ANOTHER WAY TO WALK: THE WAY OF HUMILITY IN AN AMBITIOUS WORLD
Luke 18:9-14; Philippians 2:1-11
A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on
March 8, 2015
We live in an ambitious world. A recent study found that the most popular future
goal among 10-12 year olds was to be famous – not for actually doing anything in
particular – but just for the sake of being famous.1 At the same time, 81 percent of 1825 year-olds surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll said that getting rich is their most
important or second-most important life goal. What came in second? Being famous.
As one 26 year-old aspiring actor explained, “society raised us where money is
glamorous and everybody wants to be glamorous.”2
Ambition is not limited to the young. In another opinion survey, people of all ages
were asked what it takes to get ahead in life. 89% of Americans believe that ambition is
essential – ranking it well ahead of education, natural ability or external conditions.3
Ambition is at the cornerstone at our capitalism: we celebrate this being a land of
opportunity and cite those who have risen from “rags to riches.” Ayn Rand, the novelist
and political philosopher who continues to have an enthusiastic following in some
political circles, ranked ambition the greatest of all virtues.
Clearly, we live in an ambitious world, where people are seeking to go ever
upward in careers, possessions, money, and status. In contrast, Jesus walked a
downward path. As the apostle Paul writes in Philippians 2, Jesus, “though in the form
of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied
himself taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in
human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even
death on a cross.” On the one hand, today’s message is simple to say and understand:
we are called to walk another way – not the way of ambition – but the way of Jesus, the
way of humility.
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But on the other hand, we may well wonder if this whole question about ambition
and humility is not more complex. “What is wrong with ambition?,” we might well ask.
Don’t all parents want their children to marry someone with at least a little ambition and
drive? Are we not all called to strive to be our best? Even Jesus doesn’t want slackers,
does he?
And on the flip side, what do we mean by humility? Is humility simply thinking
that you are worthless or a nobody? Don’t many people struggle, not with arrogance or
thinking too highly of themselves, but with low esteem and thinking too little of
themselves? Does Jesus really want them to think even less of themselves?
Perhaps it will help today to look at ambition and humility a little more closely.
Consider first, ambition. Sure, it is good to have some fire in the belly, to have
dreams and goals that push us to do and be our best. But the question is: What are we
ambitious for. Fame, fortune, and getting ahead are not worthwhile goals – not only
because they are not the goals God wants us to seek – but also because they are about
as satisfying a diet as Cocoa Puffs, bon bons, and a Coke. Sure, we may get a sugar
high, but we will not find lasting nourishment for our souls.
As Alain de Botton has written in his book, Status Anxiety, “we are tempted to
believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction.
We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to
reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives.” The problem
is that there is no plateau, only additional mountains to climb. Because there is always
more that we could achieve or possess. This is why Botton calls anxiety the
“handmaiden of contemporary ambition.”
There is another problem with ambition: it often causes us to compare ourselves
with others. You have probably heard the joke about the two hunters running from the
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bear. Neither hunter has to be faster than the bear to survive – they only have to be
faster than each other. So it is with ambition. How do we measure success and the
goals of ambition? Most often – in comparison with other people. Do we have more –
or less – than someone else? Have we achieved more – or less – than the people we
compare ourselves to? Are we somebody who counts – or are we nobody? We ask
questions like these, and make measurements like these in junior high cafeterias and in
retirement communities, at a high school reunion and at a national sales meeting.
Comparing ourselves to others – we can even do it in church gatherings:
measuring how much we do compared to others, even measuring how much we make
compared to others. One thing I especially appreciate about being Presbyterian is that
we strive to be transparent with finances. You all know the pastors’ packages down to
the penny and vote on them each year. You may not know that the Presbytery also
publishes once a year the basics of each minister’s financial package in the Presbytery.
I avoid like the plague looking at that list because I know that I am going to find
someone on that list who is making more and who I think may not deserve it nearly as
much as I do. Of course, I don’t look at those who make less. I avoid looking at those
salary charts because I know my weaknesses and trying to measure myself against
others is one of them.
This is the problem with the Pharisee in the parable Jesus tells in Luke 18: he
makes comparisons. One thing you need to know first about this parable is that
Pharisees were not the villains in Jesus’ time. They were religious leaders, the “faithful,
dependable, tithing type” of person generally looked up to by others. No, the tax
collector in the parable is the assumed villain, because he was the one “working for a
foreign government collecting taxes from his own people, a participant in a cruel and
corrupt system, politically a traitor [and] religiously unclean.”4 So what a shock it is to
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Jesus’ audience when he tells them that it is the tax collector who is justified by God –
and not the Pharisee. What is going on?
The clue is in how they pray. The Pharisee stands, which was the customary
position for Jewish prayers, but Jesus tells us that he “stands apart” from the rest of the
people in the Temple. Then he prays, “God I thank you that I am not like other people:
thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a
tenth of my income.” The implication is that he is praying aloud, so that others can hear
him, and that he is looking over at the others as he prays. And notice how many “I’s
there are in this Pharisee’s prayer.
In contrast, the tax collector is “standing far off,” Jesus tells us, implying that he is
ostracized by others. He is not looking at others; he cannot even stand to look up at
God. All he can do is look down and say, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
The tax collector is humble, he knows his need of God’s grace, and so he is
accepted by God. In contrast, the Pharisee tries to justify himself, celebrating how
much better he is than others praying in the Temple – especially that tax collector.
What Jesus wants us to know is that we are never justified by favorable comparisons
with other people. We can never trust in what we have accomplished to make things
right with God. Instead, we can only trust in what God has done in grace to forgive us
and make things right.
The tax collector gives us a living model of the path of humility. But that does not
mean humility requires us to put ourselves down or beat ourselves up. True humility is
knowing our rightful place before God, our right identity in God’s eyes. Humility, true
humility, is having eyes only for God, and not being tempted to compare ourselves to
others.
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As David Benner has written, “in all of creation, identity is a challenge only for
humans. A tulip knows exactly what it is. It is never tempted by false ways of
being…So it is with dogs, rocks, trees, stars, amoebas, electrons, and all other things.
All give glory to God by being exactly what they are. For in being what God means
them to be, they are obeying him.”5
Humility is found in knowing who we are – and being exactly who we are called
to be: creatures totally dependent on our Creator, sinners totally dependent on God’s
grace, and yet children of God, made in the image of God, and totally beloved by God.
In God’s eyes, we are never a “nobody.” We are always instead a “somebody.”
If we want to see what humility looks like, Paul tells us, look at Jesus. Jesus
always knew exactly who he was and what he was called to do. He never needed to
justify himself or compare himself to others. Jesus was no doormat: he stood up to the
authorities and he was not afraid of denouncing those who abused their power or
mistreated others.
Jesus never stood on privilege. While two of his disciples argued about who
should sit in the place of honor at dinner, Jesus took up a towel and washed the feet of
his disciples. While others tried to keep the children away because Jesus’ time was too
important, Jesus took them upon his knee. While others might not let themselves be
interrupted or stopped on the road because they have so many important things to do,
Jesus always had a schedule that could be interrupted and he always had time for
those who asked him for help. While others might look with contempt on those who
been corrupt, traitorous, or notoriously sinful, Jesus said, “Welcome home beloved son”
and “Neither do I condemn you my daughter. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus wants us to walk another way, the way of humility because it is the path
that leads to true joy and peace Sure, any parents wants his child to be happy, but pity
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the parent who thinks that such happiness lies in the child making more money or
having a bigger house than the parent. Dallas Willard, the spiritual writer, likes to
“imagine a bumper sticker that says: ‘My child learned humility at school this month,’
instead of ‘My child is an honor student at Success Academy.’”
There is nothing wrong in having energy and drive. The question is, to what
end? To be sure, Jesus is not calling any of us to be so-called “slackers.” By the grace
of God, we all have some way to serve, some gift to offer, no matter how young or old
we are, no matter how educated or accomplished we are, no matter how long or short a
time we have been a Christian. But we cannot justify ourselves by offering that gift, or
make God love us any more because of what we do. God’s love for us is already there:
“it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us.”
Jesus calls us to the downward path of a servant, giving, loving and serving. Our
task is simply to discern what gifts we have to offer, not just when we are here in this
building together in this building but also in our work, and school, and home. In humility,
we are called to rely on God’s grace and strength, and not our own, and use that gift in
love.
The great South African author, apartheid critic, and Christian, Alan Paton, once
wrote, “Sometimes we cannot pray, because we are fallen into a melancholy, and
therefore have for the time lost our hope and our faith, and have no one to pray to. I
myself have done this, but now I wish to place on record that I am in unrepayable debt
to Francis of Assisi, for when I pray his prayer, or even remember it, my melancholy is
dispelled, my self-pity comes to an end, my faith is restored, because of this majestic
conception of what the work of a disciple should be.”6
The prayer he was writing about is a prayer of humility in an often ambitious
world. May it be a prayer we pray over and over again, beginning now. Let us pray:
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Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon; where there is error, the truth; where there is doubt, the
faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is
sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to
console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
1
Cited at http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/09/04/why-do-you-want-to-be-famous/
Cited at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-09-gen-y-cover_x.htm
3
Cited at http://bustedhalo.com/blogs/ambition-vice-or-virtue
4
Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990, 211.
5
Quoted at http://www.myrealjourney.com/2008/06/quotes-on-humility.html.
6
Alan Paton, Instrument of Thy Peace, New York: Seabury Press, 1968, 11.
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