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A decade ago, I sat despondent in Relief Society during a lesson on humility. Law school exams were fast approaching and I felt overwhelmed. An arbitrary system was about to base 100% of my grades on half-day tests. Regardless of my objective mastery of the material, the system was designed to force competition against my smart and talented peers. I would be graded on a strict curve. Those grades would then be aggregated to assign my relative class rank. Without a sufficiently high class rank employers would flick my resume into the recycle bin. My future career was at stake. The legal job market was deep in a recession. I feared failure, and that my student loans would never be repaid.
I sighed and decided to interpret the lesson as a chastisement. I needed to repent and learn humility. I needed to learn “a modest or low view of my own importance.”
It had been selfish for me, a Mormon woman, to even dream of moving to D.C. for law school. I had chosen to mortgage my future family for my own ambition and now I had to pay the price. Within a few weeks I would know, empirically, just how not-great I was, relative to everyone else. Raising my hand, I made a joke-not-joke about how law school was teaching me humility by making me feel worthless.
Thankfully, my Relief Society responded with wisdom. Humility is not about comparing yourself to other people, it’s about comparing yourself to Christ. Even “comparison” is not quite the right word, because of course Christ is perfect and you are not. Humility is the self-honesty to see yourself like Christ sees you, and then extend that clarity of vision to all God’s children. We are all imperfect but beloved children who Christ shepherds towards personal growth.
Christ offers us grace and joy. The Atonement is a gift, not a test. Christ does not grade us on a curve; Christ does not “grade” us at all.
When I switched to praying from that mindset, the world shifted. I felt love. Christ was pleased I was seeking learning out of a desire to serve others. My classmates were not my competitors, they were my friends. The worth of our souls did not depend on our class rank.
* * *
I’ve reflected on this mental shift often over the last decade. Those reflections led me to conclude that the way the world defines humility is just faux pride. Popular humility is actually covetousness. Pride compares yourself to others and concludes you’re better; “humility” compares yourself to others and concludes you’re worse. The error – the sin – is in the comparison itself.
The smugness of the comparisons is what horrifies me most about the Zoramites’ prayers atop the Rameumptom. “Oh Holy God . . . thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee.”
In their pride, the Zoramites cast the poor out of their synagogues and “esteemed their brethren as dross.” Unable to pierce through that arrogance, Alma turns to preach to the oppressed outside. He notes their humility due to their poverty, but then pivots: true humility comes from believing the Word of Christ. What follows is one of the Book of Mormon’s most powerful sermons on faith. (Alma 32).
Christian humility is defined by our faith to experiment upon the Word. “To seek justice, to love mercy, and walk humbly before our Lord.” (Micah 6:8). To learn “how to serve God’s children gladly with a pure and gentle love.” Humility is setting aside all comparisons to others so that we can love our neighbors like Christ.
* * *
We are not a humble church.
We are not humble because we keep falling into the trap of proving our superiority by comparison. Comparisons rest at the heart of raising ourselves above other Christians, refusing to apologize, and even assessing the worthiness of our fellow saints.
The temptation towards comparison is rooted in our boldest claim: there is only one true Church, and we are it. To establish that premise, we rattle off a litany of every way our sisters and brothers fall short. Other Christians apostasized. Other Christians incorrectly comprehend the Trinity. Other Christians corrupted scripture. Other Christians held councils to decide doctrine by majority vote. Other Christians have professional clergy. Other Christians do not understand eternal families. Other Christians baptize infants, by sprinkling and not by immersion. Other Christians look to the Cross as a symbol instead of to Christ the Risen Lord.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has renewed its emphasis on Jesus Christ in our name and in our symbols. Yet we still hold ourselves apart from the greater communion of Christendom. As one personal but indicative example: In the early days of dating my now-husband, I invited him to a ward activity. I needed a way to quickly signal to my friends that he was not Mormon as a prompt for them to code-switch. So I introduced “my Christian boyfriend, Bradley.” It worked – until we climbed in the car afterwards.
“Carolyn,” Bradley remarked. “You keep insisting that Mormons are Christians. But if that’s the case, why is it that you could so easily succeed in labeling me Christian tonight, as if that were something other?”
President Hinckley famously invited others to “bring with you all that you have of good and truth which you have received from whatever source, and come and let us see if we may add to it.” Inherent in that invitation for us to add to them was the assumption that there was no truth they could add to us – the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints already possessed it all. It’s an assumption I’ve seen often. One friend, enrolled in World Religions at BYU, once complained about how the course only examined others’ beliefs for the purpose of isolating their kernels of our restored truths; the rest of their beliefs were dismissed as heresy. The conceit astounded me. Whether kneeling with Catholics, praying with Muslims, or meditating with Buddhists, every interfaith ritual I’ve shared has expanded my love for humanity and my knowledge of God.
I’ve long wished that instead of championing our superiority, we would have the humility to remind our members to seek out words of wisdom from the best books of other faiths. (D&C 88:118). Yes, we have light – I love the Book of Mormon. But so do they. The heavens are open, revelation is ongoing, and “if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” (Articles of Faith). No matter the source, “that which is of God is light.” She who receives light and continues in God receives more light, which grows “brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” (D&C 50:24).
What if, instead of listing the ways our sacraments are better than others, we took the Rachel Held Evans Searching for Sunday tactic instead? What if “one faith, one Lord, one Baptism” (Ephesians 4) was read not to be restrictive, but inclusive? That whether the Eucharistic is whole or torn, wheat or rice, unleavened or risen, served behind an altar or down a pew, provided on an open table or only to those who are baptized – it doesn’t matter. The bread is still Christ’s sacrifice and Last Supper, so the diversity inherent in expressions of that meal has the power to add to our human understanding about the infinite love of God.
Divine truth does not need to be proven right by comparison. If we live with an eye single to the glory of God, we will seek the light of Christ wherever it is found. That light already shines from every soul. Our humble calling as Christians is not to impose relative judgments of inferiority or superiority on other people. Rather, it is to unite humanity together in rooting out systems of sin and oppression. After all, Christ did not condemn sinners, he condemned the abuse of power.
*Photo by Michelle Tresemer on Unsplash