If it's so clear and persuasive then why is it more lacking today than 2000 years ago?

What was the attitude toward humility 2000 years ago, and where? I personally have no idea.

Jesus is certainly far, far more influential than 2000 years ago. Christianity was an obscure religion and probably nobody had heard of Jesus outside the immediate region.

Jesus' very clear message of humility is published in a massive best-selling book that got gold filigree letters in the medieval manuscripts and which was promoted in buildings that were for a thousand or so years the largest and grandest that most people ever saw, and led to the creation of the famously wealthy Catholic church (whose stuff was famously confiscated by Henry VIII when he needed more gold) led by popes whose desire for expensive art led to the sale of indulgences that led to Martin Luther and a massive europe-wide series of conflicts, and also led to the less famous but more infamous Knights Templar who didn't survive having their money taken.

Parable of the sower comes to mind: hear the word, but did not follow it.

Except the popularity in that era was due to all the powerful people saying it proved their right to absolute power and sometimes made other religions (including denominations of Christianity) illegal, and popularity waned rapidly as it stopped being required.

Actually reading the bible is a big part of why I switched from Catholic to Wicca as a teen before deciding it was probably all ahistorical anyway.

(I'm not trying to sell Jesus or Christianity; I'm just talking factually about the text of the Gospels. For those unfamilar - the Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament, in which the authors describe Jesus' actual words and life, often quoting Jesus. The rest of the New Testament is other people's responses to about Jesus and Christianity.)

As I understand it: Humans are complicated, as Jesus depicted them. They are both terminally weak and flawed, and there is also good and justice and mercy in them - the many angels of our natures. Jesus ministered to the weak and flawed, not the good and just, certainly not to the perfect. It's a message of love to people who sin, which is pretty much everyone; Jesus didn't expect differently. His message was to love the sinners and for the sinners to accept his love.

All human institutions are flawed and to a degree corrupt; they are run by sinners. I'm not defending the Catholic Church or any church or religion, my point is that if we throw out the good when there are flaws, major flaws, we are left with nothing. Not even ourselves.