Luke 18:9-14; John 8:12<\/p>\n\n\n\n
October 27, 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Addressing those \u201cwho trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt,\u201d Jesus told a story of two men who went to the temple to pray. One, a sleazy, good-for-nothing tax collector, collaborator with the Romans and swindler of his own people, prayed, \u201cGod, be merciful to me a sinner.\u201d He had nothing, claimed nothing, and sought everything. He was publicly humiliated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other man, an outstanding, righteous, sacrificial, Bible obeying person, prayed, \u201cGod, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.\u201d He is not only a good man, but a really good man who does what Jesus urged and goes the second mile in his living and his giving. He sees his virtues as gifts from God and therefore sees himself to be more blessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then Jesus sends a zinger in saying, \u201cI tell you, this man, the cheating tax collector scoundrel went down to his home justified rather than the other, the Pharisee.\u201d Jesus says, \u201call who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What on earth are we supposed to do with this? Do we go out today trying to out humble each other?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike the Pharisee, the tax collector\u2019s humility wasn\u2019t a natural virtue; he had to work on it. It was simply a realistic assessment of his situation. He was a failure at being righteous. He had no hope of setting things right between himself and God. But for the Pharisee, Jesus uses this parable to speak about pride and specifically understanding that pride is a root to sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pride<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In most situations, we don\u2019t associate pride as sin. In fact, we see that it\u2019s a good thing to have pride in one\u2019s family, one\u2019s self-worth, one\u2019s town, and even in one\u2019s church. How many times have you read on the rear bumper of a car, \u201cI\u2019m a proud parent of a honor student?\u201d After the Giants won the World Series, everyone bought Giants caps and t-shirts and proudly worn them. And haven\u2019t you heard me say proudly, \u201cFCBC has 81 solar panels on the top of our roof?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pride, considered in itself can be a most attractive virtue. We parents try to instill a sense of \u201cself-worth\u201d which is pride in our children. We tell them to do their homework so that honestly, we can be proud of their accomplishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We encourage and sign up our children for sports, ballet, art classes and all sorts of extracurricular activities so that they would develop self-confidence, which is pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asian Americans often think that the greatest sin for us is not pride, but low self-image. As people who often find ourselves in a minority position rather than in the majority, we would strive to over-compensate pride so that our children would not develop a low self-image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We say that the \u201cA\u201d in Asian means all-As in school! We tell them that straight black hair is pretty or height is not always necessary to play basketball or that we can all be Bruce Lee. We preach self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-ascribed dignity. Rather than to follow Jesus\u2019 commandment to \u201clove your neighbor as thyself,\u201d we have shortened it to a ruthlessly enforced mandate: love thyself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the work place, management declares, \u201cThere is no more important quality to cultivate among the workers in a company than pride in their products.\u201d In our country\u2019s political life, especially over the past 2 \u00bd weeks of government shutdown, we see as dominated by the politics of self-assertion. \u201cWe are right and they are wrong. We really speak for the voters and the other side doesn\u2019t.\u201d And when the government finally adopted legislation to pass a budget and raise the debt ceiling, we see that it was the pride of one side that caused the shutdown to happen in the first place. And in the world of counseling and therapy, psychologists reinforce self-esteem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The philosopher Bertrand Russell said, \u201cI do not believe any peacock envies another peacock his tail, because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We might think that pride is not a sin but more of an error of bad judgment, the mistake we make judging ourselves in far too positive way, than a sin. But the person who thinks of himself as a genius is on his way to some really stupid mistakes. The warrior who thinks of himself as invincible isn\u2019t a warrior for long. And Asian Americans who think that with their Cal or Stanford degrees under their arms will soon discover that there are Harvard and Yale graduates applying for the same jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s wrong if we had just a little pride? What\u2019s so bad about pointing a spotlight on yourself who have done something extraordinary?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus and Pride<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To tell the truth, I can\u2019t think of much that is wrong with a healthy\u2014within limits\u2014sense of pride except that Jesus was against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus began his earthly work in a desert. The heavenly voice at his baptism proclaimed, \u201cYou are my Son, the Beloved.\u201d Yet though he was \u201cfull of the Holy Spirit,\u201d that same Spirit led him into a wilderness where for \u201cforty days he was tempted by the devil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alone, in the quiet desert, voices come, and for Jesus, the voice that comes, after the heavenly baptismal voice is that of the devil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you are the Son of God command this stone to become a loaf of bread.\u201d The person who could turn stones to bread could do a lot of good for poor, suffering humanity, and would be herald as a saint but Jesus says, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus encounters the temptation to pride with his rejection and with his silence. Has this Son of God no pride?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus\u2019 humility was not only seen as the Son of God but also in his vocation as being found in human form. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death\u2014even death on the cross (Phil. 2:5-8). This self-emptying, humble servanthood is the shape of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As people, we are conditioned to name human self-promotion as something we need but it ends up setting up ourselves up as god\u2014the sin of idolatry. What the world calls healthy \u201cself-esteem,\u201d Christians sees as idolatry and self-worship. The devil in the desert had it right in telling Jesus that he could be empowered to set the world right, to correct all the mistakes at creation; all that was necessary was to \u201cworship me, the devil\u201d and \u201call this will be yours.\u201d But Jesus said \u201cNo\u201d to all of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walking in the Light<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t we all want to have a spotlight on us at times? We like the feeling of self-importance and being special. But when we direct that spotlight on ourselves so much that we begin to set up ourselves as god, we commit the sin of pride. Our own spotlights can easily blind us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s an old Jewish saying, \u201cThere is a God and you are not it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this time of returning a portion of what we have received, Jesus\u2019 parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector at prayer at the temple is a story about worship. In worship, our pride gets judged and even conquered. We are challenged by the church to stop looking at ourselves and to turn our gaze upon God. We want to walk in the light of Christ rather than under our \u201clove thyself \u201cspotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are humbled by our vision of a God who is greater than ourselves, yet who has come very close to us, a God who loves us enough to tell us the hard truth about ourselves and our sin. And yet this God in Jesus Christ constantly forgives us for our sin, including the sin of pride. We want to walk in the light of Christ rather than under our \u201clove thyself\u201d spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Humble us, Lord, that you might exalt us in your service. Shock us with the truth about ourselves so that you might forgive us for our sin. Descend to us in this church that we might in our times of sacrificial and annual giving be lifted up to you. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Luke 18:9-14; John 8:12 October 27, 2013 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. Addressing those \u201cwho trusted in themselves that they