Pride Versus the Poor in Spirit and the Meek

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 18:9-14:

In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is shown two different ways to live. He can live with the force, and we might say live in the light, or he can choose the dark side, and he has two masters, Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, showing him their particular way and seeking to get him to follow, even enticing him or telling him that it is his destiny. But it is up to Luke to decide which he is going to choose, while also seeing that choosing one over the other does not necessarily mean its forever, as best demonstrated by Darth Vader who first chooses the dark side, but, 40 year-old spoiler alert, is later redeemed and saved and brought back into the light. Two ways of living in the world, and two ways that are opposite of each other and lead to radically different ways of living and two different results. 

I thought that was an appropriate analogy for us today as we begin a new worship series in which we are going to be looking at the seven deadly sins and comparing them against the Beatitudes, which are two different ways of living, as I said in the worship intro on Friday, it’s sort of comparing the ways of the world against the ways of the Kingdom of God, and we do indeed get to choose which to follow. Or another way to think of it as we drop into the final weeks of the political campaigns is that they are two different platforms being presented to us to for us to choose who we will follow and which way we would like to see the world run. Now this idea came from a book entitled Seven by Jeff Cook, in which he compares the Beatitudes and the Seven Deadly Sins, which I first read several years ago and so he deserves the credit for the idea. I don’t follow his set-up of comparisons, and I’ve seen others who have done the same sense, and so whether they took his idea and did it as well, or it was done before, I don’t know, but he did inspire me.

Now, can anyone tell me in which book of the bible we find the seven deadly sins in? That’s a trick question because they are not actually found in scripture, which is one of the reasons why they have not been as emphasized in the Protestant tradition. Instead, the sins, which are envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath, first began to talked about by the early desert fathers, who were the formers of what became the monastic movement, in particular Evagrius of Pontus, who was a fourth century monk. There were originally 8 sins, but they were later reduced to seven by Pope Gregory, sometimes called Gregory the Great, who is actually best known for a series of worship reforms that led to the creation of what we know now as Gregorian chants which took place in the late 6th century. But, Gregory said that it was really 7 plus 1, because the extra one was pride which he said that all other sins came out of because it was pride that was most likely to keep us separated from God, because with pride we don’t think we need God, and so it was the most likely to lead us to commit every other sin.  In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis agrees with this sentiment as he devoted an entire chapter, called the great sin, to pride. Now, pride eventually came back onto the list and it replaced vainglory, which is often said to be the same thing as pride, although they are slightly different.

Now in hearing what these sins are, we may wonder what is so deadly about them, and couldn’t we think of some things that are even worse? The BBC did a survey to create a modern list, which was cruelty, adultery, bigotry, dishonesty, hypocrisy, greed, selfishness. And then we might think to add racism, misogyny, classism, hatred, violence, to name just a few others. But, to understand the importance of the seven deadly sins is to know that they were not saying that these were the seven worst things in the world, but that these are the seven things that would lead to the destruction of community, which for people living in monastic settings was incredibly important. And so these were things that individuals could do to disturb or destroy community, and so as we think about what it means to be a community, a people, a nation, or how we think about the individual and their role as part of the collective, I think these ideas, and how they can lead to the breaking of community, or the forming of community is incredibly important. The other piece we need to know is that all of the sins represent excesses of natural and healthy inclinations that can be good for us, such as gluttony can be an excess of eating, which is healthy and necessary, although as we will see in a few weeks gluttony is so much more than that as well.

And so then we have the Beatitudes, which come as the beginning of what has become called the sermon on the mount beginning in chapter five of the gospel of Matthew. We also find something similar in the gospel of Luke in what is called the sermon on the plain in chapter 6, but in Luke the list is different and shorter, and we’ll address that more later. But, here Jesus is just beginning his ministry, and going to the top of a hill, he sits down and starts teaching and interpreting the law. And so the fact that he is doing this on a hill, or a mountain, should make us think of Moses on Mount Sinai, in receiving the law, or David ruling from Mount Zion, as well as when rabbis taught they would sit down to do it, so this is Jesus speaking and teaching with a sense of authority and rooted in his Jewish heritage. 

And he starts with this list of blessings, and we call them the Beatitudes from the Latin translation for the word blessed. But this list is not what we would expect of a list of those who are blessed, at least not blessed the way the world considers it. And that is the very point. This is not about the way the world works, because again that can be said to be the seven deadly sins, but instead this is the way of God and who God blesses. This is the way of the Kingdom of God, which really the entire sermon on the mount is about. And so we have to understand that while forgiveness and grace and peace may be all important things for Jesus, the thing he talks about the most is the Kingdom of God, or as Matthew refers to it the Kingdom of Heaven. His ministry begins with him proclaiming, “repent for the kingdom of God has come near,” and in Luke he says that the reason he was sent by God was “to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.” (Lk 4:43)

And so part of that proclamation begins by telling us that the poor in spirit are blessed, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and because there are nine beatitudes, although the last two are usually combined into one, we have to combine others here to get to seven, he also says and blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth, which in the immortal film Life of Brian is  greeted with the claim, “I’m glad they’re getting something; they have a heck of a time.” And that’s certainly the understanding of meek that most of us think of when we hear the word, someone who is quiet, gentle or submissive. And there is definitely something to that understanding because that is the nature of turning everything upside down, which is what is happening in the Beatitudes. Jesus is giving a list of those who are blessed that is very different from whom the world says is blessed. But there is also something more to meekness here. 

It turns out that meekness here is about more than just those who get trampled over by life, although they too are blessed and loved by God, but the Greek word used here has the sense of being tamed. So a gentle breeze blowing in the sails of a ship was described by this word, as was a wild animal that has been domesticated and is now tamed. It’s not the destructive power of wind or the destructive animal nature, but that power under control. That is the sense of meek being used here, and people who have brought themselves under the controlling power of God. they have given up their own power, or they have been transformed by the Spirit so that it is not their nature in control, but God is in control. The term can also be translated as humble, and it has the same meaning in Hebrew as well.

It is also how we might understand what it means to be poor in spirit. So, first we should note that in Luke, this simply says blessed are those who are poor, and economic statement. Now Matthew’s change here doesn’t mean that he isn’t also concerned about the poor, and he hasn’t just spiritualized it, but the emphasis is one something greater. There are lots of arguments for what poor in spirit means. I think all of them are legitimate, including for those who have been battered by life, or as Eugene Peterson translates it, for those who are at the end of the their rope, which reminds me of people in 12 step programs all admitting that their lives are out of control. And here they learn that God blesses them. It’s also for those who are unsure of their faith, who have doubts, or feel distant from God, which includes people like Mother Theresa, that God blesses them. And it’s for those who are humble in their faith, who know that they don’t know everything, which is a sign of wisdom, and it’s the end of Peterson’s translation that gives  understanding to this, because he says “With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” And when we are humble before God, it’s easier to get close to God, because what pride does is to puff us up, to make us think it’s all about us, and therefore we push God away, and we see that in the parable that Jesus tells that we heard today, and pay attention that he tells it to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.

Two men go to the Temple to pray, one is a Pharisee and one is a tax collector, and both of them stand off praying by themselves. The tax collector, wouldn’t even look up to heaven as he prays for God’s mercy as he is a sinner. When we do communion I say that the oldest way of being in prayer was not to bow your head but to lift your eyes and hands up to God, but we bow our heads because of the tax collector in this story, especially when compared to the Pharisee’s prayer where he celebrates his righteous work of fasting twice a week and tithing from all of his income, which means he is going above and beyond in his spiritual practices, but he begins the prayer saying, “God, I think you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers or even like this tax collector.” Notice how many times he uses the word I in this prayer. If you want a quick check on your pride, see how many times you use I in your prayers, or see if you think that the song is about you. But the man’s prayer gives us the indication that his righteousness has moved to self-righteousness. Additionally, there is no way he is lifting his face up to God in prayer because he is looking around at everyone else at the Temple. He is pride in himself, and his own sense of his righteousness, is getting in the way between him and God. as Jeff Young says, “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” You cannot see God.

Now one of the natural responses to this parable is for us to say, “Well, thank God I’m not like that Pharisee.” But who does that make us? The Pharisee. We are doing exactly the same thing, and pride is one of those tricky things that way. It’s really easy to fall into its trap. Just an example. I have degrees from five different colleges and universities, and perhaps that in itself is a little brag and sign of pride, but I only have one class ring. And I could argue that it’s from my last degree, which will probably be my final degree, and it’s the highest degree I have. But I also have to be honest and say that I got it because that degree was from Harvard, which isn’t all that big a deal in Los Alamos where if you see someone with a sweatshirt on from a famous college the likelihood is they are graduates, not just wearing it. Now, there is nothing wrong with taking pride in our work, and we should take pride in it, and pride that comes after hard work is probably okay depending on the purpose. We can tithe and fast for the spiritual benefits, or are we doing it for the praise and so we can brag? Are we getting good grades for the achievement, or so that we might impress others or get esteem from our teachers? There is a big difference between these things, and the destructive power of that pride. Pride as a deadly sin should be understood as the extreme of being arrogant, haughty, conceited, egocentric, narcissistic and vain. This is the pride that is spiritually deadly, because this is the pride that exaggerates our worth and tells us we are superior to others, which separates us not just from others, but also separates us from God.

But, let’s talk about one other type of pride. Ralph Ellison’s  begins his classic Invisible Man by saying,  “I am an invisible man…. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquid, -- and I might even be said to possess a mind,” Ellison says, but, he continues, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” I am invisible because people refuse to see me. Having pride in who you are when society tells you that you are nothing, that you don’t belong, that you don’t deserve God’s love, that you should go somewhere else, is not the sin of pride. It’s about claiming your identity and self-esteem and learning to love yourself. Loving yourself is okay, after all we are told that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. The sin of pride is about the excess of something that is healthy and appropriate. Self-respect is one thing; self-infatuation is another. Pride is the perversion of self-esteem because it wants to put us as the center of the universe, to say that everything revolves around us. this pride is best exhibited by those who say they are the smartest, that they have all the answers, that they are the only ones who can fix any situation and that it’s all about them. and the difference between pride, which is those things, and vain glory is that those doing the sin of vain glory want everyone else to believe the same thing about them and tell them how great they are. And anytime someone tells us that they can solve all of our problems, we should run the other way, because we only have one savior, and it’s not them, and to think otherwise is pride, hubris, run wild.

Paul tells us that righteousness is given to us by God, not by anything that we do, because if it was up to us, then we could brag about it. We could have pride in it and think that it’s up to us, which is what the Pharisee is doing. He’s doing the right things, but doing them for the wrong reasons, and so becomes self-righteous, and his sin of pride separates him from God and from community, as Proverbs says, “pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Prov. 16:18) But, the tax collector goes away justified because he humbles himself before the Lord and knows that only God can save him, only God can raise him up, and to find blessing in that humility. Just as we find the blessing given to those who are poor in spirit, those who humble themselves before the Lord, and for the meek, those who tame themselves to God’s demands on our lives, not so that they can be praise for it, but so that they can live the life that God has called for us to do. 

We should be proud of the work we do and our accomplishments, but we should always recognize God’s participation and others participation in those accomplishments, and to see it not as something we deserve or that is due to us, or look down on those who don’t have them, or call special attention to them to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, or to make others feel worse. Instead it is to recognize God’s blessings and to be thankful for them and to use them to build up community, to seek the Kingdom of God and to walk humbly with the Lord. Pride seeks to make us better than others, but meekness and being poor in spirit seek to make us companions with each other as we walk this journey of faith together, knowing that the narrow and hard path leads to life; not just any life, but life abundant. Two men went to the Temp to pray, and one went home justified, for those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalter, for Jesus says blessed as the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God, and blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.