It’s Ash Wednesday and I thought I would simply post our meditation for this evening here. May God bless us with a good beginning on the Lenten journey.
When David Copperfield first met the villain Uriah Heep, he was filled with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Uriah was completely and absolutely respectful and deferential toward David. On the other hand, there was something about Uriah that bothered David, that even repelled him.
The first time he speaks with Uriah, David tries out a simple compliment upon the man. Heep’s reply is “Me, Master Copperfield? Oh, no! I’m a very umble person… I am well aware that I am the umblest person going.”
In every subsequent conversation they have, that word “umble,” “humble,” drops from Uriah’s mouth over and over. His mother is “umble.” They live in “a numble abode.” His dead father had a most “umble” job. All his earthly aspirations are low and very, very “umble,” he says, over and over and over. He is so terribly humble that he just can’t quit talking about it.
As Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield unfolds we discover Uriah Heep’s “umbleness” is merely the most transparent mask for an overreaching pride and vicious ambition that could be the ruin of some truly good and humble people. Heep is full of a false humility that hardly conceals the fact that he is greedy and selfish and concerned only with making an impression he can turn to his advantage.
Uriah Heep is a typical Dickens character, almost a caricature, overdrawn and nigh on unbelievable. It seems like only in a story could you think anyone would really be like that, so full of humble pretense but in reality full of himself.
When you read the beginning of Matthew chapter 6, the “hypocrites” Jesus portrays for us seem as unbelievable as Uriah Heep. It’s only through Jesus’ wonderful parables and figures of speech that we can even imagine a person who has a trumpet blown before he drops his coins in the poor box at the synagogue as Jesus pictures in verse 2. Or somebody who goes out on the street corner to pray where everyone can see and admire him as in verse 5. Or a man who deliberately puts dirt on his face, as it says in verse 16, and messes up his hair to advertise the fact that he is fasting. They seem like characters in a story, not real people.
Yet characters like Uriah Heep and the hypocrites were drawn for our spiritual direction. They exist to warn us that you and I are not really so different. We may protest our “umbleness” as vehemently as Heep does, but there is still something in us that enjoys a little recognition for our good deeds. It feels good to be generous, to be devout and prayerful, to be strong enough to go a day without eating. It feels even better to get some credit for it those things. We’d like our humility to be noticed.
To all those feelings in us Jesus addresses His direction about spiritual life. Do what you do for God, not to be noticed or praised by others. It’s a harder lesson than we might imagine to learn and take to heart.
We’re conditioned to like praise and reward. All our lives. The finest motivation for good behavior parents can give is sincere praise and appreciation. When we get to school, motivation is organized into a whole system assigning letter grades according to how well we perform. Employment teaches us that excellent work is rewarded financially. Throughout life we learn to seek what psychologists call positive reinforcement. But it all means that even in our good behavior we may not be very good people.
Jesus asked us to give generously, pray devoutly and live sacrificially at just those times and places when there is no positive reinforcement. He asks us to forgo the compliments and strokes and kind words from other people which might encourage us to keep moving ahead. He wants to quit wondering if anyone will notice, whether anyone will see the good we’re doing. Instead we should be concerned only with what is seen by a God we can’t see. It’s at that point that quiet humility begins.
You might think this whole Ash Wednesday thing gets it all wrong in relation to the kind of humility Jesus is concerned with. Someone might observe us tonight and conclude that we are about to do one of the very things Jesus warned against in verse 16. They “disfigure their faces,” they might think, with dirty ashes. Aren’t we missing the point here, creating a visible symbol of our humility?
We could be. That’s why I’m talking about it. If humility begins with a walk forward tonight and my thumb tracing a cross of ashes on your forehead, and ends with a little soap and water when you get home, then it’s all just as Jesus said. You came out for a worship service. Not many people come to this one, so you get a little extra credit. You let your guard down, forgot appearance, and accepted the ashes. You were humble. But if it stops there, it’s just a little show for a bit of recognition.
That’s why Ash Wednesday is just the beginning of a whole process of humbling yourself, not in front of me or Bryan or anyone else here, but before our Lord. It’s why we talk about entering into spiritual discipline during Lent, spiritual work. None of it meant to earn anything, from God or anyone else. But it is meant to mold us into the kind of people who are genuinely humble.
The three acts described here are not just examples Jesus pulled out of His hat. These disciplines were three foundations of Jewish spiritual life. Giving alms. Daily times of prayer. Regular fasting. And they remain foundational for Christian life. In order to be the people God wants us to be, genuinely humble people, the disciplines of giving, prayer and fasting are essential.
Let me say a little more about the last one, fasting. It’s foreign to many of us. Most of us don’t do it very often. It may be the hardest of the three. It may strike us as artificial. It’s hard to see the point.
But fasting, giving up food, or some other harmless pleasure or activity, is a way of saying and learning that our lives are not built upon things. To live for awhile without eating your favorite food, or without watching your favorite television program, or without playing your favorite game, is a way to learn to trust the God who gave you those things, but wants you love Him more than those. A fast allows us to discover unexpected joy in the Lord that we may have thought could only be found in such things.
What Jesus says about fasting here makes it even more an act of dependence on God. He said to fast without getting anyone else’s approval or praise for it. If you give up chocolate or “Glee” or “Angry Birds,” then the hardest thing to do may be not to talk about it. The quiet humility Jesus called for means not complaining to your friend when she eats a Hershey bar in front of you, or to your spouse when he sits down to watch television without you. It means fasting without talking to anyone about how hungry you are. It means seeking all your approval from God and no one else.
In addition to Uriah Heep, there is a genuinely humble person in the story of David Copperfield. Over and over, his childhood friend Agnes gives up what she wants for those around her. She gives up each day to care for her aging father. She gives up David whom she truly loves, so that he can marry someone else he thinks he loves. It seems as though she might even give herself up to an evil marriage for her father’s sake. Yet she does not blow a trumpet, she doesn’t stand on a corner, she doesn’t disfigure her face. No one, especially David, even notices the sacrifices that she makes. She simply, humbly, offers her gifts to others and trusts herself to divine providence.
In the end, Agnes is rewarded. She ends up with the deepest happiness. I won’t spoil the story by telling you how. But quiet humility is blessed. Quiet humility that keeps itself secret, is rewarded, just as Jesus promised. Our unseen Father sees what no one else sees. By the grace of Jesus Christ who Himself practiced quiet humility, seeking no one’s approval but the Father, God will reward and bless and raise up those who are humble. May we quietly seek to be such people.
Amen.
Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj