KingdomCome
Don Follis
True humility is the gateway to masculinity
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Sex, outside of humility, leads to confusion and decadence…
Last Saturday morning I gave a talk to 65 men on a topic I called “Money, Sex and Power – living sanely in an insane world.” Little did I know the antithesis of sanity would be seen on national television the next day when singer Justin Timberlake tore off part Janet Jackson’s costume, exposing her breast during the Super Bowl halftime show.
When that happened, I knew I had taken the right direction in my talk the day before by referring to sex only in passing. I honed in on something way more important – humility. I could see the men resonating with my words.
Timberlake blamed “a wardrobe malfunction” and CBS officials deeply regretted that the half-time incident had “compromised their standards.” I don’t believe either one. We saw a malfunction all right -- a malfunctioning culture spinning out-of-control. Civility is dying. Mystery has disappeared. In-your-face wardrobe malfunctions remain.
Ours is the not the first culture steeped in decadence. Benedict of Nursia was a student in Rome during the waning days of the self-indulgent Roman Empire. Benedict did what lots of people may have wanted to do after Timberlake’s Super Bowl antics – he moved to the countryside and began living as a hermit.
Benedict was soon discovered by those looking for wisdom and a meaningful life. The monastic life was born. To this day hundreds of Benedictine monasteries exist.
I have been reading “The Rule of Benedict,” a centuries-old instruction manual on how to approach the daily rhythms of monastic life. Last Saturday I centered my talk on the heart of the Benedictine Rule – humility. Benedict’s words on unassuming servanthood could not be more different from what happened during the Super Bowl half-time show. To Benedict’s mind, humility was the heart of true community and the essence of civility.
The secret to enjoying money, sex and power is approaching these ethical issues with authentic humility. Down-to-earth humility is the gateway to true masculinity.
The Rule of Benedict says you can turn the prism of humility a dozen ways and learn something different every time. For starters, the rule on humility says “to keep the reverence of God always before your eyes.” Said simply, God is God; you are not. Benedict wrote that all our actions “everywhere are in God’s sight and are reported by angels at every hour.” Does it ever occur to us that we are being watched?
If that’s true, Benedict says we must then desire God’s will more than anything. He quotes John 17:4 that says, “I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do.” If God is the center of our lives, we must seek and accept his will.
Two of the rungs on the ladder of humility always emphasized in Benedictine communities are willing submission to others and self-revelation. We learn willing submission from Jesus, who humbled himself to the point of death (Philippians 2:8).
Truth is, each of us actually knows very little. None of us – not Justin Timberlake, not CBS, not the Federal Communications Commission (who last fall ruled that broadcasting a crude euphemism for lovemaking was not indecent or obscene as long as the word was used as an adjective) – is the last word on anything. Nor are we the clearest insight into matters of life. The Rule of Benedict argues that humility lies in learning to listen to the directions and insights of those who are the voice of Jesus for us now.
Self-revelation is the flip side of willing submission. Here we find a friend with whom we can openly and honestly share our weakness, our pain, and our struggles and allow that person to call us out of our worst selves to the heights to which we aspire.
Self-revelation leads to honesty, and honesty opens the door to kindness, another rung of humility insisted upon in Benedictine communities. The best way to be kind is to accept that we are but one person in a precious, but fragile community.
We accept that outside of God’s loving kindness, we really are a nobody. That’s good because when we accept our smallness, even embracing it, it frees us from the need to lie, even to ourselves, about our frailty. In the state of true humility we can genuinely start being kind to others.
If God is God, mighty and mysterious, and we are small but kind, we suddenly find ourselves in a position to learn anew the inscrutable truths of money, sex and power.
Copyright © February 6, 2004 by the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, Champaign, IL 61820
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