Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 42:1-9, Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-end

“Nothing is more deceitful," says Darcy, [of the Jane Austen Wet Shirt Competition fame], “Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.” and Martin Luther, whose Playmobile figure sits on my bedroom mantelpiece: “True humility does not know that it is humble.  If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.”

 There are problems then for the pursuit of humility. Firstly, you cannot appear humble. Nothing is worse than the terrible vice of false-humility, “ever so ‘umble.” But you can’t even know you are humble - the result would inevitably be pride, the most deadly of deadly sins.

 C.S. Lewis’ demon Screwtape offers the advice to his young tempter: “Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility.” Admiring your own glorious humility is the most certain proof of its non-existence.

For Christianity humility is the highest virtue. And yet, according to these esteemed writers, it must be both invisible and unconscious. As someone who has perfectly mastered humility, I can tell you it’s a difficult and demanding task that probably none of you could succeed in.

For all these seeming contradictions, though, humility is really much more simple in proof. There are two things that immediately reveal it, or show its absence. The first is when we are aware of the mistakes of others. It’s no surprise that humility and humiliate have the same root, but the opposite sentiment. The desire to humiliate, to put them in their place; the speed and enjoyment with which you correct others is a sure sign of humility’s death. So did you play Trivial Pursuits at Christmas? Did you shout “I KNOW THIS, I KNOW THIS” every time someone else was asked a question? [People sometimes think children are naturally humble.It’s not the case.]

And did you as a Christmas treat serve up some perfectly middle class, over-priced Quinoa? Oh yes, I meant Quinoa didn’t I? But how do you tactfully correct someone’s pronunciation, who neither attended your finishing school, nor shops only in Whole Foods? Correcting others, if it’s to prove ourselves, to show our knowledge or superiority, is a confession of a failure of humility. 

The second thing that shows our humility is our shortcomings. Do we flat out deny them? “I don’t know who did it, and yes I may have been the last person up, but I’m quite sure it was not me that left all the lights on last night.” Or perhaps - like Eve burying her apple core, or Cain burying his brother Able - we prefer to hide our mistakes.

But most especially, how do we react when other people point out our mistakes?  How do we feel on being corrected, chastised, slighted or forgotten? Can we accept our faults in the broad light of day? Can we live with other people’s perceived superiority? Can we live with the injustice of being passed over? Honesty about our failures, our limits and our weakness is the clearest, and most difficult, sign of humility. 

So the proud person will see and point out the failures of others, while covering over and not admitting her own. The humble person will cover, minimise and sympathise with the failures of others, while being open about her own. This ambivalence about the objectivity or truth of success and failure, show that humility is simply indifferent to success (as it appears) or fairness, but is rooted in a concern for others.

*** 

Now, today the Church remembers the Baptism of Christ. It’s an awkward event and hard to explain. When in the nineteenth-century New Testament scholars began a project to determine how historical the New Testament was, there could be no doubt that this event happened. Mainly because the story is slightly embarrassing. Why would Jesus be baptised?
 Does it suggest that actually John the Baptist is more important? That Jesus was repenting? That it’s only here that Jesus is adopted as the Son of God? It’s not a story you’d make up. But you have only to look at some of the paintings of Christ’s baptism - Pierro della Francesco’s in the National Gallery or Verrocchio's [verokio] (with Da Vinci) at the Uffizi to see the strength of the imagery that made it an important event for the early church.  

At once, there’s an echo of the stories of Genesis;  an overcoming of the separation of the seas and heavens in the rising of Christ from the waters,  and the descent of the dove — the Holy Spirit, who broods on the waters at creation, and is sent out by Noah to discover the dry land.  And then Exodus, where Moses parts the Red Sea to free the people of Israel from slavery and death at the hands of the murderous Egyptians — and it’s no coincidence that Christ now moves to his forty days in the wilderness echoing Israel’s forty years in Sinai.  But as the paintings also suggest, this is a coronation.  Christ is commissioned, and as Excalibur rises up through the lake in self-conscious association — the voice speaks to Jesus: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’, quoting Psalm 2:

         ‘I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.’
         I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
         He said to me, ‘You are my son;
            today I have begotten you.
         Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
    and the ends of the earth your possession. 

 Christ’s baptism then is not like our baptism. For St Augustine it’s the example that we follow.  He writes: ‘[Jesus] wished to do what he commanded all to do’; that he foreshadows in his body, the Church, the reception of the Spirit at baptism. Christ cleanses the water and consecrates the sacrament of baptism. It is his baptism that makes our baptism valid. And, as the Church is commanded to baptise in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so does this event suggest the Trinity. As the Son is baptised, the Spirit as the dove descends and the voice is heard in the heavens.

It’s often noticed, though, that while the baptism is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke’s Gospels, it’s not in John. There’s also no Last Supper in John’s Gospel — possibly for fear of pagans copying and distorting Christian rituals. But John refers to them obliquely in other situations.
 So we have undercover Eucharistic references in the feeding of the 5000;  ‘I am the Bread of Life’. The references to baptism come in the washing of the disciples’ feet. Think of Jesus declaring to Peter:  ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’  

This I think gives us a final clue to what is going on in the baptism of Christ. Jesus’ whole ministry is built on humility. He is a king but also a servant. He comes not on a warhorse but a donkey. His victory is in the cross. It is he who washes his disciples’ feet.

So in this season of epiphany – of the revelation of Christ to the world –  Jesus’ ministry begins in this first act of condescending to be baptised by one of us, reminding us that it’s at the lowest place that we’ll find God. CS Lewis wrote: “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.”

 Or equally from Oscar Wilde in his letter De Profundis: “Every one is worthy of love, except him who thinks that he is.  Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling.”  And this is why humility is the chief Christian virtue. Because it’s the foundation of love. Without it you can’t love because you can’t put people in front of you. Quite simply, without humility you can be nice; but you can’t love.

 In which case we don’t need to trouble ourselves with the pursuit of humility, or worry whether we’re humble enough. It’s simpler to ask ourselves whether we have put people before ourselves, and whether we have loved enough.  Amen.