Message :: Cultivating Humility in a World of #1 The Rev. Dr. Stephanie Lutz Allen ~ June 1, 2014

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1 Message :: Cultivating Humility in a World of #1 The Rev. Dr. Stephanie Lutz Allen ~ 728 W. Fremont Avenue Sunnyvale, CA info@svpc.us From the Pulpit Proverbs 11:2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but wisdom is with the humble. Matthew 23:1-12 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Colossians 3:12-14 As God s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. A reading of Arnold Lobel s King Lion and the Beetle from the book, Fables: King Lion looked in the mirror. What a beautiful and noble creature I am, he said. I will go forth to show my devoted subjects that their leader is every inch a king! The King put on his robes of state, his large jeweled crown, and all of his gold and silver medals. As he walked down the roads of his kingdom, everyone who saw him bowed to the 1

2 ground. Yes, yes, said King Lion, I deserve this respect from my people, for truly I am every inch a king! There was a tiny Beetle standing near the road. When the King saw him, he cried, Beetle, I command you to bow low before me! Your Royal Majesty, said the Beetle, I know that I am small, but if you look at me closely, you will see that I am making a bow. The King leaned over. Beetle, he said, you are so hard to see down there. I am still not sure that you are bowing. Your Majesty, said the Beetle, please look more closely. I assure you that I am indeed bowing. The King leaned over a little farther. Now the robes of state, the large jeweled crown, and all of the gold and silver medals had made King Lion very top-heavy. Suddenly he lost his balance and fell on his head. With a great roar, he rolled into a ditch at the side of the road. The frightened Beetle scurried away. From head to foot, every inch of King Lion was covered with wet mud. It is the high and mighty who have the longest distance to fall. King Lion and the Beetle from Fables by Arnold Lobel. Copyright 1980 by Arnold Lobel. We never look so silly as when our pride gets the best of us. You don't have to be much of a musician to toot your own horn. There are a lot of bad trumpeters out there making a lot of noise. Maybe you work with one, maybe you re related to one? All of us here would cringe if we thought we were anything like King Lion, walking around in a pompous manner ordering the beetles in our life to bow down low before us. But the best way to avoid that fate is to cultivate humility in our lives. Pride is the only poison that s good for you when swallowed. And pride is a poison! The Bible has a lot to say about pride and humility. Throughout the Old and New Testament, this common phrase is repeated, "The proud will be humbled, but the humble will be lifted up" Mt 23:12 It's the double-edged irony, that whatever you are, the opposite will happen to you. Sir Herbert Tree was a British actor. He once berated a young actor for overbearing conceit. The young actor replied, "I assure you sir, that I am not suffering from a swelled head." 2

3 To which Sir Herbert warned him, "It isn t the swelling that causes the suffering, it's the subsequent shrinkage that really hurts!" Pride goes before a fall, and how that fall can hurt, as KING LION found out. Behind pride is a need to look good in other people's eyes. Ironically, pride may cause the exact opposite to happen, instead of looking good, we look foolish. Because it s hard to look good when you re taking a fall. Pride is a poison in two ways: 1. Pride poisons our ability to experience God's love. Pride squelches our spiritual life. Jesus had a lot to say about pride, in fact, when you look at his statements as recorded in the gospels; he had a lot more to say about the sin of pride, than any other type sin. Jesus' harshest criticism was reserved for religious pride. In our passage for today, Jesus critiques the religious leaders of his day for doing their deeds to be seen by others and taking seats of honor at a banquet. He points out the way they love to be called Rabbi as if being a teacher of God s laws was a position of great distinction instead of a position as a learner among learners at the feet of the great teacher, who is God. Jesus is saying that if you think you have it all together, and you're patting yourself on the back about that, like the religious leaders were doing, you're likely to miss the whole thing. And the thing is this: pride could prevent us from seeing our need for God and so keep us from opening ourselves to God s life changing work for our life. Pride poisons our ability to experience God s love. 2. Pride poisons our relationships with other people. Pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick except the one who has it. During a rehearsal of one of his plays, a famous writer became frustrated with the producer's son, who was convinced that he knew it all. Over and over again, the young man would interrupt the rehearsals to criticize one of the actors. After one such outburst, the playwright turned to him and said, "My boy, you'll have to be more patient with us. After all, we are not young enough to know everything!" Nothing kills office morale and team work more than to have a "know it all ' in our midst! Pride hurts relationships on the job. Pride also hurts family relationships. Pride makes it hard to say, "I'm sorry", and the ability to say "I'm sorry" is the grease that keeps relationships going. 3

4 So if pride is a poison that hurts relationships What is humility and how do we cultivate it in our lives? We're raised in a culture that tells us to GO for the gold! Be number One! How does one go for it and be humble at the same time? Ken Blanchard is an organizational theorist, who works with companies in management issues. He said this. Humility does not mean you think less of yourself, it means you think of yourself less. That s a good idea, but it s missing the sense that humility is cultivated not by the amount you think about yourself, but HOW you think about yourself when you do think about yourself. The Henri Nouwen quote in your bulletin points us toward a delicate balance. We look at the stars and feel small; we look within and feel tall. We are meant to be humble and confident at the same time, and the tension between the two keeps us spiritually awake. Humility is this delicate balance, born of good self-esteem and accurate self-awareness, which allows a person to exist in that happy medium between inflated ego and self-deprecation. Humility is not thinking too highly or too lowly about one s self. Psychology studies show that Women tend to credit their failures to their lack of ability and their successes to good luck. Men are just the opposite; they tend to credit their failures to bad luck, and their successes to their ability. Both perspectives are a half-truth, because ability and luck influence every success or failure. People of humility know that well. What if a person's problem stems not so much from a swelled head, as from self-loathing? Some people suffer not from too much ego as from too much self-deprecation. I have this one friend with whom I d been in ministry with for years. It used to be impossible to affirm her without hearing a lengthy explanation of how genuinely terrible she was, followed up with her favorite lament, "What do I know, I'm just a house wife!" I knew that something in her had wonderfully shifted the day I affirmed her and she said, "Thank you, I really did do that well, didn't I!" Thinking of one s self as inferior is not humility. Behind a bloated ego and self-loathing is that longing for exterior things in life to fulfill us, which can lead all of us down countless dead end streets: Engaging in unhealthy relationships, especially with the opposite sex Searching for acclaim in frantic work Seeking attention with material things, nice cloths, house etc. Manipulating our children towards our notion of perfection. How do we rid ourselves of pride and cultivate humility? Let s ask ourselves the following questions: 1. Am I looking to externals to give me esteem? 4

5 Are you more likely to let your ego inflate over externals, or be self-deprecating? Either way, we need to constantly rerun this tape through our head. "I am loved and valuable based not on what I do but who I am in God's eyes." We need to say it to our kids over and over again: "You are loved and valuable based not on what you do but who you are in God's eyes! It is a good thing to feel great about a job well done. But it s not why we are worthy of love and attention. 2. Do I engage in foot washing? Jesus shocked his disciples the night before he was betrayed, by taking up the lowly job all the rest of them avoided, which was the washing of their feet. After Jesus was finished he said, "As I have done to you, now you ought to do for each other." Part of being a follower of Jesus is to engage in the modern equivalent of washing feet, and when we do, as Henri Nouwen says, it keeps us spiritually alive. For 4 years I worked with InterVarsity, a Christian organization that ministered to University students. Once at a conference for college students, the staff all decided to serve the students the meal at the last dinner. We had just enough staff to position one at each table. The normal routine at dinner time was that someone from each table would have to hop up and get the first dishes of food, go back for refills, and clear the table. People mainly shared the tasks, but it would at times be disruptive to conversation. We decided to treat the students to a meal without disruption and model that foot washing servant leadership. So the last night came, we staff all were seated one to a table, some with our spouses, and some without. The students came in, the meal proceeded and what do you know?? All the staff except one was bouncing up and down getting food. One staff person sat the whole meal talking to students, while the spouse bounced up and down serving the food for the table. The rest of us staff noticed it, and just rolled our eyes, because unfortunately it was pretty much in character for this person. Are you the type of person, that it's in character for you to avoid a foot washing kind of task? Some of you need to pass the towel of servant-hood on to someone else. The most loving thing that spouse could have done, would have been say, "Honey, I love you, but this is your job, and these are your students, and if you'll look around, you re the only staff not serving your table. It's time to get up! Are you ever the one to: Take the dirty dishes to the sink after dinner? (When there s no company over watching?) Make the coffee at the office and clean up a little? Stack the chairs at church after the big event? 5

6 This church has a lot of servant--- makers of coffee and stackers of chairs!! A regular dose of servant type tasks help to keep us spiritually alive. May we be people: At peace with ourselves, At home in our own skin, Confident of God s affirmation of us as God s beloved--- So that we are people of humility with one another in the church, in our families and in the world. 6