Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 10/26/2025
Proper 25 | 10-26-25 | Luke 18: 9-14
Good morning everyone - and don't you just look mah-vah-luss!?!
Yes, I'm wondering how you respond to compliments this morning?
"Why thank you! I look marvelous because I spent extra time on my hair, carefully chose my outfit, and even took a shower!"
OR
"Of course you noticed how marvelous I look, everybody knows I'm the best looking person in the building!"
I'm parsing between two aspects of pride that psychologists like to talk about: Authentic Pride and Hubristic Pride.
The first, Authentic Pride, is healthy - as if you asked me why I won a recent marathon - and I responded, 'I won because I trained hard and focused.'
Authentic pride signals a high self-esteem, a conscientiousness, agreeableness, and achievement stemming from a centered-self whose motivation is altruism, self-improvement and even concern for others.
The second form of pride is Hubristic Pride, which is unhealthy and arrogant - which would prompt the response to my marathon win to be, "I won that race because I'm just better than everyone else and naturally gifted."
Psychologists say Hubristic Pride signals low self-esteem, narcissism, hostility, and aggression often accompanied by manipulation and a refusal to admit fault.
It is often a defense mechanism stemming from underlying insecurity that creates a facade of superiority to shield the individual from the fear of rejection, inadequacy, or vulnerability.
It is this type of pride that's traditionally associated with the term 'being prideful' - and is at the heart of our gospel lesson this morning - and I'm sure, something that you have never, ever observed in politicians, family members, or preachers...
------
This morning we join Jesus not far from where we left him last week in the Gospel of Luke when we learned about the nagging widow and the unjust judge - and the importance of persistence in prayer.
Today we pick up with a story that comes right after that one - and this one is on humility and self-knowledge - "Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt" - as we hear of two men who go up to the Temple to pray. One man is a religious leader called a Pharisee, and the other, a despised outcast called a Tax Collector.
One way to look at this Pharisee is someone who is full of Hubristic Pride!
He exudes Narcissism and self-promotion by constructing a rather bizarre prayer, "I thank you that I am not like other people - a thief, rogue, adulterer - or that tax collector!" The religious leader is convinced of his own natural gifts of perfection and is not afraid to demean and insult the Tax Collector.
In the Tax Collector, though, we find something else. He is genuine. We could say that he is filled with Authentic Pride - he knows exactly who he is and what he's done - readily and rightly admitting he is "a sinner" - and modeling for us the humility that forms the punchline of this parable: "for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."
So we could say that the message is clear - hubris, bad - humility, good.
Authentic Pride, good - Hubristic Pride, bad.
But let's go a little bit deeper, shall we?
How did these characters get this way?
How does one have a healthy sense of pride and the other have such and unhealthy one - And even closer to home - How do we get this way?
Let's take a look at the Pharisee - who is he?
Well, we don't know - he never really told us who he was - but he did tell us who he wasn't. He measured himself against a variety of people whom he considered to be less than himself - thieves, rogues, and adulterers. And he further avoided telling us who he was by instead telling us what he did: he fasted and paid tithes.
I wonder how connected he was to himself - that he could only define himself by measuring himself against other people - and by measuring himself by what he did?
And it begs the question: How do you and I define ourselves? Is it by how we measure up to others - or by the good deeds we do?
-------
Many of us construct our identities from the examples around us - of family, friends, and the people we look up to. It's natural.
But we have another resource - it's our faith! At our Thursday evening gatherings, called Living Loved, we've been studying how we define ourselves.
And we've been using Mark 12 - where it says: we are heart, soul, mind, and strength - or Emotion, Spirit, Intellect, and Body. We are Spirits who have a body and share it with our emotions and intellect.
And the sum total of these four are who we are.
And that person - every person here - is beloved by God -
Your embodied spirit with an intellect and emotions - is beloved by God.
To mirror Genesis chapter 1 - after making you, God said it was 'very good.'
You and I were created to be objects of God's love - first and foremost - this is our number one job: to receive God's love - which is not a reward for doing good things or hanging around good people - we are loved simply by being ourselves.
This can be hard for us to believe.
I wonder if it was hard for the Pharisee to believe?
I wonder what the Pharisee's prayer would have looked like had he understood that?
What would it have been like if he had no need to compare himself to others, even denigrate them - and had no need to hide behind good deeds to make himself acceptable ?
When we are solidly in touch with our true identities - our belovedness - the need for hubris simply evaporates.
We no longer have anything to prove or others to harm.
We are secure in who we are - because we are God's.
Hubristic Pride gives way to Authentic Pride.
I wonder what our political, economic, and communal life would look like if people were really in touch with their true selves - as beloved - and had nothing to prove, no one to insult, nobody to impress?
They might look a bit like the tax collector.
He was deeply in touch with himself.
He beat his breast, he 'fessed up, he called it like it was - he was "a sinner."
We can understand why the Tax Collector chose this moniker because he came into the temple as a collaborator and cheater and presumably left the temple as a collaborator and a cheater –
He was sinning, is sinning, and plans to continue sinning - as we hear of no change of direction - no reparations, no alteration of plans - so that the sinning he did, was the sinning he was going to continue to do - however flawed that is - it is honest, and that's the rub - it leads us to the important part: God loves him anyway.
"While we were far off - God loved us"
Think of the Prodigal Son - whose love from the father never wavered - no matter how sinful that son behaved. God loves the sinner before, during, and after the sin.
When our sin distances us from God - it's not God who moved.
It's us - when our shame and embarrassment keep us from going to God, we hide like Adam and Eve in the Garden - we stop being around Godly people, going to church, saying our prayers - because we think that God only loves good people - we forget this truth: that God loves all people - no matter who you are or what you've done.
No sinning sinner can outrun God -- that includes you and I.
This Tax Collector went to his home justified - not because he was perfect - but because God is. This is God's business - to save the lost - pardon the wicked - have mercy on the sinner.
And that's true for you and me.
God looked past this man's sins - and looked fondly upon his heart - the heart that cried out 'Be merciful to me.' Did the Tax Collector amend his ways?
We don't know - but for his sake, and the sake of those around him, I hope so. In a few more chapters we'll get the story of Zacheus, a very famous tax collector who did repent - maybe this is him?
But, in this story we come to understand that God's love and acceptance is not based on our performance - we don't earn our way to heaven - we don't become more loved by God by doing good things. We don't do good things to get love, we do good things because we are loved.
So-
What does it look like for us to live our days in and days out with this sense of God's belovedness coursing through our veins?
Can we breathe a bit easier? Is it a load off our backs?
Is there a freedom and release in our souls -- when we see that God is more apt to commend our honesty and authenticity than our good deeds done with wrong motives?
----------
One last story - a driving story like last week -
And a stressed out woman in an S-U-V - who's driving over the speed limit as she comes up behind me as I'm stopped at a Stop Sign over on Quarton Road.
I'm waiting for the traffic to clear in front of me so I can go straight - and there are a lot of cars out.
After a bit, she honks her horn –
I look in my mirror at a frazzled and anxious woman - and try to read her lips - she's gesticulating in an exaggerated manner - asking if I'm turning right or left because I don't have a blinker on.
I motion that I am going straight - so I need no blinker.
She is not placated, but gives me the palm-to-the-forehead look - as if I'm on a divine mission to ruin her day.
As the traffic grows heavier - I can just feel the warmth of her seething, simmering self in back of me - pressuring me to go forward - which I can't do because there are too many cars - yes I'm feeling that heat too!
Finally, the traffic clears and I make my way through the intersection - and as I glance in my rear view mirror - I see that she's got a little one in the car - presumably trying to get to school on time - and I couldn't help but thinking: "If that lady is making me this stressed out in 45-seconds - what about that poor child?"
Friends - the attitude of our hearts matter.
The stillness of our souls matter.
The settled calm of our centered spirits matters.
Understanding ourselves as beloved, precious, and perfect in God's eyes - just the way we are - nothing getting in the way of God's love to us and through us - filling us with the peace that passeth all understanding - because God accepts us a where we are, how we are –
It can keep us from false pride - it can keep us from anger - it can keep us from the teeming anxiety that is so rampant in our world, sparking division and hatred all around us.
So beloved, let us cultivate the settled souls that comes from God's acceptance - that lead us to authentic pride.
Let us put aside the aggression, hostility, and insecurity that comes from hubristic pride -
And let us nurture our true nature - as God's beloved who need not worry about being accepted and approved, putting others down to lift ourselves up, because God has already given us that divine stamp of approval.
And let us, too, go down to our homes justified, because we also have encountered God - who calls us to embody the immeasurable greatness of Divine love.
Amen.