The Sin of the Professor and the Pharisee

by Dave Wilkinson

Luke 18:9-17

August 19, 2001

The Seven Deadly Sins Theme

Tune: Gilligan's Island Words: James Mitchell

Of all the Seven Deadly Sins

It's Pride that is the worst

For Pride puts God and others last

So Ego can come first.

The Professor is a picture of

Our vain and stubborn race --

We'd rather lose salvation

Than put up with losing face.

(Put up with losing face)

And, like the pious Pharisee,

We're sure that we're the best;

So confident, we brag to God

To put us to the test.

(To put us to the test.)

We run aground when we are found

Inviting these things in:

There's Sloth, of course,

And Gluttony,

Our Anger

And our Greed,

The lure of Lust,

Pride and Envy, the

Seven Deadly Sins!

Leon, Joseph and Clyde all suffered from a messiah complex. It was not just a touch of narcissism. It was the real deal. They were three chronic psychiatric patients at a hospital in Ypsilanti Michigan. Each maintained he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Each believed he was the central figure around whom the world revolved.

Psychologist Milton Rokeach wrote The Three Christs of Ypsilanti about his attempts to help these men. But change came hard. It was as if Leon, Joseph and Clyde were not sure they could bear to live if they weren't who they thought they were. They could be very rational in other aspects of life but they would hold onto messianic delusions "even though," as Rokeach put it, "they are grotesque, ego-defensive distortions of reality."

With little to lose, Rokeach decided to try an experiment. He put the three men into one small group. For two years the three delusional messiahs were assigned adjacent beds, ate every meal together, worked together at the same job, and met daily for group discussions. Rokeach wanted to see if rubbing up against each other might diminish their delusions.

The experiment led to some interesting conversations. One man would claim, "I'm the messiah, the Son of God. I am on a mission. I was sent here to save the earth."

"How do you know?" Rokeach would ask.

"God told me."

And one of the other patients would counter, "I never told you any such thing."

Every once in a while, one of the men would get a glimmer of reality. Leon eventually decided that he wasn't actually married to the Virgin Mary -- she was his sister-in-law. But that change was only a glimmer and the light of reality never shone very bright or lasted very long.

As John Ortberg, who will preach here September 30^th, observes in The Life You've Always Wanted: "To maintain the illusion that you are the messiah, you must shut out any evidence to the contrary. If you want to be your own god, you have to settle for living in a tiny universe where there is room for only one person. Your world could grow infinitely bigger if you were only willing to become, in the words of a friend of mine, "appropriately small."

Now I have my own share of a messiah complex. It is not the kind that would get me sent to a Ypsilanti. But in its own way, it is just as serious and irrational as the belief of Leon, Joseph and Clyde.

You have a share as well. In fact, the sin of pride is the oldest one in the Book. Genesis states that it was through pride that the serpent tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit: "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God." And we have all, in our own way, been trying to take God's place ever since. We have all been inmates in the same asylum.

This summer we are looking at the seven deadly sins -- pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. These sins have been recognized by the church as particularly deadly because they are the mother ships for other sins. All other sins flow out of these seven.

Now according to eminent scholars, each of the 7 deadly sins is modeled by a character from Gilligan's Island. We've looked at the sin of sloth through Gilligan himself and at envy through the example of Mary Ann. We've looked at anger through Mr. Howell and greed through Mrs. Howell. The Skipper represented gluttony and Ginger lust. Today, pride is modeled for us by The Professor. I put pride last because it's now the end of August and pride goes before the fall. Actually, I put pride last because it's the worst.

Why pride for the Professor? The Professor could do anything except fix a hole in the boat -- and he knew it. He was the one indispensable person on the island -- and he knew it. But did he get his own series? No. Some people think he came back as McIver but that's not true. Was the island named "The Professor's Island?" No, it was named after Gilligan for Pete's sake. For the first couple of seasons he wasn't even named in the song. He was lumped with Mary Ann as one of "the rest." That was hard on her with her besetting sin of envy. But it was crushing to him with his pride.

The Professor had a problem. As Dorothy Sayers writes in Creed or Chaos: "The head and origin of all sin is the basic sin of Superbia or Pride. It is the sin of trying to be as God ...The devilish strategy of Pride is that it attacks us, not on our weak points, but on our strong. It is pre-eminently the sin of the noble mind -- which works more evil in the world than all the deliberate vices."

How do we recognize pride in ourselves? Let start with the milder form of vanity. Vanity involves a preoccupation with our appearance or our image. Vanity is perhaps the most common form of pride. It can be irritating and silly, but it is fortunately not the most dangerous.

But isn't it wonderful to meet up with significant, truly famous people who don't read their own clippings? John Wooden led the UCLA Bruins to a national championship ten out of twelve years. But one time when he phoned a fellow coach Wooden said, "Hello. My name is John Wooden. I understand your little school needs a coach, and I have a man in mind I would like to recommend." He said, "I've had a couple of years coaching basketball and I thought you might like to take a recommendation I have."

A couple of years coaching basketball! The guy writes the book on it. But isn't it refreshing that Wooden doesn't assume the man will know his voice or be impressed with his name? Wooden always taught that character is much more important than reputation because character is what you really are while reputation is only what other people think you are.

A second, more dangerous level of pride is stubbornness.

Proverbs says: "One who is often reproved, yet remains stubborn, will suddenly be broken beyond healing." Stubbornness is the pride that causes us to avoid correction. It makes us unable to stop defending ourselves. When someone points out an error or flaw, we evade or deny or blame someone else.

Many people who consider themselves Christians remain at odds with each other because their pride will not allow them to take the steps necessary for reconciliation. There is the father who in an angry outburst orders his son out of the house, and then anguishes over what he has done. But pride prevents him from going to his son to say that he is sorry. There is the church leader none here but I've known them and you have too who verbally attacks the pastor at a church business meeting, and stomps out of the church in a huff. He misses the fellowship of his former church friends, but will not come back because he is afraid of losing face.

At its deadliest level, pride, leads to the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Pride destroys our capacity to love.

What was up with James and John when they asked to be seated on Jesus' right and left hands? I mean, it is a good thing to want to be close to Jesus. We should all want that. But they wanted to be closest to Jesus. That's competitive. That's pride.

Pride means not only that we want to be smart and wealthy, but that we will not be satisfied until we are smarter and wealthier than those around us. Pride is essentially comparative in nature. Pride moves us to exclude instead of to embrace.

Pride and lovelessness always go together. Jesus Himself made this connection when He told His story about two men at prayer. Luke says Jesus told this story to some "who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else."

In the parable, a Pharisee went to the temple to pray. Unlike some people, who only go to worship when they are in trouble, it is the Pharisee's practice to pray in the temple every day. He is a very devout, decent man.

Don't let all the negative things you've heard about the Pharisees filter this story for you today. You'll miss the intended impact if you do. When Jesus told this parable, virtually everybody who heard the word Pharisee would automatically think, "good guy." They practice their religion like few others. And if you are upset about how his prayer began, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people," check your scriptures. He was merely reciting a prayer that was a part of his liturgy, a prayer that all Pharisees prayed. It was based on the prayer of the Psalmist, Psalm 17, "if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress. As for what others do, by word of my lips I have avoided the way of the violent." The Pharisee was just trying to point out that, compared to the rest of the world, he was pretty honest and faithful, and he wanted to thank God for that.

But then he goes a little free form with his prayer. A tax collector in the back of the temple catches his eye and is included in the prayer.

Now, let's be honest. Isn't what the Pharisee said true? Of course. A tax collector in that society made his money through extortion and dishonesty. A tax collector was a Jew who made money off his fellow Jews by collaborating with the Romans. A tax collector would use Roman soldiers to confiscate property and goods when people were unable to pay his so-called tax. By contrast, the Pharisee loves his country, serves his church, and tithes. Most churches would be overjoyed to have a couple dozen guys like him. Most good people fasted once a week. The Pharisee fasted twice.

Apparently the Pharisee is guilty of only one sin.

But that sin is referred to by C.S. Lewis as the "Great Sin." "By comparison," Lewis says, "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness are mere fleabites." The great sin is pride.

Pride is a deadly sin because it creeps up on those that have the greatest moral strength. The most successful people in a church, the most active members, the most honest, trustworthy, responsible people are the ones most vulnerable to pride.

You and I have seen pride. We easily see it in others. We see the person who brags about anything and everything. We see the athlete. We see the scholar. We see the false humility of those who keep denying they have special talents and gifts. We come to know pride by observing others. But we come to know pride the most honestly by looking within ourselves.

When I become irritated by someone who has corrected me, when I get upset with someone else dominating the conversation (which usually means I wanted to be center stage and they beat me to it), when I am offended because someone didn't acknowledge my contribution, my insight, my hard work it is my pride displaying itself.

Let's be clear. Pride is different from healthy self- esteem. Pride is self-esteem propped up at the expense of others. It is a spiritual cancer. It eats up friendship, love and community.

The Pharisee was so smug, so self-satisfied, that he needed, and asked for, nothing from God. And Jesus said that nothing is exactly what he received from God that day. The deadly nature of all sin, is that it always separates us from God. But pride is the worst.

For, as Jesus pointed out, pride is a primary barrier to salvation. God has provided for our deliverance from sin through the death of His Son. We are saved by putting our faith in Christ and believing that His death atoned for our sin. Salvation is not something that we earn, but comes as a gift from a gracious God -- Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God."

But pride makes it difficult for many of us to accept this gift. We have a tendency to want to be saved because we have somehow earned God's blessing.

Winston Churchill as a Christian knew this. He knew he was saved by grace through faith. He knew he had nothing to offer God. But he couldn't get rid of pride. He once commented in response to a sermon, "Yes, we are all worms But I do believe that I am a glowworm." Don't we all.

Our pride drives us to want to earn our salvation by doing enough good deeds so that the Heavenly Father will owe us eternal life. But God requires us to humble ourselves, acknowledge our inability to live righteous lives, repent of our sins, and depend only on His grace.

Pride leads us to try to prove our worth to God Yet. God despises our pride and calls us to trust only in Jesus who was willing to humble Himself and become the ultimate servant of humanity.

And in place of pride, Jesus invites us into a life of humility: "All who humble themselves will be exalted." But we have become badly confused about humility. We're not even sure what a humble person is.

In the words of Frederick Beuchner: "Humility is often confused with the gentlemanly self-deprecation of saying you're not much of a bridge player when you know perfectly well you are. Conscious of otherwise, this kind of humility is a form of gamesmanship. If you really aren't much of a bridge player, you're apt to be rather proud of yourself for admitting it so humbly. True humility doesn't consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you'd be apt to think of anybody else. It is the capacity for being no more and no less pleased when you play your own hand well than when your opponents do."

Humility involves a healthy self-forgetfulness. We will know we have begun to make progress in humility when we find that we get so enabled by the Holy Spirit to live in the moment that we cease to be preoccupied with ourselves, one way or the other. When we are with others, we are truly with them, not wondering how they are seeing us or how they can be of benefit to us.

And humility, if ever we could grow into it, would not be a burden. It would be an immense gift. Humility is the freedom to stop trying to be what we're not, or pretending to be what we're not, and accepting our true self. In Luther's words, humility is the decision to "let God be God."

Now Jesus knew that His own followers would wrestle with the messiah complex, so, like Dr. Rokeach, He put them in a small group. For two years they ate meals together, met together daily for group discussions, went everywhere together. And sure enough, one day they "argued with one another who was the greatest."

So Jesus took a little child, and had His Leons and Clydes and Josephs gather around. He told them their job was to welcome, to receive, to serve this little child. They needed to do this, not just for the child's sake, but for their own. For it is through servant hood that they will come to see the truth about themselves.

Jesus took that little child in His arms and said, in effect, "Here's you ministry. Give yourselves to those who can bring you not status or clout. Just help people. You need this little child. You need to help this little child, not just for her sake, but for your sake. For if you don't, your whole life will be thrown away on an idiotic contest to see who is the greatest. But if you serve her-- often and well and cheerfully and out of the limelight-- then the day may come when you do it without thinking, 'What a wonderful thing I've done.' Then you will begin serving naturally, effortlessly, for the joy of it. Then you will begin to understand how life in the kingdom works."

When Jesus said the last shall be first, and the least shall be great, He wasn't giving orders. He was simply describing the truth about God's kind of community and how different it looks from the way things generally work in our world.

But God's way works.

Tony Campolo writes: "Once a friend of mine encountered a little girl carrying a huge mass of cotton candy on a paper cone. He asked, "How can a little girl like you eat all of that cotton candy?"

"Well you see, Mister," the little girl answered, "I'm really much bigger on the inside than I am on the outside."

Pride leads us to pretend to be bigger on the outside than we are on the inside. Healthy humility is the recognition that God has given to each of us, by His grace, a gift -- a gift not earned or deserved -- which makes us greater on the inside than most people will ever know."

Humility says: "It's okay if they don't know it."