Prophetic Humility
What does the Lord require of us? To be liberated from our illusions.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?Micah 6:8
A classic verse, no doubt. And depending on your feelings about church music, a classic hymn. I, for one, admit that I am basic enough to still love this verse and have loved singing this hymn round-robin ever since an early 2000’s youth conference. It sounded like 1200 high schoolers singing this at once:
But now that I’m studying the prophets of the Hebrew Bible more closely, I have to acknowledge that it’s a little strange having the words of one of the great embattled and emboldened Chaotic Good voices of Scripture packed into a softly sung sweet song.
I don’t have to go deep into the difficulties of Jewish-Christian relations to doubt that Micah would have been impressed at his words being taken out of context. I also doubt that Micah would have been impressed at any of us, not for our justice, nor our kindness, nor our humility, nor our complicity in the collective delusions of society. Prophets live in dismay at us all.
I can imagine a modern Micah stumbling upon the above tribute to him while doomscrolling, mouth open in horror as he listens to his prophetic fire being pacified into mere tranquility. He might sarcastically wonder why we didn’t sing:
For this I will lament and wail;
I will go barefoot and naked;
I will make lamentation like the jackals,
and mourning like the ostriches.Micah 1:8
I do not know exactly what Micah would say if he were here, but I am pretty sure that most of us would wish he would go away. As Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “The prophet employs notes one octave too high for our ears.”1 We would have found him overly harsh in his criticism of landlords, we would have ignored him when he mocked our privileged peacemaking while people go hungry, and when he calls us out for our intoxicating distractions, we would have said he was being a wet blanket on the small solaces in a global pandemic. We would have felt he was degrading us and disgracing us, begging him, “Don’t preach about that!”
But prophets do not degrade us; they only point out where we degrade ourselves. They do not mean to kick those who are down, but rather encourage those in the midst of misery. Perhaps the true prophet is “one octave too high” not to impose his pride over our degradation, but to empty us of our pride so that we might “walk humbly.”
There’s no point in pretending otherwise: it’s really hard to do just one of justice, kindness, and humility, and it’s really hard to do all three at once. Sure, I can sometimes do justice with kindness, but I’ll be so proud of myself while doing it. Or I can be humbly merciful, but I’ll probably perpetuate injustice. Or if I choose to be a dedicated, humble servant of justice, I might become a cop in one life or a Twitter activist in another. But in either role, if instead of serving my community I serve my idolatrous concept of “justice” as an end in and of itself, this eventually chokes kindness and mercy until my humble justice becomes prideful injustice.
So could I ever pull off juggling the trio? Don’t make Micah laugh.
But I wonder if connecting to these three virtues might be simpler than we know. I wonder if we really just need to find the true core of one of them to unlock the other two. Because true humility creates space for justice and kindness, and genuine kindness creates an unimposed, selfless state of justice. And what would be more authentic justice than the embodied, social realization of deeply material kindness, and how could that do anything but empty us of our pride?
I used to confuse humility with low self-esteem, but I think humility is something more like self-emptying-esteem. As CS Lewis said, it’s “not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less,” just getting out of the human esteem paradigm altogether. Humility is not lower, but emptier.
Therefore, humility is not being a doormat, avoiding conflict, or never self-advocating. As Thomas Merton said, it is “not a neurosis. … [nor is it] the humility that makes a person charming and attractive... [it is not] a humility that freezes our being and frustrates all healthy activity, [which] is not humility at all, but a disguised form of pride. If we were really humble, we would know to what an extent we are liars.”2 Likewise, neither is humility the so-called “ego death” of the false self, which is its own lie told in spiritual pride.
As a point of order, we may not have a single false self to humble, but many false selves. We may have the false self that spends more time judging and locking up the poor rather than feeding them. Or the false self that delights in nastiness and resents kindness. Or the institutional false self that wants to be a prophet but is really just a “prophet on a payroll.” Or the false self that sees Christ freezing on a park bench and keeps walking.
False as they may be, humility is not about doing away with these selves. Just as with James and John’s thirst for power, divine humility loves our false selves—even in their falseness—but drains them of their pride so that they can be of service. Our competitiveness, our grandiosity, our anger, they can all be used if they know how to serve. We can even make a joyful noise and be glad in them.
To walk humbly is not to walk solemnly, but hopefully—with a mad grin at the koan that is the truth of our falsehood. Because humility may be skeptical, but it is ultimately not cynical. As Merton also said, “Humility sets us free to do what is really good by showing us our illusions.”3
Again: humility sets us free by showing us our illusions. This includes the illusion of cynicism, which does not have to depart our atmosphere entirely, but must recede enough for hope to breathe through its ash.
Humility liberates our attention so that we can liberate our intention. Or, as Dr. Erica Brown said, “it is walking with eyes wide open to the presence of anyone in need, waiting to perform acts of mercy, justice, and lovingkindness.” Humility makes us available for what needs to be done.
So: after all this, why do I want to keep singing Micah 6:8 with demure sentimentality?
Because, as Heschel also said, in between the prophet’s agony, “there are interludes when one perceives an eternity of love hovering over moments of anguish…[the prophet] begins with a message of doom; he concludes with a message of hope.”4 And so when I sing his words, I pray I may honor Micah’s eternity of love without erasing his intensely accurate despair. I desire to sing not from escapism but as part of the excavation of my arrogance, becoming a little more available to do what is required of me. And this, itself, instills hope in me.
Where there is corruption, where there is injustice, where there is an impending catastrophe, where there is spiritual disease, where there is purely horrible evil and anything else truly awful, anguish remains eternally justified. But if we do not have hope alongside our anguish, we do not have the full prophetic consciousness, and we are just another false prophet.
By showing us how we participate in the unholy, the true prophets lead us into the humility of merciful justice by emptying us of everything that we are not. When this happens, our pride leaves behind a cavernous vacuum, clearing space for our true Self to operate. In these moments of flow, when we find our sacred work in communion with creation, we innately know that hope is not delusional; it is undeniable.
Heschel, The Prophets, p.9
Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, p.59
Ibid, p.58
Heschel, The Prophets, p.6 & 12
this is a beautiful & painful piece. thank you for writing it.