Being laughed at and suffering embarrassment, or even shame, for not being able to complete a tower once begun reminds me of that other parable in which Jesus advises us to take the lowest place at table, lest someone more important arrive and we be obliged, shamefaced, to move down to a lower place. In both parables, Jesus seems to challenge the notion, sometimes found in the ancient monastic tradition, that humiliation is the path to humility. Although humiliation can at times chip away at pride and arrogance, it more often engenders anger and resentment toward the one who humiliates us. This is not surprising, since humiliation is experienced as an assault on our human dignity and an affront to our being created in the image and likeness of God. Authentic humility, by contrast, grounds us in the nobility that was, and is, bestowed upon us through our union with God in Christ. Indeed, it is only in and through this union with Christ that our true dignity is revealed and secured. Humiliation can occur, therefore, only when we lose sight of this union, or when we imagine that our dignity is something we possess independently of Christ and apart from a living relationship with him. Our task, therefore not to seek humiliation but to seek truth. In that truth we discover both our poverty apart from God and our immeasurable worth in Christ, and from holding those two realities together, humility is born.