contempt and humility- Luke 18
A friend of mine who lives out west on the coast was picking up her daughter from school in the middle of winter. It was a really cold day, and she had 2 small children in the van with her, one of them was a young baby. So as she was waiting she had her car idling to keep the car warm. It’s one of those things parents can be a bit paranoid about in the winter, especially since babies can't tell you if they are getting cold. So as she's waiting outside the school she has the van running.
A very angry
man came up to her and knocked on her window and started to lecture her about
how she shouldn't be letting the car idol because it puts more carbon into the
atmosphere. She explained to him that she had a baby in the car who would get cold
if she turned it off, but he wouldn't hear any of it. When she wouldn't turn
off her vehicle he went and stood in the exhaust behind her minivan and started
coughing loudly to get his point across. I don't remember how it ended, but I
do know that event did not make my friend care more about the environmentalist movement.
If anything it had the opposite effect. That man may have been right, but he
was filled with contempt and self-righteousness.
In our
Gospel reading we meet another man who was filled with contempt and self-righteousness.
Jesus tells a parable about two men who go to the temple to pray. Likely this
is at one of the daily atonement services, where a lamb was sacrificed for the
peoples' sin and incense and prayers were offered. The Pharisee stands off by
himself, maybe so he's not touched by anyone who is ritually unclean. He prays
by thanking God for his own goodness. He prays, "God, I thank you that I
am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax
collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get." We are left
wondering if he is actually thanking God. Or is he just basking in his own
sense of self-satisfaction. The Pharisee obviously feels he is righteous and
looks on the sinful people around him with contempt. Contempt has the effect of
making you feel better about yourself by thinking someone else is really
horrible. It’s a bit like making yourself feel taller by beheading the others
in the room. He isn’t a robber. He isn’t a con artist. He isn’t living in
sexual sin. … I'm sure we've all met people who are sure they are good people
because they've never killed anyone. They aren't like Hitler, so they are
basically good people.
The Pharisee
goes a step further. He's not just ‘not
bad’- he's actually really good. He even goes beyond the requirements of the
law. The Old Testament requires fasting on festival days, but the Pharisee
fasts twice a week. The Old Testament requires a Tithe, or 10%, from certain
kinds of income, but he tithes on everything he has. He has gone above
and beyond the call of duty. He is a super Israelite. He stands and basks in
his own sense of righteousness. How good it is to be one of the righteous,
especially more righteous than the other people around you.
Traditionally,
in the first century, the people would often pray out loud. So it is also
possible that his prayer is a bit of a sermon to the people gathered for
prayer. Get it together people. Be righteous like me. I'm sure we've all heard
prayers that are a little more like sermons than prayers- "...And Lord as
we sit down to eat our supper, please remind Johnny to do his homework and eat
his vegetables...".
The
environmentalist who confronted my friend was basically right. We are in the middle of an environmental
crisis. Maybe she should have found a way to keep the baby warm without having
to keep the van running. It is a good thing to care for the environment. As
Christians we should be on the front lines in caring for creation. The problem
was the judgement he was heaping on her head from a heart that seemed filled
with pride and contempt.
Of course as soon as we bring judgement on the
Pharisee or the environmentalist we realize that we have become the Pharisee in
the story if we start to look on the Pharisee with contempt- glad that we aren’t
like him. … What was wrong with the Pharisee was not his dedication and good
works. What was wrong with the Pharisee was his sense of comparative
righteousness which led to pride and contempt. "God I thank you that I am
not like this tax collector". Pride, self-righteousness, contempt, and
judgement are poisons to our soul. When we try to justifying ourselves by
looking at others with contempt we destroy humility in ourselves, which is the
necessary stance before God to receive grace.
It might be
helpful to talk a bit about why humility is important, and to do that we have
to look at what kind of a story we are in. St. Augustine taught that we are living in a
state of sin. The world is polluted by sin, and that toxic sludge creeps into
us from the moment we are born so that we are inclined towards selfishness. We
are still God's good creation, and so we still carry God's image, but that
image has been broken.
All
religions have this basic belief- Something is not quite right. Something is
not quite right with the world. Something is not quite right with us. We are
not enlightened. Things are out of balance. We are disconnected from who we
really are, or who we are meant to be. We are fooled by illusion, and lies. It
is expressed in a myriad of different ways and through a variety of stories
from as many cultures. Something is wrong with us and the world. The religions
of the world, each in their own way, teach us about how to deal with the
brokenness. They give us a new way to think about the world, or they give us
actions to do, or they give us hope for a future time when the world will be
fixed. They all give a way of dealing with the brokenness. Either way, from the
time we are children the brokenness is a part of us.
This is
basically what Augustine referred to as Original Sin. We have inherited this
pollution. It was part of the world we have been born into, and we will add to
the pollution as we add to it our own personal sins. Our own pride, greed,
lust, wrath, gluttony, jealousy, and unwillingness to use the gifts God has
given us,… all add to the toxic sludge that permeates the world and results in
war, violence, oppression, and addiction. In our brokenness we chase after what
we think will make us happy, but it eventually just leads to more pain and emptiness.
Paul says in Romans Ch7, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want
to do I do not do, but what I hate I do". It's that monkey that you can't
get off your back and just when you think you have shaken it off it sneaks up
on you again. We are stuck up to our
waste in a mud pit, and the more we wiggle to free ourselves the more stuck we
get. … The Christian response to the brokenness is to acknowledge that we need
someone to come pull us out.
This is
where the Pharisee gets it wrong. He thinks he has worked his way out of the
mud, because by comparison to the people around him, he looks like he's doing
alright. But, he doesn't see the root of all sin living in his heart- Pride. Pride
is the seed of sin. Pride leads to contempt. Contempt leads to anger and
hatred, which leads to murder. The prideful
Pharisee might have good works, but with pride planted in his heart he is a
ticking time-bomb.
And this is
where the Tax-Collector gets it right. Jesus isn't saying that there is
anything good about his job. Tax-collectors
were crooks and traitors who worked for an occupying army. Often they were
already wealthy and they gouged the poor to make themselves more rich and
powerful using the authority of their Roman oppressors. They were allowed to
skim as much as they wanted off the top as long as Rome got their share.
Anything extra the tax collector was free to have. It was a rotten system that led to all kinds
of corruption. … But, this Tax Collector seems to have realized his part in the
world's problem. He realizes that he is pumping that toxic sin sludge into the
world. And he comes to God for forgiveness because he can feel his own sin
weighing down his heart. The Pharisee doesn't see his own sin. … The tax
collector sees his own brokenness- his greed, and gluttony. He stands at a
distance from the rest not because he is afraid of being polluted like the
Pharisee, but he feels like he is not worthy to stand among them out of shame
over his own sin. He is so burdened by his own sin that he hangs his head and
beats his chest. He is feeling deep regret and remorse. I know there are
moments of sin and stupidity in my life that will come back to me in a quiet
moment and I will have a gut reaction as the memory hits me and almost without
thinking about it I’ll groan and feel as though I’ve been hit. I think that
kind of full-body reaction the tax-collector is having.
The tax
collector calls out for help in humility. Humility is just seeing yourself as
you are- no better, no worse. Humility is seeing yourself as God sees you. The
Tax collector calls in genuine humility for God's mercy. And that is the
prerequisite to receiving it. Unless you genuinely realize your need for
atonement you don't have the ability to receive it. Unless you realize that
your relationship with God and the people around you is messed up, you can't
really ask for and receive help from God.
Humility is the seed of all virtue. With humility planted in your heart you
are bound to be led into a transformed life.
Before the
confession in the Book of Common Prayer it says this, "YE that do truly
and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your
neighbours, and intend to lead the new life, following the commandments of God,
and walking from henceforth in his holy ways...". … Truly and earnestly.
We are welcome to the sacrament of Absolution if we truly and earnestly repent.
The confession is not a magic formula to grant us forgiveness. It presents us
with the opportunity to open ourselves to receive forgiveness. As we do the
confession we should have specific personal sins in mind, rather than a general
sense of being a sinner. We all live in a sin sick world, but that sin finds
specific expression in our lives. Maybe we drink a bit too much, maybe we look
at internet sites that we shouldn't, maybe we gossip a bit too much, maybe we
judge others, maybe we are a bit greedy with our money, maybe we are filled
with anger. Sin has an expression in all of our lives. We all have something we
struggle with. And that stuff is not news to God. But purposefully and
specifically confronting it and bringing it to God is important.
Sometimes we
talk about repentance and we start to think God wants us to have bad
self-esteem. That’s not what humility is about. What God wants is repentance,
or “metanoia”. He wants us to be in a continual state of turning towards God.
He wants us to be continually changing our minds and hearts. He wants us to see
the world and ourselves as God sees. This starts with humility. The alternative
is to live in an illusion. God knows the
deepest and darkest parts of yourself. God knows the parts of yourself you keep
secret even to those who are closest to you. God knows about them. God doesn't
want us to remain stuck in the mud. Christ stands with his hand out to us who
are stuck in the mud. What we have to do is have the humility to grab hold.
Christ has done the painful work. He has shed his sweat and blood on the cross
for us. He wants to transform us. He
wants to make our lives better. He wants to work through us and transform the
world by transforming our little piece of the world. God wants to speak peace
into your life. That is what it means to be justified. You have peace with God.
Your relationship is healed. The Tax collector went home with his relationship
to God healed. Sure he had work to do. He had to fix some things in his life,
but God was there to help him.
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