Advent Word - December 4 - #humble - "Humble yourself!"

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

I wish I could say there was always some profound reason behind the quote I put in each title, but it's usually just the first phrase that pops into my mind. For today's quote, it's simple something some of the players of the University of Georgia 2018 Rose Bowl team were heard saying to Baker Mayfield following UGA's overtime win: "Humble yourself!" Granted, a player from a victorious team calling this out to a vanquished opponent is not the greatest sign of humility, but, as I said, I normally just use the first line that comes to mind.

As I think about the word #humble, though, as it's given to us for this year's Advent calendar, and I struggled to figure out where to go with this one today, I remembered a prayer that we say whenever we have a Rite I service at St. Paul's. We call this the "Prayer of Humble Access," and it's been found in different spots in different prayer books throughout the history of the church. In case you don't have your prayer book handy, here is the text in its entirety:

"We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen."

It's a beautiful prayer, and as we pray it right before we come up to receive communion, it helps to put us into a proper frame of heart and mind before we come to the altar rail with one another. As I read it again this morning, I was struck again by the reminder that we don't come to the table "trusting in our righteousness." Instead, we come to the table, many of us on our knees, with our hands outstretched, asking for something that will fill us up, asking for something that we don't deserve and that we haven't earned, but trusting, nonetheless, that God deems us worthy to receive the bread and the wine of communion, to be welcomed at the table, to come into the Kingdom of Heaven.