The Power of Humility

Text: Luke 18:9-14

Focus: humility

Function: to foment humility.

⁹He 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 lift up his eyes 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.”

This parable addresses the sin of self-righteousness.

If we were to put a positive spin on the parable, we could say that it is a call for us to be humble. The power of humility is that it brings us to salvation.

Humility seems to me to be a difficult subject to preach on. I think it might be because I wrestle so much with my own pride. But I keep reminded you that that there are three things that God wants from us. God wants us to be active justice makers. God wants us to be happy about mercy shown to others, and God wants us to walk with God in humility.

Don’t be proud of yourself.

Specifically, don’t be proud of your own self-righteousness.

For some, theologically, this is a call to grace. Theologically, we were taught that since God is perfect, God is separate, or Holy and therefore, it is impossible for us to purchase our own redemption. The doctrine presupposes the concept of original sin. Somehow we have to reconcile that theological statement with the fact that when God finished creation, God called it good.

What I mean is this, God believes in us. God believes in humanity. God, we teach, created humanity specifically for the purpose of fellowship and companionship.

God, we teach, and I believe, is love.

Apparently, the Pharisee, a religious leader, believed that since he was as obedient as possible to all the commands of scripture, God must be forced to love him more.

The tax collector, instead, believed, or hoped for, our counts on, the mercy of God to save him.

He humbles himself. Instead of comparing himself to others and therefore justifying himself -in his own eyes- he acknowledges the fact that he is a sinner.

I call myself a liberal theologian. But one of the concepts from liberal theology that I reject is the idea that it is wrong to use the word sinner since when God created us God called us good.

And I understand the refusal to use that term, but then I come to this parable and I see the man who was justified before God, according to Jesus, was the person who self-identified as a sinner instead of as a righteous person.

“Self-identified” is the salient term here.

You have heard the statement, which I reject, Love the sinner, hate the sin.

But I would change it drastically to say, love the sinner -which includes myself since God loves me- and hate my own sin.

But, in order to keep it palatable to my liberal friends, I would say, Love everyone, hate my own sins. (But, forgive them since they are also chances for us to learn and to grow.)

The terms “Sin and sinners” seem pejorative and they aren’t mentioned in this passage. I attached the word sin to the concept of pride which makes us stumble and fall.

Sin is an ugly word to us. But the word actually means, to miss the mark. When we sin, we miss the mark.

It is important to understand this because our failures do not mean that God doesn’t help us. Our failures are opportunities for us to grow and to learn. If we stop growing and learning, we shrivel up and die.

The Pharisee missed the mark by trusting in his practices of piety to save him instead of having a heart that was humbly listening to its conscience and the leading of the Holy Spirit inside of him.

And the problem that I find is that pride often is used for me to justify myself, just like the Pharisee.

I love science and the mixture of religion and science. I can defend evolution and the Christian faith without any inconsistencies.

So I get proud of the fact that I am not like those people who reject science. I do the same with climate change. And don’t let me get started on my politics. I am proud and deeply opinionated about my positions and don’t leave room for people to have opposing views.

Pride, when we use it to think that we are better than others, leads us to sin. It keeps us from loving them as God wants us to.

I grew up in an era when housing was red-lined and black people could not move into specific neighborhoods. I remember the show “All in the Family” doing an episode on it and my dad just casually explained it, as if it was a natural thing, “those kind of people lower the property value of our houses so we have to keep them out of our neighborhoods.”

My dad didn’t think anything was sinister about that kind of prejudice against a race of people.

So, I accepted it as natural myself. And then I learned why black people bought huge expensive cars when they lived in the ghetto. Part of it had to do with financing terms on luxury vehicles, but most of it was because they couldn’t use their homes as symbols of prestige, like we can be guilty of, so they used their cars.

And through that, I learned of the sin of red-lining.

And now, I feel l superior to those who don’t see it my way.

God, be merciful to me, a sinner, is the only thing I can pray when my mind, and my opinions get in the way of the fact that they person who holds a different view than me might simply be a person who has also missed the mark, just like me.

I hope that wasn’t political, because my point is just how arrogant and divisive political views can be. God has called us to humbly listen to and respect the viewpoints of others. It is only through that process that we can bear fruit as the kind of peacemakers and believers Jesus has asked us to be.

Here is the thing about humility. It leads us to honest self-examination. But don’t get proud of the fact that you can do it.

For me, honest self-examination is a result of my prayer life. Especially if I have a difficulty that I am praying about. God is often working on my own heart and my own attitudes to see of I will practice this principle of walking before God in humility.

I didn’t have a lot of success with conflict resolution during my 35 years of ministry. If someone came to me with a complaint about someone else, which was often, Instead of taking a side between two people, I would seek for them to see how their own pride might be contributing to the conflict.

Conflict resolution between two people as a preacher was a no win situation since I wont take sides and neither side is happy.

So, the only thing I can do in preaching against pride is to help guide people into a thoughtful prayer and contemplative life, I believe this places us in a spot where the Holy Spirit can temper our pride and get through to the new way of living to which Jesus calls us.

So practice self-examination. It leads us to humility and that can deliver us from pride.

But I caution you, when you practice self-examination, to be as gracious to yourself as you are to others.

Remember, Jesus loves us and is living inside of us. His Spirit is there to help is see our own arrogance and cause us to love others the way Jesus loves them.

So, let us practice humility, it brings us to the place where we hear the Holy Spirit speaking and that gives us the source of power to love others as we love ourselves.