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A Proper Opinion of Myself
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity – 9/22/2024
Proverbs 25:6-14
Rev. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion of God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Old Testament lesson from the book of Proverbs in the twenty-fifth chapter, with special emphasis on verse fourteen which read as follows:
“Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give.”[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Being honest about yourself is one of the more difficult things that comes with being a human being. I mean, it is pretty easy to be dishonest with yourself about yourself. Indeed, we do that fairly regularly. But being honest is hard work. It often means confronting imperfections, limitations, and unflattering parts of ourselves. It means the removal of compensation devices and techniques. It requires there to be no sugar coating, no rose-colored glasses; there is only the total unvarnished truth. Maybe you are not like me, maybe this sort of honest assessment reveals nothing by great things. But I would wager that most of you, being humans in this world of sin, find things about yourself that you do not like, just as I do.
And what sort of things might these be? There are those personality traits we do not like about ourselves. Some of us have a temper and despite our hatred of how it gets the better of us, it always seems to show up when unwanted. Others struggle with being people pleasers, willing to do nearly anything and everything no matter how strange, shameful, or harmful in order to keep others happy. Still others might have a problem with gossip, arrogance, pettiness, lacking in forgiveness, lying, lust, ignorance, foolishness, or greed. There are in each of us things about ourselves that we do not much like.
In our readings today is one of these: the need to be important, to be noticed, to be treated with deference. I have yet to meet a person who does not like to feel important. This is not in and of itself a problem. If you have friends and loved ones, they see you as irreplaceable because you are. And most of us love it when our friends and family let us know that this is how they see us. But there is a dark side to this as well, when we become puffed up and arrogant and seek to place ourselves over others in order to feel important. In theology we call this feeling false righteousness, a false sense of being holy or good. This false righteousness leads to mistreatment of our neighbors, those people around us, because it comes not by God and what He does, but by our efforts. In brief, we try to be important and needed and valuable and everything else and the easiest way to go about that in this life is not to succeed and build and work toward it, but to push others underneath us.
This is the sort of mentality that leads a person to seek to sit in the best place in a gathering. We do not have kings or banquets anymore like those in the time of Solomon or Jesus, but we do have social gatherings where these things take place. Haven’t you noticed how people like to be around the movers and shakers in town but will ignore those who are new or poor or who lack social standing at these events? Everyone wants to sit at certain tables; no one wants to sit at certain others. And we are not free of these things even in church where of all places such things should not take place. Where are the premium seats in this place? The ones that everyone fights over? Well, that depends on who you ask. Some would say that the front seats are filled with the kind of people who like to be seen in church. Others would say that the best seat in the house is the very back pew, which seats those who want to go to church but, you know, who do not want to be seen as too religious.
So much of our lives is spent navigating these social arrangements. Our self-importance gets in the way. It is easy to notice a braggart or a blowhard or social opportunist. Brown-nosers stand out to everyone that does not benefit from their sucking up. What characterizes this is an unhealthy fascination with one’s self and one’s self-importance, which is to say one’s own attempts to be righteous, that is good and holy, in the sight of people around us.
But there is another unhealthy form of self-deception and self-focus. Where we often see and rightly criticize those who make too much of themselves, we Lutherans are particularly prone to make too little of ourselves. That is to say, we are commanded to be humble in Scripture. Humility is a mark of the Christian. But humility is not that thing we Lutherans do where we try to paint ourselves as no better than a pile of excrement. That is to say, while it is very true and good for us to acknowledge that our sin is a big problem and that God hates sin, it is also good for us to acknowledge that we have been given certain gifts and abilities.
Let me give an example. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless since he is a pastor in our district, this friend was nominated to a district office. I asked him if he thought he would be good at it and if he wanted to do it. He did that thing we Lutherans all do. He said he really did not want it. He said he did not know if he would be any good. He mentioned that he would let his name stand if people wanted him to. And this all drove me nuts and I told him so. I know the guy well enough to know that he would be good at the job, that he has the aptitude and abilities that are needed to pull it off and I told him that pretending otherwise is simply lying, bearing false witness about himself to others and, possibly, to himself. This is just as much a selfish fixation on the self as those who seek the high seats. Knocking yourself down so that you do not seem too uppity or arrogant is not humility. True humility is that you do not consider yourself at all. Your importance is no more or less than anyone else’s. Humility looks like Christ who knew full well that He could and would bear the sins of the world and redeem us from our woes of sin and death and yet, He did not use His omnipotence and power to belittle, nor did He lie or mislead about who He is.
We can learn a lesson from this. We should neither seek to elevate ourselves nor to put others beneath us socially so that we might feel important. And neither should we lie about our abilities and aptitudes. It is not arrogant to admit that you can do something and that you can even do it well. That is simply a statement of fact. And if you do let such knowledge puff you up and make you conceited, then can repent, turn again to your saving Lord, and receive anew the salvation and forgiveness that He won for you in His death.
Being honest about ourselves is hard work. We have sins we want to cover up. We have flaws we want to compensate for. We have warts we try and dress up. Make no mistake, we all do these things, and we all play these games even if we are unaware that we are doing them. And we are certainly to try and restrain these impulses and sinful desires. We are to daily drown our sinful old Adam and all his stupid attempts to make something of himself in the water of our Baptism, where we were claimed and given an eternal identity and an everlasting righteousness. And this identity as a redeemed and adopted child of God and this righteousness foreign to us but made ours in Christ by faith, these give us the gift of true humility, of not seeking superiority in human and social means, but instead, resting in the great gifts of Christ. The solution to these strange things we do is not in behavior modification, though this may result. Instead, it is founded on the knowledge that we belong to Christ and have an everlasting righteousness not made by our hands, one that is certain, earned in the everlasting salvation granted to us for the sake of the crucified Lord, Jesus Christ.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Ame
[1] Proverbs 25:14 English Standard Version
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