ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
August 4, 2022
In his challenging book, A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren writes:
I’m sure I am wrong about many things, although I’m not sure exactly which things I’m wrong about. I’m even sure I’m wrong about what I think I’m right about in at least some cases.
I find his words helpful and humble, giving me space to confess my own lack of knowledge and my moments of complete idiocy. Jesus talked of how the haughty would be humbled while the humble would be exalted. There have been times when I’ve put aside my ego long enough to say, “I don’t know,” and in that moment I was hupsoó (the Greek word we translate as exalted). But it can also be translated as “set upon a high place.” In one way, that sort of means exalted. But it can also mean that we have a better vantage point. We rarely think of the “lowest” place as providing a good perspective, but the humble heart is so much more receptive and available to what is good and true and life-giving.
Sometimes it is as a defensive posture and other times it is outright haughtiness, but the attitude of arrogance is not from you, O Merciful God. In fact, the deflation of my ego might be required before I can see you and perceive your call upon my life. Help me whenever I find it hard to be humble. Amen.
