Ever wonder what Jesus’ message of turning the other cheek is all about?  Clearly, it’s a challenge for us.  But what’s the point? To understand the challenge better, we need to look more closely at the concept of humility.  What is humility?  What role has it played in the spiritual journey of humanity?  What value can humility provide to us today?  To address these questions, we will look briefly at humility from the perspective of scholars and from the perspective of a nineteenth century minister from South Africa.  Then we will wrap things up with an inspiring story about humility from a bus driver.  So let’s dive in.

In preparing for this blog post, I bought a couple of books on humility — The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility (Alfano et al, 2024) and Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness (Andrew Murray, 2001, though written in 1800’s).  The Handbook examines our understanding of humility as examined by philosophers, psychologists, and religious scholars. The book by Murray presents humility as a vital aspect of the story of the Old and New Testaments and an important virtue that we must all pursue to be right with God.

If you have an academic interest in the concept of humility and you are willing to wade through some dense material, you might get a lot out of the Handbook.  I discovered numerous humility-related themes, including not attributing advantages, success, and excellence to the self or one’s merits; accepting one’s relative unworthiness and unimportance; acknowledging and owning one’s limitations and deficiencies; admitting to one’s mistakes; being modest interpersonally; having a lack of concern for one’s status; disregarding or devaluing the self; being free from the distorted awareness that self-centeredness engenders; having a much greater focus on others than on oneself; being open to ideas from others; appreciating the contributions of others; and relying upon others to overcome the various challenges in life.  The Handbook provides a wealth of information about the concept of humility.  That said, in its typical scholarly pursuit of knowledge, it generates more questions than answers.

Murray’s book on humility provides answers.  More specifically, it provides answers to some basic questions that Christians might have:

• What was the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden all about? It was about the human prideful desire to be independent from God — to seek knowledge and mastery over the world without God’s help.
• Why is humanity’s independence a problem? Pride — which underlies many other sins and vices — is so deeply rooted in human nature that it requires an ever-present, indwelling God (in the form of the Holy Spirit) to overcome that pride and allow humanity to live the way God intended them to live.
• What is the Old Testament about? It is about the perpetual failure of humanity (with a focus on Israel) to overcome their deeply rooted pride, even when God is committed to their ultimate success and even when He provides them with some tough-love discipline in the form of the Laws of Moses.
• What is the New Testament about? It is about God providing humanity with a better way to overcome their deeply rooted pride — by following Jesus. Jesus demonstrated to all humanity how they can be saved by living lives of complete selflessness and service to others. Jesus left the gift of the Holy Spirit (the presence of God in our hearts) to empower those who seek a humility like His to overcome their human nature and their pride. It is also about Paul, a former Pharisee, who demonstrated that regular human beings, through the inspiration of Jesus and the strength of the Holy Spirit, can succeed in a life of humility and service to others. Paul also showed us how we can be blessed with a new perspective and capacity — being able to see the bitter challenges in life as sources of joy and as opportunities to become closer to God.
• How can human beings pursue humility? Persistent, earnest prayer, asking God for help in this endeavor is needed. We need to make as much room in our hearts for the Holy Spirit as possible. Beyond that, Murray suggests that you should just start doing more selfless things: “We know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly formed will becomes the character.” (pp. 98-99).
• Do we really need to turn the other cheek? Humility can come from things outside of one’s control — such as being harmed by others or being disadvantaged in health, wealth, abilities, beauty, opportunities … etc. — or from one’s failings, whether social or personal. Jesus challenges us to be intentional in our humility: turning the other cheek, giving up one’s cloak, walking an additional mile when forced to walk one, … etc. That intention allows our humility to empower us in the right way.

Of course, I am not doing Murray’s book justice.  It is a short book and well worth reading.  I have read it twice and found it quite inspiring and instructive.  The book is a great complement to the Christian Bible — providing an overarching theme that can help one understand and harmonize the various components of the two testaments.

So those are messages about humility from 2000 years ago and from the 1800’s.  Do I have anything more recent and more applicable to today’s world?  As I was riding the bus to work the other day, the bus driver and I were chatting.  He had no idea that I was working on a blog post about humility.  Even so, he shared the following inspiring story.

There was a disabled man (who required a walker) who had been living with his wife and dog in an apartment.  His wife, who had been walking the dog every day, died.  The disabled man’s family was prepared to take him in, but the dog was a problem. It happened to be a pit bull. Although the man wanted to move in with his family, he couldn’t give up his dog to a shelter.  (It was unlikely that anyone would adopt an older pit bull.)  So, the man became homeless, living outside with his dog so that his dog could live.  The disabled man sometimes rode the bus with his dog.  The bus driver got to know the disabled man and became so moved by the disabled man’s story that he offered to take in the pit bull and care for it as his own. The disabled man agreed and then went to live with his family.

I was touched by this story — by the selfless acts of the homeless man and the bus driver.  So, what did this story tell me about humility that I didn’t get from reading my books?  To me, it seems quite clear that this is how God intends us to live — in the spirit of Jesus, with selflessness inspiring selflessness.