Explainer

Creed

Humility

Leading

Pride

Weirdness

20 May 2024

5 min read

Humility is just plain weird

Can leaders be humble?

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

The Pope, wearing white, kneels, crades a bare foot, and kisses it.

Pope Francis kisses the foot of a woman inmate of the Rebibbia prison.

Vatican Media.

Last week I met the Pope. You don’t often get to write a sentence like that but despite the shameless name-dropping, I mention it because it got me thinking about something that shed light on our political and social life.

It wasn’t just me and him. I was with a group of Anglican bishops and Archbishops and we had an hour with Pope Francis in one of the grand reception rooms in the Vatican. When you enter the Vatican, you can’t but be impressed by the sheer grandeur and size of the place. Long corridors with statues and huge windows, large reception rooms with elaborate frescoes of biblical scenes, Swiss guards with their brightly coloured uniforms saluting as you walk past.

The grandeur is perhaps not surprising, and perhaps even modest for an institution that that has 1.4 billion followers – that’s about the population of China – and one of the greatest patrons of the arts in western history.

We filed into a long elaborately painted room with marble floor, and decorated ceiling, took our seats and waited. Finally, a frail, white-robed figure hobbled in, aided by attendants in suits and white bowties. Pope Francis was a bit unsteady on his legs, but sharp, mentally alert, and with a smile that broke out over his face from time to time.

If the Vatican felt like the palace of an ancient city state, the headquarters of a global network, like the Kremlin or the headquarters of Google, something else felt very different. The difference was brought to mind by a picture I saw a few weeks ago.

... but Rishi Sunak or Donald Trump kissing blistered, calloused, guilty feet? Hardly. This was a display of humility that stood out as plainly weird.

Just before Easter, the Pope went to prison. In case you are wondering how you missed this extraordinary story, it wasn't of course that he had been convicted of some terrible crime, but on this occasion, he went to visit the Rebibbia prison in Rome. While there, the 87-year-old, increasingly frail pontiff, stepped out of his wheelchair, and bent down to wash the bare feet of twelve women prisoners, many of whom were in tears as he did so. There is an extraordinary picture of him with his eyes closed, kissing the right foot of one of the women, clothed in her grey prison tracksuit trousers, as if it was him who had the privilege in the encounter and not her.

When I saw this picture, it struck me how truly extraordinary this action was. Here is the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, performing an act of such staggering…. well, meekness, is the only word I can find for it - kissing the sweaty feet of criminal women, feet that had presumably led them into decidedly questionable places in the past, while doing so not reluctantly but gladly, thinking this was the most wonderful thing he could ever do.

I tried to imagine the residents of other grand buildings - the American president, the UK's Prime Minister, the leader of the European Union, the President of China, or the CEO of Google doing something similar. And couldn't. I could imagine politicians visiting a homeless centre to dole out food for the social media coverage, but Rishi Sunak or Donald Trump kissing blistered, calloused, guilty feet? Hardly. This was a display of humility that stood out as plainly weird.

If I had been the Creator of all that exists, I would have made sure that the credit went where it deserved. Yet the world around us has precious few explicit reminders of God.

Yet was not entirely surprising, because humility is a distinctly Christian virtue. The Greeks were decidedly lukewarm about it. Aristotle wrote: “With regard to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride, the excess is known as a sort of ‘empty vanity’, and the deficiency is undue humility…” Humility was appropriate for slaves but not for noble-born people, certainly not for political leaders, leaders of multinational giants – or popes for that matter.

Yet Christians have always valued humility. One of the New Testament writers says: “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” So why does God show favour to the humble?

The answer is, I think, surprising. It is not that God is majestic and demands humility from us measly creatures. It is that, in the Christian understanding, God is humble. Even though he appears to have not that much to be humble about. If the phrase that captures the understanding of Allah in Islam is ‘God is Great’, the main claim of Christianity is that ’God is Love’. And love cannot be proud or arrogant. It has to be humble.

The God Christians believe in doesn’t draw attention to himself, and doesn’t shout about his own qualities. Instead, he leaves it to others to do that for him. That fits with the way the world is made. If I had been the Creator of all that exists, I would have made sure that the credit went where it deserved. Yet the world around us has precious few explicit reminders of God. There is no signature written in the sky, billboards or flashing neon lights saying ‘Made by God, just for YOU!’. In fact it is quite possible to go through life and completely miss God altogether.

If there is a God, he seems oddly reticent, unwilling to advertise his existence, or as the prophet Isaiah put it, perhaps in a moment of frustration many centuries ago, “Truly, you are a God who hides himself.” This theme, of the ‘hidden God’ has fascinated theologians and philosophers from St Paul to Martin Luther, from Blaise Pascal to Søren Kierkegaard.

Even when God does reveal himself, in the arrival on the human scene of Jesus Christ, even then he is oddly hidden. Jesus was perplexingly reluctant to identify himself as God. He didn’t by and large go around saying “Look at me, I am divine!” It was possible to meet Jesus of Nazareth face to face and go away thinking he was just another Jewish rabbi or teacher. In fact, he was more likely to be found acting out the role of a servant, washing the feet of his friends, providing them with food, living a wandering homeless existence, dying on a criminal’s cross, than doing important things like wearing robes, exerting political power or living in palaces. Nowhere does God appear to us unmistakably. He is not an in-your-face kind of God. He seems, odd though it is to say it, quite shy. Or perhaps the best word is simply: humble.

So what the Pope did in that Italian prison may have been unlike any other ruler. Yet on another level it was just like the ultimate ruler of all things.

Explainer

Advent

Creed

2 December 2023

4 min read

Beyond waiting: Advent’s acknowledgements and expectations

Understanding Advent has changed since childhood, writes Alianore Smith, who now takes stock of the darkness and expects the light.

Alianore Smith

Alianore Smith is a theologian, communicator and author. She works for a global charity based in London.

Five candles sit in a row against a dark background, only one is lit.

Robert Thiemann on Unsplash.

Growing up, I wasn’t a particularly big fan of Advent.

I think this possibly had something to do with the fact that I was never allowed a chocolate Advent calendar. Every year, my brother and I would petition my parents for one – even suggesting a Fairtrade Advent calendar, even offering to share it (which would be a Christmas miracle in and of itself), in the hope that this would swing the odds in our favour. But no such luck. Every year, we were told in no uncertain terms: ‘Advent is a time of waiting’.

… Can you tell both my parents are vicars?

So no chocolate for us.

I felt this particularly acutely in my first year at university. My flatmates and I decided to open our Advent calendars together on December 1st. Everyone else got chocolate – dairy milk, crunchie, even a Twix. I, however, got a hearty piece of Scripture, detailing two of the key Advent themes: ‘the people walking in darkness have seen a great light.’

After all, man shall not live by advent chocolate alone.

I am delighted to report, however, that since my mother-in-law heard this story for the first time, she now takes great delight in sending me a chocolate advent calendar every single year. My Lindt one for 2023 arrived last week.

Man shall not live by advent chocolate alone… but it certainly helps.

Of course, the older I’ve become, and the greater my understanding of church tradition, the more I’ve understood what my mother was getting at: Advent is a time of waiting.

In the church’s calendar, Advent is a season of expectation and preparation, as people prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth whilst also looking ahead to his final return as judge at the end of time.

Traditionally, Advent has been split into four (or if you’re very serious about Advent – seven!) weeks, each with a different theme: Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.

‘Advent is a time of waiting’ doesn’t seem so bad when you know what the alternatives are.

In more modern times, however, the church has generally moved away from the four themes of death, judgement, heaven and hell, and instead embraced slightly cuddlier abstract nouns: hope, peace, joy and love.

Much nicer.

But my new favourite way of thinking about Advent takes a middle ground between these two and comes from theologian Fleming Rutledge. She says this: ‘Advent begins in the dark’.

Advent begins in the dark.

Which seems, quite frankly, ridiculous, when Christmas lights are being turned on in late November, and sparkly baubles are for sale everywhere you look. But traditionally, she’s right: Advent does begin in the dark. Remember what my Advent calendar told me, all those years ago in my uni flat: ‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light’.

Advent is a season of acknowledging the reality of the world and waiting with expectation for something better – which for Christians means Jesus’ birth and his triumphant return in glory. And if we’re going to acknowledge the reality of the world, we’re going to find some serious darkness.

You don’t need me to list them – they’re right in front of us: Israel and Gaza, poverty even in the most affluent of countries, the abuse of children, the exploitation by ruthless gangs of people desperate to build a better life. It’s everywhere in our newspapers, neighbourhoods, families, and our very selves. Darkness is, more often than not, the reality in which we live.

But we’re not very good, I find, at dwelling in the darkness when the option of skipping forward to Christmas is all around us. When you’re playing Whamageddon’ in every shop you go to, and your social media is filled with other people’s beautifully twinkling Christmas trees, it’s hard to sit with the darkness.

It might mean a slightly different Advent, perhaps with a little less chocolate and a little more reflection, but it leads to something even more glorious.

But, in the words of Fleming Rutledge once again: “Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness.”

Take a ‘fearless inventory of the darkness’.

How are we supposed to take a ‘fearless inventory of the darkness’ when the darkness is so very… big? So very dark?

How can we be fearless in the face of darkness?

The answer, surprisingly, lies once again in the meaning of Advent: we are waiting for Jesus. The one who Christians call ‘the light of the world’ invites us to acknowledge the reality of the darkness, and understand that ‘the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it’. And we are waiting in the knowledge and the certainty that he will show up. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.

In Advent, the church journeys from darkness to light. We consider the world around us; we look back to the incarnation – to Jesus’ birth as a baby – and we find ourselves, as we take that ‘fearless inventory of the darkness’, longing ever more fervently for the light of the world to step in.

It might mean a slightly different Advent, perhaps with a little less chocolate and a little more reflection, but it leads to something even more glorious. After all, how much more dazzling is a candle lit in a pitch-black room than one lit in broad daylight?

Advent is about waiting. Advent begins in the dark.

But it points us towards something greater – it acknowledges that deep yearning within all of us as we are faced with the darkness of the world. That deep yearning for light, for hope, for peace, for joy. And it promises that such a thing is on the way.