Series Introduction

Today I want to start a sermon series examining the seven deadly sins. Sin is not a topic that our society likes to talk about. It’s also not an especially popular topic in churches, where sermons about sin can easily become moralistic: as if a life with God is about a list of behaviours to avoid: No drinking, smoking, swearing, gambling etc.

Instead, we need a more nuanced view of sin, and the framework of the seven deadly sins is helpful. The seven sins—pride, envy, anger, gluttony, lust, greed, and sloth—aren’t necessarily the worst sins (murder, for example, would seem conspicuously absent), rather these sins are the habits we form that lead us away from the kind of life that God calls us to.

God has called us to live in communion with him and in community with one another. Sins are the patterns of thinking, speaking and acting that make the web of relationships unworkable. Despite their danger, these sins often have a certain draw to them. This is because each of them is a corruption of something good in creation. So unlike more obvious sins (like genocide or piracy) the deadly sins often seem justifiable or desirable, but their effect on relationships is always destructive.

To give credit where Credit is due, for this series, I’m drawing extensively on the work of Graham Tomlin (a former Anglican Bishop from the UK).

I. The Sin of Pride

A. Defining Pride

The first of the Seven Deadly Sins is Pride. What do we mean when we talk about the sin of Pride? Pride is a slippery word that describes two different but related concepts. On one hand, Pride can simply be a sense of accomplishment. For example: A runner may feel proud of himself for setting a new personal best in training;  Parents may feel a sense of pride after launching their children into the world. Or we might experience pride when we’ve gone through something rigorous and come out on the other side, like completing a degree or getting a professional certification.This kind of pride takes pleasure in something without comparison to others.

However, when pride isn’t so much about what we’ve accomplished, but about how what we’ve accomplished stacks up to others, it becomes toxic. We see this kind of pride in King Saul. Saul starts off as a good king, but he becomes a murderous tyrant when David is praised by other people. The kind of pride Saul displays is petty or narcissistic. The kind of pride we’re talking about tries to establish a positive self-worth through bettering or mastering others. It has a corrosive effect on communities. Let’s look at three ways it distorts our relationships:

B. The Problems with Pride

1. We can’t admit our faults

The first and most obvious problem with pride is that it hides our faults. Sometimes our pride means we work very hard to mask our shortcomings from others Sometimes, our pride means we are totally oblivious to our shortcomings. Consider this parable that Jesus tells:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:10-14, NIV).

The Pharisee in this passage is totally unaware of his faults. Because he’s really good at ‘religious stuff’ he has constructed a moral universe where doing religious stuff well defines an upright and moral existence. Pride leads us to do that: It inflates the importance of our perceived strengths and denies or minimizes the significance of our flaws and weaknesses.

In the case of the Pharisee, we need to ask whether doing religious stuff really well is what makes someone good? If Jesus represents the template for a human life lived righteously, then there is a striking difference between Jesus and the Pharisee in the story: Jesus’ righteousness goes far beyond just keeping rules. His life is not merely defined by the bad things he doesn’t do, or the religious activities he does, Rather Jesus’ practice of righteousness also involves actively loving people, especially those in need. The Pharisee doesn’t brag that he has made the lepers and widows feel included, or that he has confronted the exploitation of the powerless. But Jesus does these things and feels no need to boast about it.

This Pharisee has decided that the things he’s good at are the things that make a life well lived. Because he starts with the conclusion already assumed (I’m good) , he’s unable to recognize his shortcomings. We all have shortcomings. This isn’t an insurmountable problem. By God’s grace, we can be transformed into new creatures, gradually becoming free from sin’s destructive influence. But our friend the Pharisee doesn’t know he needs this grace, and so his pride takes him out of the posture he needs to receive it.

Pride’s effect at separating us from grace is obvious in the story of Jesus healing a blind man found in John 9. In that story, Jesus heals a man who was blind from birth. The Pharisees are unwilling to consider the true implications of this miracle: that Jesus works with God’s authority. Instead, they try to get the (formerly) blind man to confirm that Jesus is a sinner. Jesus marvels at the irony that those who should be wise (metaphorically, seeing clearly) don’t perceive the truth while a blind man does.

Then the story ends with Jesus’ summary statement to the blind man and the response of some bystanders:

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. (John 9:39-31, NIV).

Pride means we are unable to see our sin, and so unable to seek out the help we need with, so we will never improve. Pride tops the list of deadly sins because it traps us in sin, denying us the opportunity to receive God’s grace that works in us to set us free.

2. It Leaves us with a Fragile Sense of Self

A second problem with pride is that it builds our sense of self on an unreliable foundation. Imagine you’re looking for a new house. As you look through the listings you see a house that seems just too good to be in your price range. It’s spacious. It’s modern. It boasts trendy design and it’s located in the nice part of town. You wonder to yourself why it could possibly cost what it does, and why it wasn’t instantly snapped up by the first vigilant buyer. Then you go to see the house and you see that while it was all the things you though it was, it was build on marshy ground and is slowly sinking. The land can’t be drained, and no insurer will even consider covering it. With a bad foundation, the whole house is a problem. 

Our sense of self, our psychic foundation, needs to be built on solid ground. Psychologists will tell us that its important to have a positive self-image. Children who feel valued and unconditionally loved tend to thrive. Without a positive self image, they often fail to live up to their potential. While pride seems like a great step to helping us build up a positive self-image it hides a danger: That sense of self must be maintained by performance that may be unsustainable.

A few years ago I was listening to a podcast where Malcolm Gladwell talked about the problem of big fish from small ponds. Many students admitted to the most prestigious universities experience a jarring transition when they go from being the brightest student in their high school class to just average (or even below average) in the hyper-competitive environment of Ivy League schools. their work may be impressive, compared to people at most other schools, but they’re used to outshining the people in their immediate vicinity. Many people end up dropping out or transferring because their self-confidence is destroyed by their new place in the academic pecking order.

When our sense of ourselves is tied up in being the person who always performs, we’re fragile. Because what happens when you fail? If you’re the salesman who always beats the others, what happens when a new hotshot joins the company and outperforms you? When you’re the person whose value is tied to their athletic ability, what happens when age makes you lose a step and now you’re not the team star? If you’re the person whose sense of self is in being the person who always does right, what happens when you have a moment of weakness in which you are discovered doing something undeniably wrong, like, say, drunk driving? Pride leads us to a fragile sense of self-worth that requires our unceasing performance.

When I was in university and college, I was always at or very close to the top of my class. I didn’t realize it, but I was basing my identity and self worth on my academic performance relative to others. When I started seminary, it was at the University of Toronto. Entering a master’s program at a top-rated school was different. I went from feeling secure in being one of the smartest, to wondering if I was the dumbest person in the room. But the shock, as unpleasant as it was at the time, was a hidden blessing. I couldn’t draw my value from how I competed with others, so I had to let that go.

When your value is tied up in performance, it’s exhausting. You can’t stop, or else your self worth is threatened. But when you know your value is independent of your performance, you can find a peace that eludes the proud. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees promoted the idea that a person’s value was defined by their holiness (as the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable demonstrates). For people to preserve their self worth, they ended up running on a treadmill of religious activity. It is to people burned out on this system that Jesus gives words of hope: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29, NIV). Pride is exhausting, but we don’t have to live that way.

3. It Doesn’t Allow Collaboration

A third problem with pride is that it keeps us from genuinely collaborating. Of course proud people can work in a team, but only when the team serves as a vehicle for their glory. The high-scoring forward on a hockey team may like playing on the team, but it’s because the other players set him up to score goals. He can use the other players, but true collaboration is about give and take, If he’s not willing to sacrifice his opportunity to shine to help the team, then his presence might be counterproductive.

To collaborate with others, we have to be willing to let them shine, and to fade into the background when it’s necessary. A proud person can’t help someone else succeed. Instead, they see others’ role as to help them succeed. So a proud person can’t bring their talents to build something that allows others to shine. It’s almost a cliché in Hollywood that sometimes actors with big egos can derail production when they insist on getting their own way. Unfortunately it also happens in churches when  Pastors feel it’s the job of their congregations to make them look good or when  Ministry leaders do what they do solely for the recognition they get from it.

If God’s kingdom growing in our midst is less important to us than our personal glory, our presence in the community might do more harm than good. The church is not a place for the very moral to show everyone else how much better they are. Rather the church is a place for broken people to experience God’s mercy often mediated to us by other broken people trying to learn to be God’s new creation. This can only work when the church embraces the virtue that stands in opposition to pride: Humility.

II. The Virtue of Humility

If Pride is our when our need for personal recognition becomes more important than the good of the community, Humility is where we allow the good of the community to become more important than our agenda. Jesus is the living embodiment of this virtue. If we follow his example, the complicated web of relationships in the church work well, blessing us with encouragement, belonging, joy and unity.

Consider how Paul ties together the unity of the church with Christlike humility in Philippians 2.

Philippians 2:1–11

NIV

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:1-11, NIV)

A. Humility and Unity

Paul is saying that if a community wants to be united its members need to humble themselves. The turmoil currently boiling over between progressives and traditionalists in the Anglican communion illustrates this idea quite clearly. On the progressive side, many believe that women should be eligible to serve as priests or bishops and that the church should be willing to perform marriages for committed same-sex couples. On the traditionalist side, many reject women’s ordination and accommodation of same sex marriages. Both sides feel totally right, and unwilling to consider accommodating the another. With the election of a progressive woman as Archbishop of Canterbury, those from the more traditionalist wing are threatening to leave.

These issues evoke strong feelings on both sides. My point here isn’t to say who is right and who is wrong, but to illustrate how when both sides feel absolutely right—and so unwilling to humble themselves—continuing in unity becomes impossible.

Pride assumes my position is right without question. Humility leaves the door open, recognizing that my understanding of the issue is imperfect. Humility also sees maintaining relationships as more important than settling every dispute in my favour. In other words, being together is more important than being right. This isn’t to say that there are no issues about which we cannot compromise Christian faith falls apart without certain core beliefs (the divinity of Jesus, Jesus’ death and resurrection for example), But pride leads us to expand the list to include all the things we care deeply about, whether those things are rightly core beliefs or not.

The need to humble ourselves isn’t just for groups, it’s also important for how we relate to one another as individuals. Consider marriage. One of the big potential fights people have as newlyweds is over how to celebrate special occasions. Imagine you grew up celebrating Christmas in a certain way. Perhaps you all get up and eat a special Christmas breakfast and then after, you gather around the tree to open presents. You feel like this is the way Christmas should be celebrated. That this is self-evident. But the night before, your new spouse suggests you sit down and start opening presents. Because in their family, they gathered around the Christmas tree before bed on Christmas Eve to open the presents. Well, you think to yourself, this is obviously wrong! Presents must be opened after breakfast! If both of you insist that your new family do it your way, the day that was supposed to be a wonderful time of celebration together becomes a wedge that drives you apart. If you both can humble yourselves and consider that there might be merit in the other person’s way of doing it, you can probably work your way to an acceptable compromise. Humility is the lubrication that allows relationships to work.

B. The example of Jesus

Paul says that Jesus is our example of humility. So what does Jesus’ humility look like? Don’t let anyone tell you that Jesus’ humility makes him a doormat. Anyone who sees Jesus as a doormat hasn’t read the Gospels. Jesus was fearless in confronting the religious authorities, when their behaviour was harming others. And while Jesus did lay down his life for us, this wasn’t because he thought he didn’t deserve to live, Instead, he laid down his life because he loved us. So Christ-like humility is not having no sense of self-worth.

Jesus’ self-worth is tied up in his relationship with God the Father At Jesus’ baptism, the voice of the Father testifies that Jesus is the beloved Son in whom God is pleased. Jesus doesn’t need the approval of people. Jesus doesn’t need elite performance Jesus needs the approval of his Father in heaven. 

Because Jesus cares about what God thinks, rather than how he looks to people, he can embrace servanthood. With the exception of dying on the cross, nothing Jesus did more clearly illustrates his humility than his act of washing the disciples’ feet. Foot washing was considered the work of slaves. In Jesus’ time, it diminished someone in the eyes of others to do such work

But in the Father’s eyes, this isn’t true at all. This is why John highlights the paradox in his telling of the story where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet.

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him (John 13:3-5, NIV).

For Jesus there is no disconnect between his exaltation and his service. They are two sides of the same coin. Lest we think this is something Jesus did that was for him alone, he tells us that this was an example for us to follow: “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:14-15, NIV). One of the defining attributes of the church in it’s earliest centuries was the counter-cultural tendency of Christians to forsake status within the Christian community: High bred aristocrats worshiped alongside slaves, not demanding the status the world said they deserved. For many in the Roman world, it was a scandal. For the Father, this was something to be celebrated

Conclusion

Pride seems like a positive: it gives us a positive view of ourselves. But a positive self-image that comes from pride is an illusion: It keeps us from growing; It keeps us on a treadmill of performance that is ultimately exhausting; It keeps us from collaborating, and our relationships are poorer for it. We need to avoid pride, but this may be harder than we at first sense

This week while I was in the process of writing this sermon, my thoughts went back to someone I knew some years ago. He was not a person I had a very positive view of, because I felt he acted in a very self-righteous way. He thought he was standing up for what was right, but was hurting people to do so. But in my negative evaluation of his character (what a proud guy) the Holy Spirit whispered conviction: “You’re feeling proud about being more humble than he is, aren’t you?” Guilty. That just goes to show us how deceptive sin can be in our lives.

But there is hope. If we can lay aside our need to be better, smarter, stronger. If we can give up on the need to compare ourselves with each other, If we can humble ourselves, Then God is full of as much grace and mercy as we need to become new creatures. So let’s stop looking at how we stack up to others, and focus instead on God.