“Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble!”
Original sermon given October 23, 2022, written and delivered by Pastor Gregg Ramirez at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church
Watch the sermon live here
“Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble!”
Luke 18:9-14
Luke 18:9-14
One of the most influential books I’ve read over the last few years is entitled From Basement to Sanctuary by Holly Christine Hayes. Holly is a world-renowned recovery ministry expert and the founder of the Sanctuary Project – an organization bringing help and healing to victims of sexual trafficking. Holly herself was a victim, but unlike so many others, her life started out quite normal – caring parents, siblings, a dog, and a nice home in the suburbs. Her life was full of activities – sports, dance, music. She excelled in school at a young age. Although her life was safe and happy outwardly, she found herself driven into an imaginary world apart from reality. There she experienced unthinkable terrors at the hands of ghosts or monsters causing her panic and sickness.
No one understood why Holly was experiencing such trauma until many years later it came to light that babysitters at her after school day care had ritually molested the children in their care – including herself. There are various ways children react to such trauma, and Holly chose to escape. Dealing with fear, anger, and self-loathing, she longed to feel safety and found it as a freshman cheerleader at a party with her first sip of alcohol. After a few drinks kicked in, she said that for the first time in her 14 years on earth she felt relief and a sense of confidence that she was going to be okay. But, of course, to keep this craving to feel okay, Holly became addicted to alcohol, then drugs and ended up dropping out of high school. After that, she went into theater until her life became even more unmanageable, chaotic, and tormented. Unable to keep a normal job, she became an escort – a call girl. But it only got worse with constant arrests, abortions, and abuse, which eventually led her to become a homeless, hopeless, dying alcoholic. Seven years after her first drink she found herself completely broken down in the stall of a dirty bathroom. As her tears splashed on the subway tile floor there came the only words she could muster. “God help me.” It was her first prayer – from her soul crying out of the bottom of a pit to a God she wasn’t sure she believed in. But what an ordeal to get to that point! “Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble.”
As I thought about Holly’s story, I sensed its powerful connection to the man in today’s Gospel who was also full of torment and self-loathing. Women like Holly were the lowlifes of Jewish society, and it was the tax collectors on the male side. They were scum who had prostituted themselves to the Roman overlords and actively made themselves rich by squeezing extra tax money from their fellow Jews – including their own families and neighbors – to fill his own pockets. They were traitors of the first rank, but, as in Holly’s case, I imagine him once a nice young boy playing on the street with his friends. Yet somehow, he got into the wrong crowd and eventually playing fast and loose with the promise of money and all the pleasures it can buy. Yet, it all came at a price – brokenness and abusive relationships brought on by going the way of the flesh while also being crushed by the pangs of guilt and shame from the Law’s demands working on his conscience. It’s come to the point that this tax collector has given up trying to deny or cover his sins by justifying his actions. Like Holly he’s hit rock bottom. He’s at a distance – even ashamed to enter the temple. He can’t even look up. He’s got nothing in his hands to bring to God, but instead beats himself up – pounding his breast in self-loathing. He’s on the ropes and his prayer is like that of Holly’s: “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” But what an ordeal it was to get beyond the strongholds of self-sufficiency and self-justification. “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble.”
The tax collector muttered only a little one sentence prayer, but what a life-changing result – the unexpected Good News from our lesson that God did help. He did show mercy as Jesus tells us that this man went down to his house justified. In other words, he was given a clean slate. “Come, let us reason says the Lord.” We hear this in Isaiah. “Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.” Then Jesus completes His parable with its powerful implication for each of our lives. “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The tax collector is the one who is exalted, but who is the one who is not? Who exalts himself in Jesus’ parable? It’s the Pharisee, the religious person who prays about himself. He lets God know that, though not required by the law, he fasts two days out of the week. Which one of us religious folk would be willing to do that? Also, he takes pains to give God a tenth from everything he earns whether it be money or herbs or spices out of his garden. Then to put the icing on his cake, he sports his special credentials: “God, I thank You that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”
What’s the tragic error regarding this man? He arrogantly puts himself a cut above others, but in doing so, he’s contemptuous, loveless, and self-centered. He will not even associate with those whom he considers sinners. His prime concern is to keep the law of Moses flawlessly. It’s all about impressing God – but tragically, in concentrating on the minors – like giving a tenth of his spices, he’s failed miserably when it comes to the higher requirements of the law like showing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with his God. That’s why Jesus sternly warns those same Pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel. “Truly, I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God before you. Self-righteous folk find themselves on the outside looking in. “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble.”
Getting back to the humbled Holly Christine Hayes: she spent years after detox involved in AA and its 12-step program. Much time was spent living in halfway houses to come to the point of getting on her feet with a good job. Yet there was still a lack of fulfillment, a God-shaped void that led her first into conversations with friends who were Christians. Then came years of unlearning and learning - of study and dealing with the accusations that Jesus and the Bible were myth. All her life she thought that Jesus condemned, shamed, and threatened hell. However, those questions were finally resolved, and after a trip to Israel and getting baptized she began to attend church. Soon, and I don’t think you’ll be surprised, Holly recognized that church people were not as good or as perfect as she had labelled them from the outside. Then, after sharing her life story in a small group she was asked to share in the church of 5000 members. At first unwilling, finally she did and those in the church were inspired hearing about how Jesus wooed her. However, more than that, something about hearing her journey through all of its brokenness unlocked something in scores of people that gave them permission to open up about their brokenness, their struggles, their pain, and secret lives and addictions. She received a flood of messages from those suffering from sin and shame – that there was more pain than she ever imagined. Worst of all, she saw an epidemic of not humility, but pride keeping people from sharing their struggles and seeking support. She wondered why they were trying to save face when Jesus is so ready to embrace them in their brokenness and walk with them on the road to healing.
For Holly, it was a trying time of finding her way and identity in a strange new land. Seeing this kind of pride was new for her because she and her friends at AA meetings didn’t have much pride. How could they? Their lives were torn apart. Relationships destroyed, hearts and souls in shambles. They had as much pride as survivors dragging themselves to shore after a shipwreck where they lost all at sea. There was no place for status. All were at the same level. After realizing that church people were struggling with sin and brokenness, it became clearer that the best way she could bring hope to her friends was to live as transparently as possible. Again and again her mind would gravitate to today’s parable – the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. At AA meetings she saw those who humbled themselves being lifted through the recovery programs, however, Holly wondered if the principle of those exalting and being humbled was properly understood or applied by those around her in the pews. She saw a deep desire within church members to please God, but she wondered if these good people might be those Christ referred to as the Pharisee?
All of this leads to the question: Are you pretty good at humility? Don’t we all have some of the Pharisee in us? How can we not all have a struggle when it comes to humility? Doesn’t it start when we were children? My grades are better than yours. It’s about the gold stars, the straight A’s, the brownie points – the desire to excel over another. You see it played out in marriages, family, friendships, racial issues, and politics among the nations. Indeed, to deal with this Pharisaic issue of superiority by making false comparisons, our Lord addresses it when His disciples were forbidding little children to come for a blessing. He scolds them and declares that they represent what the faith is all about: “Unless you become as little children, you will not enter into the Kingdom of God.” That’s what it’s all about.
But, O Lord, it’s hard to be humble! We were raised to be self-reliant. Not humble, dependent as a child. Almost at birth our parents celebrated when we were able to do something on our own – going to the bathroom, getting dressed, brushing our teeth, tie shoelaces, ride a bike, walk to school. As a result, we have the tendency to look down on people who live off welfare. You pay your own way, and make your own decisions. Yet what does all of this accomplish? It causes us to feel superior, not loving. Most parents feel a pang when their child outgrows humble dependence even knowing the growth to be healthy and natural. But with God the rules change. Jesus tells us of the heart attitude most desirable to God and our true state in the universe. “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” “Unless you be as little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God.”
In essence, what is our parable urging us to do? It’s all about us making a whole-hearted declaration of dependence on God. Years ago, Christian author Philip Yancey used to be a member of the LaSalle Street Church somewhere around here. He used to attend AA meetings in the basement and he asked a friend to name the one quality missing in the church that AA had somehow provided. Yancey said that his friend stared at his coffee for a long time and then he said softly one word: dependency. “None of us can make it on our own – isn’t that why Jesus came?” he explained. “Yet must church people give off a self-satisfied air of piety. I don’t sense them leaning on God or each other. Their lives appear like they’ve got it together. An alcoholic who goes to church doesn’t fit in.” There’s a view of us from the outside looking in, and the man went on to say: “It’s a funny thing. What I hate most about myself, my alcoholism is the one thing God used to bring me back to Him. Because of it, I know I can’t survive without God. I have to depend on Him to make it through each and every day by His grace.” C.S. Lewis says that God’s grace enables us to be jolly beggars who find joy in humble total dependence on God. He went on to say that our weaknesses, wounds, and defects are the very fissures through which grace passes into the world. Indeed, in this way, we follow after our Lord Jesus who humbled Himself. “Truly I tell you,” He said, “the Son is not able to do anything on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing.” Though He was God, He emptied Himself. He was known to break down all barriers of status, and so make Himself approachable to all. He called people by name, He listened to their stores, He answered their questions, He ministered to their needs, He put Himself down, humbling Himself in order to lift us up. From His brokenness at the cross, there flowed forth God’s grace, love and forgiveness to the world. He would lift us up to the ultimate – bringing into our lives the grace that enables us to become sons and daughters of God gifted with eternal life. He came to give life with joy and abundance, and He would have us do the same where we would see other people like He sees them. And as we would in humble dependence and transparency, there is that opportunity to share grace with others as it would flow out of weaknesses. Then others who see it would recognize that we need God as much as they do. We don’t have it together. We’re not better, but just better off as His children living in humble dependent trust.