Yesterday, at the Monday Night Meal we host each week in our home for students, we were talking about the word ‘humble’ and trying to work out what we thought it meant. The word had jumped out at us in the following sentence from the course we are following this semester: … every time we form, establish, restore and deepen tender, understanding, gentle, humble relationship with one another, like we’re doing right now, we imitate and anticipate the way that God seeks to be with us, and glimpse the glory of eternity.[1]
Wait a minute, we all said, did it really say ‘like we’re doing right now’? It did. The Being With course is set up in such a way that most of the content comes from those who take part. We listen to each other’s questions and experiences in the context of relationship, based on the conviction that we already have a wealth of understanding of truth, beauty and goodness that show us something of God in our everyday experiences. By listening to one another we discover new dimensions of God’s presence.
The sentence about humble relationship was striking in the truth that it articulated about our little group; we were already seeing it happening.
One sentence that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said in a debate at Synod last week has also stayed in my mind. It wasn’t a clever argument, it was simply that he said ‘I may be wrong, of course I may, but I cannot duck the issue any more than anyone else here.’ He was modelling the humility that enables conversation and relationship, instead of closing others down.
So it was interesting this morning to read the news that for the last week there has been what some describe as a revival happening at Asbury University in the US. In the context of a regular pattern of worship that happens on the campus, one day last week something changed and the students who were there just stayed and kept singing and praying. It hasn’t been noisy or full of hype but notable for the sense of peace that people experience. One commentator said that it was characterised by ‘radical humility’.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/february-web-only/asbury-revival-1970-2023-methodist-christian-holy-spirit.html
I guess it’s not surprising that no one wants to leave a place where they have a palpable sense of God’s love. In that context, people are being drawn to restore relationships and ask for help to heal past wrongs. People say that they have no sense of the passage of time and are surprised to discover how long they have been there. Students are seen running to get back to the chapel after they’ve been away for food or sleep.
I think I’d run back, too. But for today in this Valentine’s week, I’m going to remember the ‘tender, understanding, gentle, humble’ ways that God shows his love to me each day and through those around me and seek to grow in the kind of ‘radical humility’ that enables that love to be shared with others.
Karen Turner
[1] Being With, Sam Wells, 2022 p. 52
[1] Being With, Sam Wells, 2022 p. 52
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