I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s, and parked in front of the television I watched a bunch of episodes of The Jeffersons. The memories are weaker now, but I remember George Jefferson owned a successful chain of dry cleaning businesses, and he and his wife, Louise, were doing well enough that they bought an apartment in a high-rise building in Manhattan. The other characters and the subplots are now fuzzy in my mind, but the thing I definitely remember about The Jeffersons is the theme song, and my guess is you can sing it in your mind without me quoting it. The lyrics are:

Well we're movin' on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin' on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

The implication is the Jeffersons' money and success and penthouse apartment were an advancement and moving up in this way is what all aspire to do. Benedict, in chapter 7 of his Rule, describes a moving-up which he compares to the rungs of a ladder. The advancement Benedict describes is an advancement of humility, and the moving-up is really a moving-down. He compares humility to the ladder Jacob saw in his dream, the ladder with angels moving up and down from heaven to earth. Moving up that ladder is, for Benedict, what the world of The Jeffersons would consider moving down. Benedict says: “Without doubt, this descent and ascent can signify only that we descend by exaltation and ascend by humility.” He goes on to list 12 steps of humility, things like “quietly embrace suffering” and being content with “the lowest and most menial treatment.”

Keep in mind Benedict is writing for a particular place--monasteries--and in a time that’s different from ours. Some of his advice on humility is not helpful to many, especially those coming from abusive environments where they’ve been treated with less respect than a human being deserves. Someone coming from abuse doesn’t need to hear “be more humble.” Benedict embraces suffering in ways that are different than most would today, seeing suffering and mistreatment as a sharing in the suffering of Christ. I disagree with Benedict on some of his descriptions of humility, and I said in a previous post that I don’t believe humility is living as a doormat but rather it is seeing yourself as you are.

What stays with me, though, is the irony of Benedict’s moving up the ladder, which is descending into humility. I’m lured by the worldly moving up. Walking around ritzy parts of Chicago, I’m tempted to think the good life is wearing expensively tailored clothes while I dine at places that would cost more than my monthly car payment. I want others to look at me and be impressed, and I do things only so they will view me that way. Pastors can be lured into the human definitions of success, too. I know I want people to think I’m a big deal in my work, and I’ll do things to project that image. A seminary professor once commented, “It’s curious that when pastors think God is calling them to a new church, it’s usually to a bigger church than the one they’re at.” We all usually think of moving up just as the Jeffersons did, to something nicer and more impressive and more noticed.

Benedict invites us to move up by sinking down, to ignoring the usual definitions of success and embracing humility.