On Humility
Rev Dr Mark Porizky
10/14/07
Luke 18:9-14
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” 13But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’
When I was a
growing up one of the genres of television that appealed to me was the western.
The
I liked those TV
shows because they were so predictable. Like most westerns, the bad guys always
wore gray and rode dark horses. Whenever they spoke, they spoke with a snarl. The
good guys always seemed to wear white--or at least bright, clean colors--and
rode white horses.
On Sundays, if I
managed to make it to Sunday school, it sometimes seemed that the same people
who had written the screenplay for these westerns also wrote some of our Sunday
school lessons, for the characters we studied there were also very gray and very
white. For example, we knew that if we had been there for the showdown in
As I grew older,
though, I grew tired of those westerns, because they were so predictable. They
didn't deal with real people living in a real world. Instead, they usually dealt
with cardboard characters in a tissue paper play.
In turning from
some of those stories of our childhoods, many of us have unthinkingly turned
numb to the stories Jesus told. We have heard them too many times. As a result,
we've concluded that Jesus, like those cowboy westerns, dealt with caricatures
rather than real characters. (repeat)
Take the story in Luke chapter 18. As soon as we get a line on the cast of characters, we have already made up our minds about who is who in the story.
We know that one
of the men was a Pharisee, and like Pavlov's dogs, we have been conditioned to
think of all Pharisees as evil. So, mentally we proceed to color him gray. On
the other hand, the other fellow in the story is a tax collector. We recognize
that tax collectors were not the best of men, but we suspect that in this story,
at least, we're dealing with a good guy in disguise.
But had you stood
there on that ancient afternoon when Jesus first told this parable, you would
not have come to any such naive conclusions. In the eyes of the good and decent
people of Jesus’ day, the Pharisee was a religious and a moral success. He
could stand in the temple and pray, "I thank you that I am not like other
men — extortioners, evildoers, adulterers. I tithe all that I take in. I fast
twice each week." I'm sure he was praying truth as he understood it.
Measured by any conventional standard, ancient or
modern, the Pharisee was a religious success. He says that he fasted twice each
week. That was far more than the Old Testament had asked. In the ancient law,
the people of God were asked to fast once each year—on the Day of Atonement.
But in his devotion to his religion, this Pharisee would not be held to that.
So, twice each week, on Monday and Thursday, he denied himself food.
He also says he
gave a tithe of all that he took in. I suspect he is saying more than that he
was a tither. That would have been characteristic of a great many people of his
day. I think he is saying he tithed those things the law did not ask him to
tithe. Perhaps each year he figured up his net worth and gave a tenth of that to
God.
This Pharisee was
hard working at his religion. And
his religion had done him good: the people in the community respected and
admired him as an outstanding citizen, a contributor to the community. In
fact, even the tax collector who came to services on that ancient Sabbath
admired and respected the Pharisee. Jesus said that when the tax collector
entered the temple, he stood far from this noble leader of the religious
community. The tax collector did not feel worthy to stand by the Pharisee’s
side. Jesus’ listeners would have
agreed.
If you think this tax collector was merely a man willing to admit his limitations, you do not understand the place of tax collectors in the first century.
Whenever
As a result,
extortion was built into the job; injustice was part of the trade. The Roman
historian, Tacitus, says that once he visited a village that had had such an
honest tax collector that the village erected a monument to his memory. To be a
tax collector was to be despised by most people.
It's not so
simple, then, to discover why Jesus decides the verdict as he does. It's not so
easy to see why he commends the person we would condemn and condemns
the person we would commend. But Jesus is not dealing with caricatures;
he's dealing with characters. To understand this story, then, we've got to look
at it more closely.
When we do, we
discover that the Pharisee and the tax collector are both in the temple.
Certainly Jesus is not criticizing them for that. In the temple the daily
sacrifices were offered. In the temple men and women, through those sacrifices,
came into a relationship with God. We also see that both of them are praying,
and Jesus is not giving them low marks for that.
But as we listen
to the prayer of the Pharisee, we begin to get a little uneasy. He says, "I
thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, evildoers, adulterers. I
fast twice each week. I give a tithe of all that I take in. I thank you
especially that I'm not like that tax collector." What upsets us is that we
feel this man is conceited.
If you and I were
going to give him a bit of spiritual counsel, we would urge him to be more
modest. We'd say to him, "Look, what you pray is true, but you ought not
pray it in public. It sounds bad, conceited. You ought to be more careful how
you pray."
In the assortment
of sins that men and women commit, one of the sins we don't like (at least in
other people) is the sin of conceit. We like our heroes modest.
Conceit has a way of putting us off. When the running back runs seventy
yards, scores a touchdown, and then is interviewed on television, we like him to
say he made the long run because of the good line in front of him. We don't like
him to say, "I'm the best runner in the National Football League."
Or, let's say you
discover that on a test you've gotten a fat C minus. As the person next to you
looks at his blue book, you ask, "What did you get?"
He says, "Oh,
I got an A. That was an easy exam. I didn't even study for it. You
didn't have any trouble with it, did you?" (Pause)
Now, you're willing to admit the other person is a better student than
you. What you don't like is to have
him say it. You don't like his conceit. It puts you down. It rubs you wrong.
But, friends, here
me, as far as God is concerned, conceit never makes it into the big leagues of
sin. Conceit is a minor matter. It's often simply a way of talking. It's often
just bad judgment.
A young woman went
to her pastor and said, "Pastor, I have a sin for which I want your help. I
come to church on Sunday and can't help thinking I'm the prettiest girl in the
congregation. I know I ought not think that, but I can't help it. I want you to
help me with it."
The pastor
replied, "Mary, don't worry about it. In your case it's not a sin. It's
just a horrible mistake."
That is often true
of conceit. There are people who talk big because inside they feel small. It's a
way of covering up feelings of inadequacy. As far as God is concerned, conceit
is a lot like acne: it’s disturbing but not fatal.
So let’s be
clear. The trouble with this
Pharisee was not conceit, not pimples on the skin. The trouble was in the
bloodstream. He is standing in the temple—in the presence of God—and
thinking that the differences that matter among men matter with the Almighty.
The problem with the Pharisee was pride.
Luke tells us that
Jesus told this parable to those who were confident of their own righteousness
and looked down on everybody else. One of the symptoms of is a critical spirit,
because one of the ways we feed ourselves is by comparing ourselves with others.
We usually look at their vices and think of our virtues, and that, we assume,
gives us special standing with God.
This Pharisee was
in the presence of God, and in the presence of God he thought that the
distinctions that mattered among individuals mattered with the Almighty. In the
presence of God, he had a good eye on himself, a bad eye on his neighbor, and no
eye on God.
"But the tax
collector," Jesus said, "stood far off and kept beating his
breast." That was something that women did, not men. "And he would not
even look up into heaven." He looked down at earth. When the standard way
to pray was to look up into the heavens, he kept beating his breast saying,
"O God, be merciful to me, a sinner."
It might occur to
you to say, "All right, the tax collector was humble. But after all, he had
a lot to be humble about." But
the sin of pride could have been within the tax collector as well.
The tax collector could have prayed just like the Pharisee.
This tax collector
could have stood in the presence of God and said, "O God, I thank you that
I'm not as other men are. I especially thank you I'm not like that Pharisee. I
don't pray long prayers in public. I don't pray like a religious type. I know I
have sinned, and I'm willing to admit it. And even if I had done all these
things, at least you know and I know that I'm not a hypocrite."
That too would
have been a prideful, arrogant prayer. Some
of us think that as long as we aren’t hypocrites, God will give us credit. I
don't know why we think hypocrisy is the worst sin in the world, and why we
believe that by living shabby lives, but not being hypocrites, we become
creatures who enjoy special favor from God. Here
me: We don’t get special favor
with God because we do good, but we also don’t get any brownie points because
we aren’t hypocritical.
Instead, this tax
collector stood in the presence of God, and kept saying, "O God, be
merciful to me, a sinner."
One of the
benefits of living in God's presence is this: when you really see God, you see
yourself; when you see yourself, you see your sin; when you see your sin, you
cry out to God for grace and forgiveness, and you receive it. The saint is
always more aware of his need of God than his successes in God, always more
aware of how far he has to go than how far he has come.
Job is described
by the biblical writer as the most righteous man of his day. When he suffered,
his friends told him he was suffering severely because he had sinned badly. Job
denied that, refused to accept that. Then, at the end of the book, Job receives
a vision of God. When he sees the vision, Job responds, "I have heard of
you with the hearing of my ear, but now my eye sees you, and I repent in
sackcloth and ashes." Seeing God, he saw himself; seeing himself, he saw
his sins; seeing his sin, he saw his need of grace and forgiveness. And he cried
out to God for cleansing.
Isaiah was the
cream of young manhood of his day. But in an hour of national and personal
crisis, when a mighty king had died, Isaiah stood in the temple and caught a
vision of God, high and lifted up, his train filling the temple. And when Isaiah
caught that vision of God, he said, "Woe is me. I am undone. I am a man of
unclean lips. I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips." When Isaiah
saw God, he also saw himself; when he saw himself, he saw his sin; when he saw
his sin, he saw his need of forgiveness and grace.
If you live in the
presence of God and live in the light of his holiness, you will see your sin.
And when you see your sin, you see your need of forgiveness, and you cry out to
God for grace to cleanse you.
Friends, we never
outgrow your need of grace or forgiveness. The most respected member of this
church, whoever that is, who has lived with God for scores of years, needs God's
grace just as much as any pimp or prostitute on a skid row who is coming to
Jesus Christ for the first time. The more you know of God's light, the more you
see your own shadow. And the more you become aware of your need of God's grace,
and the more often you cry out for God's cleansing and grace, the more you
realize how much God gives you.
In a book entitled The Testament, novelist John Grisham paints a portrait of one man's surrender to God's will. Nate O'Reilly is a disgraced corporate attorney plagued by alcoholism and drug abuse. After two marriages, four detox programs, and a serious bout with dengue fever, Nate acknowledges his need for God. Grisham describes the transformation:
“With both hands, he clenched the back of the pew in front of him. He repeated the list, mumbling softly every weakness and flaw and affliction and evil that plagued him. He confessed them all. In one long glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God. He held nothing back. He unloaded enough burdens to crush any three men, and when he finally finished Nate had tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered to God. "Please, help me."
As
quickly as the fever had left his body, he felt the baggage leave his soul. With
one gentle brush of the hand, his slate had been wiped clean. He breathed a
massive sigh of relief, but his pulse was racing.”
That is the secret
of humility—not looking inward and dwelling upon our deficiencies or
weaknesses, not looking outward at other people, comparing yourself with them,
their vices against your virtues, their virtues against your vices. Humility
comes from looking up into the face of God—who is holy love and loving
holiness—to see ourselves and our need of forgiveness, to cry out for grace
for daily life. Seeing God is to see ourselves. And to see ourselves is to
understand what humility is.
Isaac Watts captured it when he wrote, "When I survey the wondrous cross / On which the Prince of Glory died, / My richest gain I count but loss, / And pour contempt on all my pride. / Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, / Save in the Cross of Christ my God: / All the vain things that charm me most, / I sacrifice them to His blood."
Will you pray with me now?
St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton
,
Web Site: WWW.SAPC-CT.ORG
Office Email: OFFICE@SAPC-CT.ORG
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