Improper Estimates of My Importance (Luke 18:9-14)

It’s the week of Halloween, so I thought I’d begin this morning with a chapter from my favorite ghost story, Dante’s Divine Comedy.

The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri (Al-uh-geary) in the 14th century. Like the ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah, it is a story shaped by exile—the reality of Dante’s political exile from his hometown–Florence, Italy–and of the more common experience of losing one’s way in life—a sentiment expressed beautifully and memorably in the poem’s opening lines.

Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. (I.1-3)

For Dante, the journey back to the “straight path” was an imaginative trek through the afterlife which, inspired by his 14th century Catholic faith, included a slog through Hell, an ascent through Purgatory, and, ultimately, a vision of God’s glory with an assist from the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Along the way, he meets and converses with souls numbered among the damned and souls counted among the saved—learning, accordingly, of their pain and torment, their joy and peace.

The Divine Comedy is one of history’s greatest literary works and, although a masterpiece of fiction, insofar as it points its readers to deep realities of life and faith, it is true.

Take for example Dante’s emphasis on the problem with pride.

Dante wove warnings about pride throughout his work, but there’s a particularly memorable scene in volume one, The Inferno.

Travelling through the region where the proud and violent received their punishments, while Dante and his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, were making their way across the ghastly River Styx, a tormented spirit reached up from the muck and mire to block their way.

Shockingly, Dante recognized the “slimy shape” of a figure. It was one of his family’s most bitter rivals, the man who had taken Dante’s home and possessions when he was forced into exile, the same man who worked to ensure the poet would never be welcomed in Florence again.

Dante wasn’t exactly moved with pity by his old foe’s miserable condition and he shouted a curse.

“May you weep and wail, stuck here in this place forever, you damned soul, for, filthy as you are, I recognize you.”

With that, the spirit reached out his arms and advanced, as if to pull Dante into Hell’s river, too, but Virgil pushed him aside, and left him howling with rage.

In the aftermath of the encounter, Virgil, noticing that Dante still had a lot to learn about pride, underscored the moment’s significance by sharing with his charge a bit of wisdom.

Offering Dante a blessing, Virgil said,

In the world this man was filled with arrogance, and nothing good about him decks his memory; for this, his shade is filled with fury here. Many in life esteem themselves great men who then will wallow here like pigs in mud, leaving behind them their repulsive fame. (VIII.46-51)

Like history’s best ghost stories, Dante has a way of using suspense and twisted imagery to deliver his message.

In this case, he uses a once proud Florentine left raging in Hell to bring to mind words Jesus spoke about pride.

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

That was the main idea behind the parable Jesus told about two people praying in the Temple.

Here’s how Luke recounts that story.

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

Now what you and I need to understand is that the Pharisees were generally regarded to be devout and meticulous followers of the Jewish law. They also detested the Romans and, for that reason, had a very low opinion of tax collectors, who were Jews who aligned themselves with the Romans in order to get rich by collecting taxes from other Jews.

Pharisees, therefore, judged tax collectors to be greedy, morally corrupt sellouts and traitors.

In other words, Jesus set up his story with an easily identifiable good guy and a bad guy.

Or so it seemed.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘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 all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

I like how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this final verse.

He writes,

Jesus commented, "If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." (The Message)

If you’re familiar with the stories that Jesus tells, then you’ll recognize this as an example of the kind of plot twist that Jesus loves.

He has a way of upending our preconceived notions of how situations are going to play out, how people and even God, for that matter, are going to respond.

In this parable—the case of a pious rule follower versus someone who was willing to cash in their virtue in order to make a profit—the storyline seems so predictable at first.

But what Jesus reveals is that there were things going on within these characters that weren’t so obvious.

One had a proud and arrogant heart and was so satisfied to compare himself with others that he didn’t even know how serious his condition was.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that the tax collector even saw the Pharisee in the Temple with him, and even if he did, it just didn’t matter.

He had more important business to attend to.

He was in the Temple because somewhere, somehow, he had learned how important it was to take a good hard look at himself, and when he did, he did not like what he saw.

“God,” he prayed, “be merciful to me, a sinner!”

The tax collector knew that "if you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face."

You and I are heirs to a Methodist movement that placed a high priority on following the tax collector’s humble example and of doing the work of self-reflection that leads to confession and to a deeper experience of God’s grace.

An entry from the journal of our church’s namesake, Francis Asbury, demonstrates his commitment to such practices.

There Asbury discloses,

I am not so humble as I should be; and it may be I am in danger of forming improper estimates of my importance…My body is weak, but my mind is kept in peace: I desire to trust God with my body and soul.

May we be so attentive to the “improper estimates of our importance” that stroke our egos and fuel our pride.

Like the tax collector in Jesus’ story, like the room to grow Virgil saw in Dante, like Asbury and all others who show us the way of holiness, we aim to be and to see who we truly are so that we might become what we are meant to be.

This brings us back to another memorable moment from Dante’s ghost story.

After making his way through the Inferno, Dante began to ascend a great mountain.

Leaving perdition behind, he now encountered the songs and prayers of the redeemed.

It was a totally different scene, one filled with music, art, and color, but the souls Dante encountered there revealed the greatest difference of all.

Pilgrims on this mountain were honest, humble, and willing to take responsibility for their own actions.

This was where the weight of pride was cast off, and it was there that Dante’s growing edge finally burst through.

Breaking down the wall between author and audience, he delivered a message that is as relevant in our day as it was in his.

O prideful Christians! Sluggish and miserable. Your inner vision is distorted, and you put your trust in things that hold you back from God. Think of this, instead: we are worms now, but each of us will be transformed into a heavenly butterfly that soars upward to God. (Purgatorio, X.121-126)

You and I must aim to be and to see who we truly are so that we might become what we are meant to be.

Jesus said, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

May we forever be counted among those who see God’s love and our hope in his words.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Cuyos, Stephen. Humbled, exalted, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.