Humility is the essential of Divine worship. We live in a world where humility is not often valued. If you’ve ever been preparing for a job interview, the main advice that the experts give is to assume confidence. Sell yourself. Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn, and tell the interviewer why you are the best candidate for the job. When you’re advertising your product, be prepared to say in an elevator speech why your product is better than all the others. If you are in a position of authority, of leadership, it is generally frowned upon to admit that you don’t have all the answers. People tend to lose faith in leaders who admit that they don’t know what to do. My vocation is very susceptible to this. Clergy is supposed to know stuff. People expect us to have answers. If we don’t have answers, then people just might take their questions to another church. Clergy that are afraid of this happening might just be moved to make something up on the spot, to present the appearance of knowledge in order to hide the fact that they’re human and they don’t know.
As Swedenborg pointed out, when we choose to hide our ignorance, when we abandon humility in an attempt to bolster our reputation, we are affecting our sensitivity to the Lord’s insight. In other words, by pretending we know, by pretending we are the best above all others, we jeopardize our ability to listen and to learn.
It may not seem obvious, but our readings from the Word actually teach this idea. One of the main differences between Saul and David is the very thing we’re talking about. Swedenborg explained that Saul pictured a ruling doctrine that draws heavily from worldly values. He’s all about politics and the preservation of power. If he hears that somebody else might want his job, or if the people might want different leadership, Saul is not above taking out his military and eliminating the competition. That’s exactly what he did with David. Much of the First Book of Samuel relates Saul chasing David all over the countryside because the prophet Samuel anointed David as the next king. David, in contrast, represents a ruling doctrine that relies on spiritual values. David doesn’t do what is expedient; he does what is right in the eyes of the Lord. When he has the opportunity to kill Saul, he says no, As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him down; or his day will come to die; or he will go down into battle and perish. Samuel had anointed Saul as king at the Lord’s instruction, and David knew that it was not his job to second guess the Lord.
That’s humility. Humility isn’t groveling at someone’s feet. It’s accepting that someone might know more than you or might know better than you. Humility is the essential of Divine worship because we can’t learn from the Lord if we already think we know better than the Lord what our needs are.
I’ll talk about the woman in our gospel story in a minute, but first I’d like to talk about the glorious octopus. These are truly amazing animals that have only begun to be appreciated in the last fifty years or so. You might know that octopuses have no bones, and no shell to protect them, and yet they’ve been around for about two hundred million years. I watched a documentary on cephalopods recently, which includes octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish. This documentary highlighted the octopus’s intelligence and their ability to camouflage. The prevalent theory is that because they are soft-bodied animals and therefore vulnerable when attacked, they have compensated over time by developing a very sophisticated nervous system, yielding an impressive intelligence, and an amazing skin that has the ability to change color and texture, giving them mind-boggling camouflage capabilities. Seriously, you might be looking straight at an octopus, and you wouldn’t even know he or she was there. We could talk more about why octopuses are incredibly interesting, but the point is the idea that vulnerability leads to adaptation. The same argument has been made for our own species: because the first humans were vulnerable to predation, they adapted. We developed social behavior, an upright stance, and cognitive intelligence.
In general terms, this isn’t difficult to understand. If something is vulnerable, it must change or suffer the consequences. We humans are vulnerable to cold weather, therefore when the temperature plummets we have to change our behavior. We put on heavier clothing. We stay inside. Humans are susceptible to a host of viruses. Therefore, when certain viruses are on the rise, we have to change our behavior. We wear masks. We wash our hands more often, and use sanitizer. It’s how we survive. It’s how any species survives. Those species that cannot change, succumb to the environmental pressures to which they are vulnerable. This seems harsh, but it’s how the physical universe works.
We are vulnerable to environmental elements, but we are vulnerable spiritually as well. We were created to grow, to mature, to evolve, but there is a host of things within us that can interrupt that process. We are vulnerable to false ideas and to self-centered desires. We are vulnerable to fear and doubt. We are vulnerable to resentments that we can’t seem to let go of. We are especially vulnerable to ego. Ego, or “proprium” as Swedenborg called it, is our sense of self, and it’s the part of us that thinks we knows better than anybody else. When that “anybody else” includes God, Swedenborg wrote that we've closed the interiors of our minds to the reception of good and truth from the Lord. In effect, when we choose to follow ego, we cheat ourselves out of being inspired.
Humility brings the inspiration back. Humility is the beginning of listening. Humility is the beginning of learning. Humility is the beginning of healing from all of our human shortcomings.
Our story from the Gospel is not, as many would assert, an advertisement for faith healing over medicine. The woman was suffering from hemorrhages. She was losing blood. Now, blood is a potent symbol in the Word. Being the fluid or water in us that nourishes every cell in our body, blood corresponds to the truth that nourishes us and brings us Life. It is the truth of Divine love, and how love is the center of everything spiritual. The woman could not hold on to this truth in her life, and worldly medicine hadn’t helped her. When she approached the Lord with humility—not thinking she was bettero ro more worthy than anyone else in the crowd—hoping for just one moment of connection with his most external garments, the simplest truths of the Word...the Lord responded. She had reached out to him in her humility. She was truly ready to receive healing. That the point at which healing can flow, uninterrupted, uncorrupted, and truly nourish us.
There was another woman who lived in India, so the story goes, who went everywhere on hands and knees. Many people thought she was mentally ill. At least, that was their ego-born conclusion that justified their desire to avoid her. When someone actually asked her about her practice of traveling everywhere on her hands and knees, she said that she had been taught all her life to be humble whenever she found herself in the presence of God. That is how she expressed her humility.
All we need to do is own up to our vulnerabilities and our growing edges; that’s how we invite the Lord in to help us grow past our growing pains, both chronic and acute. We have an opportunity to practice that today, as we participate in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
I’d like to postpone our prayer until after the offertory, and encourage you to focus on at least one of your growing edges. What fear or resentment do you think you could live without? Who have you forgotten to love? When have you been too proud, or too unreasonable? Let’s meditate on that one thing, and lets assume a state of humility about it. When we accept the bread, corresponding to the goodness of life, and the wine (or juice) corresponding to the truth that life imparts, let it be a sign of your commitment that you will allow the Lord inspire you regarding this one thing, bearing in mind that the inspiration you are looking for may come to you directly, through your reflection or personal prayer, or indirectly, through something you read or something that somebody else says. The Word teaches that the Lord will respond to our need.
I am hoping that we find humility to be a liberating and productive state, not a sign of weakness, but a sign of spiritual strength. Amen.
READINGS
I Samuel 26:5-21
David set out and came to the place where Saul had encamped; and David saw the place where Saul lay, with Abner son of Ner, the commander of his army. Saul was lying within the encampment, while the Army was encamped around him.
And David said to a him Ahimelech the Hittite and to Joab's brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, "Who will go down with me into the camp to Saul? "
Abishai said, "I will go down with you." So David and Abishai went to the army by night; there Saul lay sleeping within the encampment, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the army lay around him. Abishai said to David, "God has given your enemy into your hand today; now therefore let me pin him to the ground with one stroke of the spear; I will not strike him twice."
But David said to Abishai, "Do not destroy him; for who can raise his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless?" David said, "As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him down; or his day will come to die; or he will go down into battle and perish. The Lord forbid then I should raise my hand against the Lord's anointed; but now take the spear that is at his head, and the water jar, and let us go.” So David took the spear that was at Saul's head and the water jar, and they went away. No one saw it, or knew it, nor did anyone awake; for they were all asleep because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them.
Then David went over to the other side, and stood on top of a hill far away, with a great distance between them. David called to the army and to Abner son of Ner, saying, "Abner! Will you not answer?"
Then Abner replied, "Who are you that calls to the King?"
David said to Abner, "Are you not a man? Who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not kept watch over your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy your lord the king. This thing that you have done is not good. As the Lord lives, you deserve to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the Lord's anointed. See now, where is the king spear, or the water jar that was at his head? "
Saul recognized David's voice, and said, "Is this your voice, my son David?”
David said, "It is my voice, my Lord, O King." And he added, “Why does my lord pursue his servant? For what have I done? What guilt is on my hands? Now therefore let my Lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering; but if it is mortals, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out today from my share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’ Now therefore, do not let my blood fall to the ground, away from the presence of the Lord; for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains."
Then Saul said, "I have done wrong; come back, my son David, for I will never harm you again, because my life was precious in your sight today; I have been a fool, and have made a great mistake. "
New Testament: Mark 5:25-34
Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.
Immediately aware the power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"
And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; so how can you say, ‘who touched me’?"
He looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
Emanuel Swedenborg’s Arcana Coelestia 8271
Divine worship consists in the exaltation of the Lord relative to one's self, which is done according to the degree of our humility before the Lord. Humility is the essential of divine worship. When we are in this essential, we are in a state of receiving from the Lord the truth which is a faith and the good which is of charity, consequently in a state of worshiping the one [and only] God. But if we exalt ourselves before the Lord, we've closed the interiors of our minds to the reception of good and truth from the Lord