The Sin of Pride

The Sin of Pride

Luke 18:9-14

            “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.”

            Luke recounts the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  Both go to the temple to pray.  The Pharisee’s prayer is full of self-congratulation for keeping the law.  He also condemns the tax collector for his sinning.  The tax collector bows his head in shame, and says, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

            Jesus tells his listeners it is the tax collector who goes home justified in the sight of God.  If the Pharisee receives a reward it is from those who hear him pray—loudly, I imagine—and are impressed by his pious accomplishments.

            The sin of pride is always with us.  It is one of the most subversive and therefore most dangerous of sins.  It is a trap we can easily fall into and be down the rabbit hole of trouble before we know we’ve fallen in.

            I believe we sometime misread, or misinterpret, David’s words in Psalm 8.  He says (vv. 4-5), “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?  Yet you have made him a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor.”

            In the next verse David lists more of the blessings God has bestowed upon humankind, but the picture in vv.4-5 is clear enough—as long as we remember the first three words:  What is man?  We sometimes act as if we deserve the high position God has given us, in the words of some, believing we are the crown of creation. 

            Nothing can be farther from the truth.  We, either individually or as a species, have done nothing to deserve God’s favor.  We are the created ones, not the creator.  We are mere blips on the radar of the cosmos.  It is only God’s favor that gives us value.

            What are we indeed?  We’re not the strongest of animals, nor the fastest.  We are—as far as we know—the most intelligent, though the way many of us behave that could easily be called into question.  We overrate our intelligence.  Yes, it gives us the ability to solve complex problems, but if we don’t use that ability wisely our solutions can come back to hurt us, as we have learned with the harnessing of atomic power.

            Our intellect and wisdom are gifts from God.  The psalmists make this clear.  All our good gifts come from the God who created us and sustains us.

            The Pharisee could see only his accomplishments.  To him they looked grand.  How proud he felt that he was able to keep the law so well!  How superior he felt to the lowly sinner standing off by himself, head bowed, perhaps crying tears of shame for the life he had led.  The Pharisee was looking in the wrong direction.  Compared to the tax collector he looked good by human standards; but Jesus always makes us examine ourselves against divine standards.  When we compare ourselves to God we see how meagre our accomplishments really are.  Our trophy cases look small, and our trophies are tarnished.

            Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”  We know that less than fifty years after Jesus’ time on earth ended, Jerusalem was destroyed and the Pharisees disappear from history.  Unfortunately, the Pharisaical way of looking at humanity has not disappeared.  It’s a battle we have to keep fighting if we are to be justified in God’s sight.