A Homily for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
–Matthew 23:12–
In 1991, I was invited to a private home, and the family’s rule was that when anyone visited their house for the first time, he had to divulge a really embarrassing story about himself. That presented no problem for me. I had plenty of material. I decided to relate how, in 1982, I accidently left my prosthetic eyeball on a river bank in Norwich, England. I was later told that Kyle, the seven-year-old in the home, turned a distinct shade of green. The point I am trying to make is that I believe the particular family I happened to be visiting was quite wise. They knew that anyone who freely tells an embarrassing story about himself would most likely make a good friend. I’ve remained close to that family ever since.
I was once speaking with someone who frankly admitted that, when she was supposed to turn her clocks ahead one hour, she unthinkingly turned them back one hour. “I spent the rest of the day two hours behind everybody else,” she laughed. Now wouldn’t someone like that make a good friend?
We instinctively like people who can laugh at themselves. That, by the way, is something I think the devil cannot do. In his classic book Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton observes that “Satan fell through the force of gravity.” In other words, the Evil One took himself far too seriously.
More recently, I was watching a recorded program by Bishop Fulton Sheen on the Eternal Word Television Network. The bishop told how once, as he was delivering an address to a congregation, a man started taking up a collection, beginning with the back rows and moving forward. When the man got to the front pew, the bishop asked him, “Why are you taking up a collection as I’m speaking?” The fellow replied, “So we can pay for a better speaker next year!”
And we all love Rodney Dangerfield’s self-deprecating humor: “Pop always called the first snowfall of the year a Rodney snow. He said it would never amount to much.”
Our Lord is right. On the purely relational level, whoever humbles himself will be exalted. I must therefore ask myself: If I like people who easily admit their foibles, why is it so hard for me to pronounce the words, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. How can I make things right?”?[1] If I enjoy being around those who can laugh at themselves, why do I take myself so seriously, and why do I find it so difficult to admit that I’ve made a mistake? If I appreciate self-deprecating humor in others, why do I insist on bragging about all my accomplishments?
The good Lord loves the humble, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we do too.
[1] In his 2008 book, The Last Lecture, computer science professor Randy Pausch argues that a genuine apology always involves these three elements.