Midweek Lenten 2 – March 19th, 2025
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Matthew 26:30–36, 69–75
“Pride and Humility”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Peter answered Jesus, ‘Though all fall away because of you, I will never fall away’” (Matt 26:33). Famous last words! Peter has quite the confidence in his own abilities—in his own strength! Without knowing what’s to come, without knowing the challenge that soon lies ahead, he pridefully declares, “I will never fall away.” The letter “I” is at the very center of the word prIde, and that is what pride is all about: me, myself, and I. But, as the Proverb goes, “Pride goeth before the fall” (Prov 16:18). The trouble is, while most people know that, and we easily see how pride leads to the downfall of others around us, we can hardly ever see it in ourselves. Peter certainly didn’t see it. When he pridefully uttered those words, he could hardly have believed that by the time the night was through, not just once, but three times he would deny his Lord. Peter’s pride was indeed his downfall.
While we are coming to the vice of pride in the third installment in our series, after gluttony and greed, that’s because we are ordering the vices by when they occur in the passion account of our Lord. Pride, however, is truly foremost among all the vices. When the ancient church fathers studied pride, they universally recognized it as the “queen of them all.”
Similarly, Martin Luther noticed that breaking any of the commandments stemmed from the idolatrous breaking of the first commandment—a lack of fear, love, and trust in God above all things. We steal, gossip, lust, or hate because we don’t trust God to be with us in this life. So too, all the other vices stem from pride, because pride places the self in the place rightly occupied by God alone. Indeed, every vice is rooted in pride. We reflected on greed last week. Greed is pridefully insisting we will secure our own good through accumulating wealth, rather than trusting in God for all our needs. Gluttony says, “I will ensure I am satisfied.” Envy says, “I will secure my own status.” Anger says, “I will avenge my enemies.” I, I, I… The trouble with placing ourselves in the spot of God in our lives is that we are not God, therefore we make terrible gods, and every prideful endeavor we undertake is doomed to failure.
Pride, of course, is the original sin. Adam and Eve desired to “be like God.” And ever since the fall, all humanity is born “curved in on oneself.” A fancy Latin term that Luther used for this is incurvatus se. God is no longer the center of attention in our lives; we are our own centers of attention. Most people envision pride as being the sin of the boastful, those who think they are better than others. While that is partly true, it’s not the whole story of what’s going on. Pride is not necessarily thinking too much of myself; it’s thinking of myself too much!
Now, it’s not wrong to take “pride” in one’s accomplishments, to relish in the natural reward of our hard work. We are proud of our children and grandchildren when they do well. We are proud of getting a promotion at work. We are proud of athletes who train hard and then achieve victory. None of that is the vice of pride. But it can easily turn into pride. Just as soon as we think we’ve achieved these things by ourselves, of our own power, just as soon as we pat ourselves on the back for our success instead of turning to thank God for giving us the ability, we’ve begun to plod down the dangerous path of pride.
But, that’s just what’s so difficult about pride. It’s so hard to recognize in our lives because it’s usually present precisely when we are accomplishing what are otherwise good and worthy things. Pride typically appears when we are at our best, not our worst. That’s why “pride goes before the fall,” because we never even see the fall coming. One minute, we are on top of the world; we feel invincible. “Even if all fall away Lord, yet I will never deny thee!” But it’s all an illusion that can come crashing down in an instant. “I tell you I do not know the man,” Peter said the third time. And immediately the rooster crowed.
And, due to its nature, pride is so very difficult to escape. In a moment, we’ll see, the antidote to pride is humility. But the glaring reality is that one’s striving to be humble can easily become something else one takes pride in. Whatever one does to escape the vice of pride is can also become the new source of our pride, and we are often blind to that reality. I’m reminded of the man in Scripture who went to the temple to pray and began by saying, “God I thank thee that I am not like these other sinners” (Luke 18:11). He was oblivious to how prideful such an utterance truly was. Perhaps today few of us would be so bold as to pretend we are perfect. Today pride might look more like this: “Yes, Lord, of course, I’m a sinner too, but I’m still a lot better than that person right over there…”
If pride is the greatest vice, then you can be sure humility is the greatest virtue. And if humility is the greatest virtue, then you can also be sure it is the chief virtue exemplified by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Pagan morality, for all its wisdom, falls woefully short in this respect. Pagan wisdom has never been able to discern that humility is the chief virtue. For the pagans, pride is the virtue and humility is a vice. But that’s not the ethic of the kingdom of God. No, Jesus says, “whoever is greatest among you must be your servant” (Matt. 23:11). Scripture teaches that “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Cor 1:27). Jesus tells us to take the lowest seat at the table (Luke 14:10). Paul teaches us “In humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others” (Phil 2:4). Peter and James exhort: “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord and in due time He will lift you up” (1 Pet 5:6, James 4:10).
Humility was the entire pattern of Jesus’ life. Jesus humbled himself. The Creator of the cosmos takes on human flesh. He walks our sinful soil, breaths our poisoned air, and dies our common death. Paul encouraged the Philippians to consider the example of Jesus, who, even though he was God, “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” (Phil 2:7). No, instead, Jesus made himself a servant. Born in the likeness of men and “he humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [And] Therefore God has highly exalted Him, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name…” (Phil 2:8-9). The pattern of Jesus’ life is the pattern of obedient humility.
So we need to be clear then, about what humility is, and what humility is not. Sometimes we think of humility as some kind of reserved meekness. Like a quiet, “humble person” who keeps to themselves. But that’s not Biblical humility. Sometimes we think of humility as the person who is continually self-deprecating. We give them a compliment on their abilities, and they reply, “Oh, I don’t know about that, I’m just humble ’ole me.” That might be a feigned, false humility, but that is not Biblical humility.
No, to understand what the virtue of humility is we need to think back to our grade school earth science class—back when we learned that another name for dirt is “humus.” That’s where the word humility comes from, it means “earthy.” Humility comes from recognizing that we are tied to the soil as creatures of God, alongside all the other creatures of His creation, and with them fully dependent on His provision. Instead of trying to ascend and take over the “god-spot” in my life, I content myself with being under His care. True humility, then, comes from knowing my rightful place as creature, and not Creator. Then, you see, I don’t try to take things into my hands, instead I leave them in his hands. In short, humility lets God be God. This why it is the chief virtue of the Christian faith. This is why it is the virtue that is necessary in order for all other virtues to be present in our lives.
But how does one cultivate Christlike humility? I already mentioned pride is seemingly impossible to overcome. The more we work on our humility, the more proud we are about how humble we’ve become! Well, there’s two proven practices that help counter this risk. No, our prideful selves naturally will not like these things, but that’s precisely why it’s important that we do them.
First, regularly practice confession. If you want to humble yourself then thoroughly examine your heart every day to expose the sin that lies within. You’ll quickly realize you are hardly god. It’s a painful practice, but a necessary one. Second, serve others. And if you are really serious about killing pride, not just any kind of service. No, specifically do something you consider “beneath you,” I don’t know, like washing someone else’s dirty feet. If you are wondering where that advice came from, just ask Jesus.
And finally, consider service done in private. Richard Foster wrote that “if all our serving is before others, we will be shallow people indeed.” On the other hand, service done in “Hiddenness is a rebuke to the flesh and can deal a fatal blow to pride.” (Celebration of Discipline, 134). Jesus said the Pharisees who practiced their righteousness before others had already received their reward. But service done in secret is different. When we don’t let our left hand know what our right hand is doing, the earthly reward might only be experiencing the painful death of self that the killing of our pride invites. But the humility it cultivates, well that leads to the eternal reward: life in heaven.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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