Emmanuel Church, Bungay, Suffolk

The Minister's Sermons

"I'm Not Too Proud to be Humble" by Revd Bruce Waldron - 24th October 2004
I remember my mate David Hamilton, coming back to theological college one Monday morning in 1978, after his weekend at the church where he was placed, shaking his head in disbelief. It was the custom in Churches of Christ for lay people to lead the service for all but the preaching. On this Sunday morning, the Elder in charge read this passage from Luke's gospel, where the Pharisee looks up to heaven and prays, "Thank you God I am not like this tax collector." He then said "Let us Pray!" and began "We thank you Lord, that we are not like that Pharisee."
One of the basics of Christian faith is that we are called to be humble, but as my wife once wrote "It is at the precise moment when you realize you have become a humble person, that you cease to be one."
There is nothing wrong with striving towards holiness, nothing wrong with recognising that you have made some progress in your walk with God. But the Pharisee in our story makes two fundamentally wrong turns.
He sees his supposed closeness to God as a means of placing himself above someone else. The moment this happens, he has lost it, because there can only be one possible outcome of our closeness with God, and that has nothing to do with being better than someone else, only an increased, heartfelt compassion for the other person. The Christian does not need to gloat over other people's failure to ensure their own righteousness.
In Christ, another person's failure is a cause of deep sorrow and pain. In his letter to the Church at Corinth, Paul wrote, "Love takes no pleasure in the sins of others but rejoices in the truth." Jesus' character, the Pharisee, takes pleasure in the sin of the other. But if the Spirit of Christ is in us, then like Jesus, we hurt over other's failure other's sin. We ache for them. We don't condemn and we certainly do not use their failure as a means of making ourselves feel more righteous.
The rest of humanity, if its seen Christ's way, isn't the evil enemy to be held at bay and despised, it is the world for which our Saviour in compassion and love, lived and died, and he calls us to follow Him.
If the Pharisee of Jesus story had looked across at the Tax Collector with pity and compassion and love and prayed, "God, I can see his life is without peace, how can I stand alongside this man?" or if he'd looked at him and prayed "Lord please help me care for him as you've cared for me," then Jesus judgement would have been very different.
The closer we get to God, the more we are likely to see the other person with the creator's eyes of love, and our concern will be for the other, not fixed on ourselves and our own goodness. In fact, the closer we get to God, the less likely we are to start boasting, even to ourselves, how good we are. We might start being filled with wonder at how good God is, but not us.
So the second problem with the Pharisee is that he perceives that somehow he's made it; he's good, he's not like that sinner over there. If I stand close to God, it is an act of God's grace, to be given away with thanksgiving, not a signal of my virtue and honour. In fact, the closer I get to God, the more convinced I become that I haven't made it. The only way I stand in any righteousness before God is because Jesus died for me and took the weight of my sins on his shoulders, the same as he did for the tax collector, or whoever else might be coming to mind at this moment. To know we are loved and valued by God is an act of grace, and if we've received that knowledge, then it's a very precious gift that God has given us so that we can let others know about this Good News, this Gospel.
Humility, in the Christian sense, isn't taking the classical "I'm an 'umble man Mr Copperfield!" stance. That's the type of humility that is very proud of its humility. And it isn't the type of humility that says "I know that I'm no good for anything and am a worthless worm." That's a simple matter of struggling with self esteem.
What Christian humility is about, is knowing that I am valued, loved and honoured by God because I am, like all other people, God's loved creation, and I will never, as long as I live, achieve all that God has made possible in this amazing creation of body, brain, feelings, capacity to love and create good. But with God as my helper, I will work towards it as hard as I can, knowing that in this, God is my ally and friend.
The thing about the Tax Collector is that he still knows he has a way to go. In his genuine frustration with the gap between what he knows he can be, and what he has become, is the possibility of growing closer to God and God's way. It is the awareness of the gap that makes him closer to God than the Pharisee.
The Pharisee has lost touch with that simple reality. He thinks he's already like God, and that means he thinks God is like him, but a bit bigger. That's creating God in our own image, and its called idolatry. Spiritual pride is not good. It gives us the illusion that we can find to God by looking in a magnifying mirror and if we start on that journey we can only be heading down the wrong track, away from our destination.
The other night Sharn and I went to Heathrow to pick up my sister Verity and her husband Lionel who have come to stay with us for 10 days. We had a lovely run until we got onto the M11. They had roadworks in progress and it was starting to rain. The rain got heavier, the traffic got thicker, the roadworks became more and more confusing and the windscreen became more and more congested with oily slush. Somewhere we missed the turnoff to the M25 and in zero visibility were heading we knew not where at 60 miles an hour. Finally, in the confusion of it all, I mounted a curb, went rally driving on the embankment and skidded out of control back onto the motorway, regained control and then, a minute later, saw the police lights in the rear view mirror. I've never been so relieved to be stopped by the police in my life. The officers took one look at my white face and shaky hands and realized they had a confused and shaken foreigner on their hands, very kindly checked my car over, told me where I was and directed me back onto the M25. To get there, I now had to go through the Dartford Tunnel and the toll, but at least I knew where I was and how to get there.
Had I not crashed (however mildly and without any hurt) I would have continued on heading in the wrong direction for goodness knows how long, in the belief that I was travelling towards my destination. Someone, a kind policeman, saw me crash, and kindly restored me to my right direction.
He could have fined me, and berated me, and legally been doing what the law required. But he would not have saved me, only reminded himself of how right and law abiding he was, and deepened my distress and lostness. Because of his kindness, I arrived at Heathrow, only 25 minutes late, my sister and her husband were retrieved safely to the beauty of East Anglia where we, and they, are enjoying the wonderful fellowship of the United Bungay Circuit and the beauty of East Anglian countryside.
But, for a moment, I was the tax collector, and I thank God the policemen who pulled me up, were not Pharisees.
May God give us also, the grace to be as Jesus calls us to be.