Do you ever wonder if we get any benefit out of messages about pride? Yeah-boy. I’m not even sure why I am writing this blog post about it. You see, in most cases, sermons, lessons, and articles about the dangers of pride don’t reach their target audience – proud people. If I am filled with pride, I’m not likely to absorb the message. You couldn’t possibly be referring to me. I don’t have that problem. Other people do, but not me. In fact, that last thought is something of a key to this. Pride not only shields me from honest self-examination, it also impels me to examine others really judgmentally, in keeping with my own sense of inflated righteousness. So, in the end, I disdain others – and might not even perceive how and to what extent I am living pridefully.
We need some help – and Jesus provides it in a parable. Let’s consider his parable included below in light of the following assertion: The primary way to tell if I have a problem with pride is that I am regularly getting angry and disappointed with the people around me. They frustrate me. Why don’t they “get it”? Why don’t they have the common sense that I have? My spouse frustrates me. My kids frustrate me. People on social media frustrate me. Why do they have all of those wrong political ideas and wrong religious ideas? What’s wrong with them? I feel this way because “people” aren’t living up to and walking in light of my perfectly reasonable expectations of them. And, boy, am I glad I’m not like them.
Notice now, that I have unwittingly run headlong into our Lord’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Here’s the text:
And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector… (Luke 18: 9-12)
Did you catch what the Pharisee said there? He’s super glad he is not like other people. Now, check out how Luke introduces the parable. He points out that Jesus directed it toward some who viewed “others” with contempt. People are so annoying. So, if you are looking for an indicator that you might have a pride problem, notice how often you are getting exasperated at everyone around you.
Now, let’s consider the other great indicator of pride: the presence of a crippling impairment in the area of accurate self-evaluation. It’s the thing that makes us wonder whether teaching about pride ever hits home. Imagine that you approached the Pharisee and suggested that his regard for the tax collector and his ilk was an indication that he had a pride problem. How would he respond? Most certainly he would reject the idea and, perhaps, be offended at the suggestion. His evaluation of the tax collector is 100% accurate. His disdain for him, therefore, is the tax collector’s fault, not his own. If the tax collector doesn’t want people to regard him that way he should stop acting badly. He should start to act more like…the Pharisee.
Therein is the rub: people who are not proud will immediately see the irony in that last statement. Proud folks will miss it. If I have pride, I am constantly wondering, consciously or subconsciously, why my spouse, my kids, my acquaintances, and people in general can’t be as smart, sensible, right-acting, and right-thinking as…me. I hold them accountable for their shortcomings and congratulate myself for it. Because, after all, they do have shortcomings. I’m just, you know, pointing them out. However, I would bristle at the suggestion that I act like someone who thinks he’s better than everyone else. The irony is that my inflated sense of self-worth combined with the self-assurance that I happen to be “right” will not allow me accept the idea that I am being proud. It couldn’t possibly be. Hmmm.
So, pride is the beam in my eye that blinds me, even while I so carefully point out the speck in my brother’s. Pride is the amnesia I experience after I’ve looked intently into the mirror of God’s perfect law of liberty. It’s also the thing that compels me to take that mirror and shine it on others rather than on myself. Because I don’t see how it applies to me. And, so it goes…
As you’ve been reading this article, you may have had some thought bubbles that look like this: “Man, that sounds a little bit like me. I get annoyed at people all the time. That’s terrible. I don’t want to be like the Pharisee”. If so, make whatever changes you need to make, but relax. You’re not the Pharisee because he would not have seen how any of this applies to him. He would have applied it to you. No offense. Paul admonished the Philippians in this way: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Phil 2: 3). Allow that to circulate a bit. To how many “one anothers” could you apply this principle in your life? Here’s some advice: start at home and let it expand from there. Even onto social media. Seriously.
Finally, an assignment for you and an assignment for me. For one month, thirty days, starting today, no getting annoyed. No getting exasperated, or bugged, with anyone. Anyone. No grumbling, no teeth-grinding, no eye-rolling, and no blame-throwing. Again, start at home. Think you can do it? Instead, let’s do Philippians 2: show people how important they are by treating them with love – despite their shortcomings. It might occur to us that God continually extends this same grace to us.