The Divine Universe

You know what an underdog is. Let’s think about the Christian God who offered himself as the Undergod. In every group, in every family, in every business and organisation there is a hierarchy or pecking order. Some individuals are more important than others; they carry more weight and have more influence and control. At home, parents have more status than their children; in clubs, committee members and office-holders have more status than ordinary members; in industry people in suits have a higher status than those in T-shirts; in the Church clergy have more status than laypeople. (Actually, the word hierarchy comes from the Greek word for priests: hieratikos.)

Are hierarchies a good thing or a bad thing? The historian, Arnold Toynbee, has argued that, in the absence of a clearly established structure of authority, the most neurotic individual takes control. Society needs structures. A nation needs a government, and even in the home there needs to be discipline.

There is a global hierarchy of nations; some are more powerful than others, but no acknowledged leader or viable structure has emerged. The United Nations has never established any real authority. The United States tries to rule the world through overwhelming military superiority, but its foreign policy is quite neurotic. What we see of world leadership today confirms Toynbee’s theory, and I’m not only thinking of America.

Most nations today have some sort of democratic system, however corrupt, but very neurotic people often get to the top. We live in a competitive society and the most ambitious and ruthless tend to do well. Among those kinds of people, paranoia, anxiety, phobias and obsessions are common.

During a dinner party at a senior Pharisee’s place everyone was jostling to get the best seats. Jesus noticed this and said it was wiser and safer to seek the lowest place, but in real life no one wants to do that. At the bottom of the pecking order you become the butt of everyone’s bad humour; you get put down all the time, or you are ignored; if you’re an employee you get exploited; if you’re different you get persecuted.

Jesus knew all about that. Conceived out of wedlock and dying in disgrace, he couldn’t have sunk lower. With his gift for leadership, his creative intellect and imagination and his aristocratic lineage he could have been a king. Many would have supported him, even by armed force. His claim to be Messiah was well founded and is argued from his genealogy by Matthew and Luke. Surely he would have created the ideal world government? But Jesus knew better what was possible and chose otherwise.

The gospels say a great deal about Jesus’ humiliations, hardships and sufferings but they don’t seem to say much about his enjoyment of life, the indications are there however. The beatitudes, with their repeated reference to blessedness (which means happiness), clearly reflect his joy of living. He enjoyed parties too. He was even accused of being a drunkard and of mixing in unsavoury company. His joy was not only spiritual; he enjoyed life in very ordinary ways too. Jesus was a happy person.

Even the involuntarily poor, those at the bottom of the world’s social heap, are not always miserable. I recall news pictures of black people in South Africa during Apartheid. All of them, especially the children, showed amazing resilience and fortitude; they seemed inexplicably happy. Pictures of children in Iraq and Palestine look the same, waving and clowning for the camera. Jesus certainly challenges us, but he doesn’t ask us to be miserable.

Nor does he specifically say that taking the lowest place will make us happy. He is not directly promising happiness as most people would think of it, but referring to a higher set of values: the opposite of those of ordinary society. It is difficult for us to see beyond our conventional values. Even religious people tend to share them. Money, success and fame still impress us, even if we pretend they don’t.

Jesus is not talking particularly about success or failure, about being rich or poor, about being a VIP or a nobody; he challenges our whole attitude to life and to other people, rich and poor. Do we show special interest in VIPs rather than ordinary people? The media think we do. Do we only socialise with people of our own social class or better? Do we cultivate friendships, exercise hospitality or do favours on the basis of the advantage it may be to us? And what is our attitude to people at the bottom of the socio-economic scale (we used to call them ‘the poor’)? During the month of Ramadan, Moslems go without food all day and then feed those in need in the evening.

Playing games of one-upmanship, name-dropping or having the right labels on our clothes, wearing the right brand of watch or driving the right car doesn’t define our real value. The ‘best’ people in Jesus’ society posses a very uncommon gift that doesn’t cost a cent: humility.

Humility is a difficult thing to define: it has so many layers. It is not a feeling of inferiority. It cannot be won by being deliberately modest, still less by cultivating a low opinion of yourself. If you feel you are humble, you have missed the point. True humility is unconscious, and it is very elusive, and very rare, but I believe it must be a state of extreme happiness and serenity if only we could find it.

Humility is not so much an attitude to ourselves but rather an attitude to others. God is in love with the world; Jesus was in love with the world. His intense love made him humble. I believe we will find true humility if we can share something of the mysterious love of the God who takes the lowest place, the Undergod.

Jesus revealed the humility of God, so the poor were powerfully attracted to him, but the clergy and rulers, the middle and upper classes, were offended. He was insulted and contradicted; vicious rumours were circulated about him, and he was eventually killed because he was seen as a deluded religious extremist, a terrorist suspect and a threat to national security. But, though totally humiliated, he never stopped loving.

Humility is not something we can achieve by a deliberate effort. It does not exist in itself; it is part of love. Loving automatically makes us humble. And love is a gift from the Undergod who is humble towards us and submits to us with perfect integrity and infinite wisdom because he loves us.