Does humility rule in today’s complex, fragmented and violent world? As the two most powerful countries in the world (the United States and China) choose leaders, what is the evidence for and against the practical outworking of this week’s ROOTS title, ‘Humility rules’?

This week's news

Barack Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States although he will still face a House of Representatives with a Republican majority. 

By Sunday, the outcome of the secretive Chinese Communist Party meeting to select the next generation of leaders for the world’s most populous state should also be known. 

Next week, many in England and Wales will have the opportunity to vote for Police and Crime Commissioners. What does the nature of campaigning say to us as we reflect on today’s ROOTS theme? 

For many people, today’s worship will need to reflect Remembrance Day, as we mark the 94th anniversary of the ending of the First World War, the so-called war to end all wars.

Reflection

Elections are rarely opportunities for the display of humility. On the contrary, candidates tend to act more like the scribes in Mark 12.38-39. They and their supporters are inclined to boast about achievements and plans, whilst attacking those of their opponents. Would you or I actually vote for a genuinely humble candidate?

Candidates for high office in China do not campaign in the same public way as in the US or in Britain. But do they seem to be any more humble? Martin Jacques has been arguing on the radio (see Action below for links) that China is a civilisation state, rather than a nation state in the western sense. Does that, or the sheer scale of a polity in which a quarter of world’s population lives, make a difference to the sort of leadership needed? Can humility possible rule on that scale?

The humble and peaceable Gandhi, a Hindu, not a Christian, was never elected to office; yet he was one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, achieving much, in what is still the world’s second most populous state, through non-violence. Who are his spiritual successors today? Could someone like him have similar influence in the 21st century? Might his example illustrate ways in which humility can rule in today’s complex world? Or is he the exception which proves that humility really does not rule?

Some leaders resist the temptation to interfere in the work of their successors – Mandela comes to mind, for example. But others find it hard when they are no longer in the limelight. Church leaders are not immune from temptation to interfere. In your own church are you one of those people who comes over as humble? 

ROOTS AAA for today argues that ‘the kingdom of God is characterised by relationships in which humility rules’. Does humility rule in your relationships with family or friends or in your church life? Can we properly pray ‘Your kingdom come’ unless our own lives reflect humility?

Prayer

Lord,
where we are wrong, make us willing to change;
where we are right, make us easy to live with.
Amen.

(Peter Marshall, 1902-49, sometime chaplain to the US Senate)

Remember in your intercessions leaders in the United States and in China and the candidates for election as Police and Crime Commissioners in England.

ROOTS offers material for Remembrance Day on the website. 

A theme prayer to use to sum up either the opening prayers or the prayers of intercession:

Faithful God,
forgive us when we seek places of honour
and help us to learn  
how to be more like the widow
who offered two small copper coins
than the scribes sitting in the best seats.
Give us grace to be humble servants
seeking to follow the Servant King.
Help us to understand that
what we contribute is the lives we live.
Make us true and faithful as individual Christians
and a true and faithful community of peace
that the world may at least glimpse
signs of the kingdom that Christ came to bring;
we pray in his name.
Amen. 

Questions

• Discuss whether you would vote for a genuinely humble candidate in an election.

•Who in today’s world is the equivalent of the widow offering her ‘two small copper coins’ (Mark 12.42)?

•‘The church must learn time and time again that its task is not to make the world the kingdom, but to be faithful to the kingdom by showing the world what it means be a community of peace. . . As Christians we seek not so much to be effective as to be faithful’. (Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, SCM 2003, p.103f, his emphasis). Discuss whether this helps us in understanding how humility might rule?

Action

•For a view of a very different political culture from our own, read Martin Jacques' article on China or listen to the podcasts of four recent Points of View programmes.  

•Consider the implications for you and your church community of living as recommended in the Hauerwas quotation above.

•Consider whether, in your church life or your family life or your working life, you personally might try to live more like the widow than the scribes.

Young People

Is humility a virtue or a liability amongst those with whom you work or study? What would they make of today’s Gospel passage? And how might you persuade them to think differently about it?

Dudley Coates is a Local Preacher in the Bridport and Dorchester Methodist Circuit and a former Vice President of the Methodist Conference.

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