6 - 23 - 17 Jesus is Smarter than Drake

6 – 23 – 17

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This passage contains Jesus proclaiming that He is the only path to the Father, that He is the only method of salvation for all human souls. There probably couldn’t be a more important thing in the universe.

In this passage He also says, “I am meek and humble of heart.” Which seems like quite the contradiction when we consider these two ideas together, but we are thinking of our human experience.

Jesus does not need to boast, firstly it would not be in his nature, secondly there is nothing he would desire to lay claim to being that He is not. In this passage He is simply telling his disciples about the nature of His ministry, expressing to them the importance of not only Himself, but his teachings. I think this distinction is what makes these statements feel contradictory to each other when they in fact are not. Most other times we have heard someone boast on that level, of being all-powerful or the very, very best at something it is either untrue or debatable. So when Jesus claims to be Lord of the Universe our gut reaction is that He is laying a claim, trying to stake out a position, and if no one will challenge Him, retain it.

That is what we experience in our daily lives, few people we know tell us the truth about themselves, indeed, few people know the truth about themselves. One illuminating lyric that I think showcases the absolute lack of understanding of this concept is from Drake, “Being humble don’t work as well as being aware.” He’s referencing his stardom and clout in the entertainment industry for anyone unfamiliar with him.

The line is hilariously absurd once one bears in mind what the state of humility allows. The cultivation of humility is an effort to get rid of the cognitive bias of illusory superiority whereby individuals imagine themselves to be at least better than average in every category. Clearly, most people are wrong in this assumption. The reasons humility is trumpeted as a religious virtue is a very long list, but the fact that illusory superiority is a sort of scaled-down exceptionalism that will permit us to treat our equals as our inferiors is certainly an entry.

So what’s ironic about the line is that it is impossible to be aware without being humble. Humility allows that detachment from ourselves as we are not worried about defending our pride in every self-evaluation we make. Proud people have too delicate of egos to undergo any remotely objective analysis of their abilities and assets as finding anything not as good as they would have hoped, which via illusory superiority seems inevitable, would crack the foundation of their personality. If this does happen they react violently, immediately stop the process, and plaster over the crack in the concrete, assuring themselves that they are even better than they originally thought and vowing not to question themselves again.