SERMON

Giving It Up For Lent: Giving Up Superiority

Psalm 63:1-11 and John 4:5-42

Fred Mollon, Elder February 28, 2016 Skyline Presbyterian Church

This is our third Sunday in Lent and continuing on the series of “Giving up…” The first week Robyn talked about giving up control. Last week, it was about giving up expectations. This week we’ll look at giving up Superiority or synonym – pride; and as you can guess, the direct opposite of that is humility.

In line with that when we talk about “giving up something,” i.e. fasting, I always come back to, “why?” What is the purpose of this? Is it simply to make us feel good? Then I go back to Isaiah, where God calls the people to account for their fasting and how it frankly, disgusts him. The people are asked why they fast. [Read Isaiah 58: 5-10.]

When I was a young boy I used to love reading my dad’s Readers Digest. I really enjoyed the true life stories about famous people; stories about them that never made the news or their biographies. One that I particularly remember was a story about Albert Einstein. It was after he had published his “Theory of Relativity” and he was on a lecture tour all across the US. At one point, as they were travelling from one town to another, during a conversation his driver commented to Dr. Einstein that he had heard the theory so many times he could probably say it verbatim. They had a long drive ahead of them so Dr. Einstein told him that he wanted to hear it. So, his driver began and recited the lecture word for word. They arrived at the next town, where, but for his name, no one knew or had ever seen Albert Einstein so he said to his driver, “When we get to the lecture hall, you go forward as me and give the lecture.” So his driver did. Afterwards, as he came down from the dais everyone wanted to meet him. One person came up and said, “Dr. Einstein I’ve read your paper and now have heard your lecture and I have this question.” After he posed the question the lecturer chuckled and said, “You know, that question is so elementary that I’m going to let my driver answer it.”

That’s humility, (a right view of one’s self) the direct opposite of superiority, or another word – pride. Pride, feelings of superiority can be the downfall of anyone.

Pride is the greatest of sins because it is the summit of self-love and is directly opposed to submission to God. It is, therefore, the sin most hated by God, and the one He punishes most severely… Pride is likewise the greatest sin because it is the fountainhead of the self-love in which all other sins take root: "From pride all perdition took its beginning." (*Tobit 4:14). There is a species of pride in every sin, whatever may be the individual nature of the sin itself.

Pride is the most dangerous of sins, because it blinds our understanding, and unless something finally makes us realize the truth, we are liable to go on, day after day, in a spiritual self-delusion, imagining our acts to be good and virtuous when certain habits actually may be vicious. When we are blinded by pride, we do not consider our talents and abilities as God's gifts to us, but attribute our good qualities to ourselves, with the right to use them as we see fit.

The Bible tells us that this is the one thing that God hates the most. It brought the downfall of the most beautiful Angel who was removed from God’s presence; it caused Adam and Eve to be evicted from Eden; it was the cause of the downfall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah who each broke covenant with God and were then taken captive. It was the thing against which the prophets cried time and again, telling the people to repent. It was because of pride and superiority that the Messiah came and also the thing that caused His death. Pride and superiority was the thing that drove a young man to go on a rampage of persecution against the infant church until he was literally brought to his knees on the Damascus road.

Read John 4: 4-32

There are lots of lessons to pull from this passage, but we are going to look at superiority. One thing that struck me first was verse 4 – “and he had to pass through Samaria.” Any good Jewish man or woman would have nothing to do with a Samaritan. They were half-breeds; partly Jewish but mostly not; a mixed race. They wanted to be Jewish; they claimed Moses and the Torah as theirs also. The Jews had a temple in Jerusalem, so they put their own temple in Samaria. When the Jews returned from captivity and began to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, we read in Ezra and Nehemiah that the Samaritans were among those opposing them and causing trouble. Jews did not speak to Samaritans. They had no trade or commerce with them. If they met on the road often times there was violence, one against the other. The Samaritans were a shunned race. And when it came to travelling, every good Jew would go 100 miles out of his way to avoid passing through that region.

This is one of the characteristics of superiority and pride – avoidance. If someone is deemed to be “less than” then it’s much easier to not go near them. How many times have we walked down a street and as you look ahead see someone who is down and out, homeless, or maybe obviously not as clean as you or I, you cross the street to not have to pass by them? Or maybe because a certain area of the city has lots of “those kinds of people” we go farther out of our way to buy something just to not have to go near them.

But Jesus shows us a better way. He makes a point of going to where the “down-and-outers” are. He makes a point of throwing out conventional wisdom and doing something different because that’s where He sees the Spirit working. Now a little more about this situation: a Jewish man never talked to a woman in public, not even his own wife. That was for the home. Here is Jesus, a Jew, talking to a woman. Not just any woman, but a Samaritan woman. Why is she coming to the well at noon? Women came to the well in the morning to get water for the day. This was a social time; to catch up with friends; hear and share the latest gossip; talk about the children. But this woman is coming alone at the noon hour, in the heat of the day. Not only as a Samaritan woman was she shunned by the Jews but this tells us she was even shunned by the community and yet – Jesus talks to her, openly, and in public.

This is humility – which is shown by acceptance. This is Jesus pattern – to give place to the ones who are rejected by society at large and by those to whom they are connected. The first time I met a Palestinian young man and offered him my friendship, I remember well the deep bonds of love and respect that were born in that time. I can imagine when Davey and the crew go to the Mission, or Gene is handing out a PB&J sandwich, what that does to those folks, to have someone look at them, recognizing their personhood and their worth before God – all because someone gave up superiority and pride, and looked into another person’s eyes, and recognized God within.

Another thing that happens as a result of pride and superiority is indifference. Here is what Pope Francis said to the world in his Lenten message: "Indifference to our neighbor and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience." He continued: "We end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own." Instead of giving up chocolate or alcohol for Lent, let’s give up our indifference to others.” This again is a result of pride and superiority.

We see a little of this in the reaction of the disciples. They have come back to Jesus after buying food. They really don’t notice or comment on the woman to whom Jesus is speaking. As the people are coming out to see Jesus because of her testimony all that they are concerned with is “did someone else get Him something to eat while we were gone.” Not even a derogatory comment about Him speaking to a Samaritan woman. The disciples are totally oblivious to her, to the people coming out of the city to hear Him. And I can imagine for them it was difficult to be in a place where they were reviled, just like their society reviled the Samaritans. But Jesus won’t let them stay indifferent; He won’t allow them to ignore what is in front of them, what is the true purpose of being there. They need to see the people and recognize that this is the work of God, that ALL PEOPLE should have the chance to repent and come into the fullness of life in God, led by His Spirit.

This is what happens when we give up our pride and superiority. We become engaged in the world and no longer can we ignore those who are persecuted and crying out for injustice. No longer can we avoid or ignore the plight of the homeless, the sick, the elderly, or the ones suffering from the yoke of addiction. Suddenly we see them as God’s children, crying out for help, and just like Jesus, we see a field ripe unto harvest; and like Jesus, we find that we can’t leave. We have to stay and spend the time and energy to help these beloved ones see the hope and grace that we know. Like Jesus, we have to spend time among them even though the social pressures may try to tell us otherwise.

Superiority. Pride. The one thing that God hates more than any other thing. And the one thing that can trip us up the easiest because it can be so subtle. I think that the best way to overcome this is said best by Paul and I close with these words:

“Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, didn’t count equality with God as something to be grasped and held onto, but emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant. And being found in the likeness of men became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore has God highly exhalted Him, and given Him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is lord to the glory of God the Father.”

Amen.

* Tobit is one of the extra-canonical books in the Jewish bible.