Humility

When Pharisees were nearby Jesus missed no opportunity to take a swipe at their disgusting self-righteousness. So after answering their question concerning the coming kingdom he offered a story that exposed their superiority complex and clarified God’s preference for humility in the kingdom.

In the story two men went to the temple to pray. One is a self-righteousness Pharisee, a model for piety and holiness. The other is a tax collector, a Jew who makes his living collecting taxes for the Romans, considered the lowest of the low. The story is a study in contrasts.

The prayer service they attended was offered every day at dawn and mid-afternoon. It was a time where the priest sacrificed a lamb as a sin offering at the great high altar, following a precise liturgy. During the liturgy the people heard the silver trumpets blast and the loud symbols clang. Then one of the Levites read from the psalms. The priest spattered the huge bronze altar with blood gushing from the lamb’s jugular vein, and then burned the sacrifice. After that the priest went inside to the sanctuary and burned incense to signal the beginning of prayers.

Burning incense was the symbol of prayer. It was meant to accompany the gathered congregation’s prayers. The liturgy called for confession of sin, thanksgiving for material blessings received, and petitions for one’s self and others. Jesus disclosed the content of the prayers of both men in his story.

The distinguished Pharisee, standing apart to avoid being defiled by the unwashed masses, addressed the Almighty: “God, I thank you I am not like others: extortioners, unjust, adulterers,” he bragged. “Thank you that I am not like that tax collector.” Then he reminded God of his virtues: “I fast twice a week and give tithes of all I possess.” Quite impressed with his own piety, he could not think of a single sin to confess. He was fixated on his superiority.

The lowly tax collector, meanwhile, also stood apart, probably from a feeling of unworthiness. He would not look up, and in humility he beat his chest as a sign of deep remorse. With the smells of burning lamb and fragrant incense wafting in the air he addressed the Almighty: “God, make atonement for me, a sinner. Forgive my sin and restore me to you.” Like the Pharisee, he could not think of a single sin to confess. There were so many they all merged into a wasted life that needed to be restored. In humility he stood before the God of atoning grace.

This man, Jesus said, with wasted life and sins too many to confess, went home justified. He went home in right standing. The elements of slaughtered sheep, spattered blood, and wafting incense became means of grace to point him to an atoning, forgiving God. The humility of confession and contrition brought him the atonement he desperately sought.

Now to the punch line of Jesus’ story, directed to sanctimonious Pharisees: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

This is not the only time Jesus spoke of humility. Offended by Pharisees’ arrogance on at least two other occasions Jesus said the same thing: “Whoever who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11; Matthew 23:12). Once, when the disciples were arguing about who was number one, Jesus settled it by calling a child to him. “Whoever humbles himself as a little child is greatest in the kingdom” (Matthew 18:1-5), he said.

Solomon’s proverbial advice, “Surely the Lord scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble” (Proverbs 3:34), finds its way into the letters of both James and Peter: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

Webster defined humility as “freedom from pride and arrogance; humbleness of mind; a modest estimate of one’s own worth.” In biblical use, he wrote, humility is “lowliness of mind; a deep sense of one’s own unworthiness in the sight of God” (Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 facsimile).

Jesus is not concerned with our outward show of piety. Our self-made righteousness, warns Isaiah the prophet, is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). He looks more deeply than that, into hearts that are aware of our unworthiness and the ability of God to atone for us when we cannot do it ourselves. Humility is reliant on grace to enable us to do what we cannot do for ourselves.

Sometimes that prevenient grace places us in circumstances that humble us and increase our need for reliance on God’s Spirit. Other times God sends people across our paths to speak into our lives, either to address our error or encourage us in our weariness.

Jesus did not tell us what influenced the tax collector of his story to attend the temple prayer service that day. We do not know what happened to make the tax collector aware that he needed to repent and seek the atonement of God. We just know that he showed up at temple one day, in deep remorse, asking God for mercy.

The Church preserves for our use in its prayer books the prayer offered in humility by the tax collector. Known as the Jesus Prayer to goes, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Almighty God, you give us the strength to confess our sins and to place our hope in you. Forgive us of self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and religious pride; and give us grace to walk before you in true humility, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Luke 18:9-14 (Proper 25 C)