Conduct Your Affairs with Humility

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29

My child, conduct your affairs with humility,

 and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.

 Humble yourself the more, the greater you are,

 and you will find favor with God.

 What is too sublime for you, seek not,

 into things beyond your strength search not.

 The mind of a sage appreciates proverbs,

 and an attentive ear is the joy of the wise.

 Water quenches a flaming fire,

 and alms atone for sins.

Sirach is a giant summation of the Israelite wisdom tradition after the convergence of Jewish piety and Greek philosophy that took place in the centuries immediately before Jesus’ birth. A lengthy work of poetry, moral exhortation, and advice, it was a favorite catechetical tool of the Early Church, although one with no discernible organizing structure. Our reading today comes between a section about duties toward parents (3:1-16) and another on almsgiving and social conduct (4:1-10), and it is primarily concerned with the virtue of humility.

Rather than self-deprecation, humility is the honest assessment of oneself. If you are good at something, humility requires that you recognize that rather than belittle it, which is false humility. However, the greater you are at something, the more important it is to humble yourself and thereby “find favor with God.” You might be great with numbers, a naturally gifted athlete, or an incredibly empathetic person, but there is something you aren’t great at. Additionally, and more importantly, no matter how good you are at things, you still sin, and you have to admit to that in order to find favor with God. 

Today, the Lord speaks specifically about the limitations of the human mind. Sirach’s advice not to look into things too sublime or beyond your strength is reminiscent of Job’s answer to the Lord after he had demanded that the Lord show up and explain himself: “I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know” (Job 42:3). Neither Job nor Sirach are anti-intellectuals, but both recognize that there are limitations to what a finite human mind can understand. 

What are you good at? Praise the Lord for those gifts! What are you not great at? Praise the Lord for that as well. He didn’t make us to be well-rounded individuals but rather to be individuals built for community, made to rely on one another as a sign of our ultimate reliance upon him.