Christian virtue to aspire to excel in goodness. The call of God also evokes humility, and we kneel in awe before God’s sovereign glory.
Excellence denotes a superlative. For human life, excellence means becoming all that one is created to be. Such self-finding is a gift as well as a demand; it is a quality of relationship offered by God and a quality of relationship demanded in our interaction with others. Excellence in Christian living is love, love for God and for one another. To set this goal challenges us from spiritual mediocrity and points us beyond restricted vision, satisfied achievement, and small-hearted living.
Christian excellence is a reflection of God’s grace. The fruits of the Spirit are the result of the nurture of God’s presence. God’s grace graces human life. Grace makes life gracious. So Paul speaks, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).
We are led to the “more excellent way” of love (1 Corinthians 12:31). Paul’s depiction of love is not simply the result of the apostle’s ruminations about the word love or possible ways in which this quality may be expressed. 1 Corinthians 13 is a meditation on the cross. It is an effort to describe the love of God in Jesus Christ, and what, consequently, it should mean in Christian living. Perhaps this is most clear in the central passage. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8a).
This is the excellence of God in Christ. As Christians we are called to excellence. We are called to bear and believe and hope and endure with Christ. Not to serve God with the intention to serve fully is to fail to pursue the way of excellence. The call to excellence is a call to shatter our pretension of faithfulness and inculcate the fullness of love and service.
Excellence implies a breadth of inclusiveness as well as a depth of quality. All of life is to be given to God. “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).
All of life and the finest aspects of life are from God and are to be God’s. Excellence is found as one pursues from among all of the possibilities the one greatest value. It is to have a single will and a focused love. Excellence is seeing God and our neighbor first of all and caring for them most of all.
Excellence means the actualization of our created potential for intellectual strength, for moral goodness, for sensitive awareness, and for emotional richness. Excellence is neither a state of being nor a possession. It is the following of a way, a process of growth that involves constant challenge and renewal.
The movement toward excellence is difficult. An anonymous writer of a church school publication has expressed the drive:
Keep me from turning back!
My hand is on the plough, my faltering hand;
But all in front of me is untilled land,
The wilderness and solitary place,
The lonely desert with its interspace.The handles of my plough with tears are wet,
The shares with rust are spoiled—and yet—and yet—
My God! My God! Keep me from turning back.
Jesus embodies excellence. Yet Jesus represents a strange turning value, for in the life of Jesus we find excellence expressed in crucifixion. Excellence and crucifixion—this is an almost unimaginable conjunction. The point, however, is unmistakable in Jesus’ ministry: Excellence is found in servanthood. Full life occurs in the full giving of life. Jesus, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a things to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).
Now we reach a cardinal point: Excellence is expressed as humility.
Humility is a quality of life appropriate to the presence of God. We are given humility; humility is not an achievement. We are humbled by God’s glory, by God’s goodness, by God’s grace and forgiveness.
Awareness of who we are before God is the necessary door to excellence. In his book The Steps of Humility, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux speaks of the qualities of Christian life. He finds humility to be the initial and the final virtue. Humility is among the most immediate, the most spontaneous, and the most simple of Christian qualities. It is also among the most impressive, the richest, and the most profound of Christians virtues.
In Christian experience, goodness seldom sees itself as such. Personal strength does not focus upon its own resources. Humility contemplates God and not itself.
Humility is not weakness. It is a recognition of God as God, and it is the recognition of our personhood under God. Humility is the door to strength; it is the submersion of the self to the cause served. Jesus, who humbled himself, set the way and invites his disciples to follow. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29).
Will the meek really inherit the earth? Jesus says so, but it seems impossible. The meek are used, taken advantage of, stepped on, or passed by. Yet we have our Lord’s word. Perhaps the meek inherit the earth, that is, the true earth which only the meek can recognize for its value. Perhaps the meek inherit the earth because they see it as Gods gift and embrace it with joy. Only the meek know that the earth cannot be possessed but that it can be loved and lived with, enjoyed and utilized for common good. The meek inherit the earth because the rough hands of capricious self-interest cannot ultimately hold or force the earth. In the last analysis the earth is the Lord’s and those who wait with him find its meaning. They enjoy its beauty. They discover its possibility. They are thankful for its gifts.
Humility and excellence are indissoluble. Each expresses the other. How shall the dynamic be stated?
When I am willing to be set aside or used for the gospel; when I am willing to say, He must increase, but I must decrease—that is humility and that is excellence.
When I seek God’s will and not my own well-being, when I take from God’s hand whatever he has to give with a happy heart attached to the Giver and not to the gift—that is humility and that is excellence.
When I know that my life is within the context of God’s grace, and I live as one who claims nothing but possesses everything—that is humility and that is excellence.
When I go into the world as one who seeks to be neighbor to every person I meet and the next person I meet—that is humility and that is excellence.
When I am able to say, My God and my all—that is humility and that is excellence.
Humility and excellence, both are preeminent virtues, and both are tempted to pride. Excellence is tempted to pride and achievement. Humility is tempted by the pride and self-denial. Unwholesome pride can subtly commandeer wholesome virtue whether of self-affirmation or self-renunciation. Pride claims as achievement what is a gift from God.
To be humble is to live with constant awareness of our dependence upon grace. To strive for excellence is to utilize the resources provided by grace.
Excellence and humility, so often divided, are complementary in Christian wholeness.
The late Thomas A. Langford was provost of Duke University from 1990 to 1994 and dean of Duke Divinity School from 1971 to 1981. This excerpt is from his book, Christian Wholeness.
Copyright © 1979 by Thomas A. Langford. Used by permission of Upper Room Books, http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/, 1-800-972-0433.
