Service is one of those admirable actions that individuals across cultures and people groups take to be of a highest good. It is the greatest way in which to demonstrate love, care, compassion. It is the greatest way in which to honor and elevate another. It is the greatest way in which to establish the place and position of another as highly valued and prized.

It is also a great way in which to humble oneself before another, so as to promote the other and place them above yourself. Humility, as the word itself indicates, involves humiliation, even as the words come from the ancient Proto-Indo-European root term *dhghem–, meaning “earth” or “lowliness/low to the ground,” which thus thereby indicates as much. Many a preacher I have heard say that humility and humiliation are not associated or one and the same. I, however, wonder, for the Passion of Christ Jesus was not one merely of humility but also of humiliation–and he faced all that willingly, of his own accord and by the decree of the Father. Thus, I do not think that the two are unrelated or not one and the same. Indeed, it seems that humility requires humiliation, for to humble myself, I must thereby humiliate myself, lowering myself before the one(s) whom I seek to elevate before myself.

While humility today seems to be in vogue, true humility does not. True humility would look something like this: a Democrat honoring a Republican; a straight man honoring a gay man, a transexual, a transvestite, etc.; a Christian fundamentalist honoring a Muslim, a Hindu, an atheist, etc.; and vice versa, ad infinitum. True humility is about honoring others–regardless of who they are–more than honoring oneself–regardless of the power, prestige, or privilege held. It is found in the selfless elevation in honor of another and the selfless humiliation of oneself before the other.

True humility would work itself in very drastic and wild ways; it would be the way that painter Vincent van Gogh worked as a missionary before he was an artist: he allowed the poor to live in his missionary house, while he himself slept on the floor, suffering with the poor miners he was serving. True humility manifests itself in self-depreciation, self-humiliation, self-sacrifice–not for the sake of some sick sadomasochistic tendency of self-critics, but for the sake of honoring another in love because of love, that is, love held for the other by the one.

That is humility, true radical humility.

Now, to my real point for writing: imagine you are serving others food. You yourself are so service-minded and humble that you flat out refuse to eat anything that you are serving to others. In fact, you are so involved in serving others food and refusing to eat yourself that you die.

At your funeral, everyone talks about how self-sacrificial you were, how you served to the end, you never gave up serving or helping others. This is one way to go and is, in fact, the way of many great individuals as Jesus of Nazareth, Cesar Chavez, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa. However, the general lot of us, while we must serve in humility, lest we die in pride and self-aggrandizement, must also serve ourselves to a degree. The service we promote or in which we engage ought not necessarily be to the detriment of ourselves: eat a little while you serve others the same food; besides, a meal shared is, perhaps, a greater act of service than one not shared. You yourself are as much a part of the service and the offering as is the service you offer.