We need to understand our tasks and purpose for life to answer this question. Since discipleship is about emulating a master and practicing those disciplines, we need to start with what our master – Jesus – did.

He stood for justice and equality.

He cared for those in need.

He lifted up the downtrodden.

He healed the sick.

He lived a humble life. God Himself chose to come to the earth as a day laborer.

As disciples these actions consistutute our list of actions/behaviors to emulate. What then is the purpose of being a disciple? Jesus sums that up nicely as “Your [God’s] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” and “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” Our purpose as disciples – as the Church – is to be a herald and to be God’s hands and feet throughout the world.

Now we can layout a proper set of tasks and purpose in our journey as disciples of Jesus:

Task: seek justice and equality

Task: care for those in need

Task: lift up the downtrodden

Task: heal the sick

Task: love others as ourselves

Purpose: be God’s hands and feet to the world

What does this have to do with humble living? Imagine a seesaw: on one side you have your needs (loving yourself) and on the other side you have everyone else’s (loving others). How do you balance the two out? Humble living is how we place the fulcrum (it determines the balance). Unrestrained, people will quickly find the fulcrum of that seesaw moving closer and closer to us. This is just human nature. We need this and then that. And then this other thing. One by one, gobbling up every last available dollar to us.

Instead, Jesus guides us to live a humble life. While this is enormously helpful to recognize, humble is a subjective measure. CS Lewis captures the essence of what a humble life looks like pretty well:

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditures on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small.” (Mere Christianity p86)

My only point to him is that there is no economic need to live luxuriously compared to the rest of one’s society. So I would amend his statement as “the standard common among those in your city or region.” Meaning, a rich person can choose to live a “normal” life; he or she does not have to live as an elite. As we will see in later posts, there is a more consistent notion of the “standard” that we can apply to our standard of living that doesn’t condemn those with less for giving less and encourages those with more to live on less. That standard is admittedly a subjective one but the comparisons between us and others are what we will use in establishing what humble looks like.

Back to the metaphor of the seesaw – it doesn’t matter how big the seesaw is or how long it is or how heavy the people are at each end except as it relates to everyone else. The significance of the variables are all subjective – you may be thinking of a kid seesaw when you say 100lbs is a lot of weight while I’d say the opposite because I’m thinking of myself on a seesaw. The same goes with the subjectivity of humble living. We just need to understand the design of the system and the relative weights of everyone involved to understand how it will function.