New York UBF – NY University Bible Fellowship (NYUBF)

Luke Lesson 57 (2010)

LEARNING TO BE HUMBLE

Luke 18:9-17
Key Verse: 18:14

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

In our competitive, success and money driven society, people are compelled to use all their resources and opportunities to get ahead of others. If we want to survive and be ahead of others, it’s necessary to proud of ourselves, no matter who we are. People say “I am proud to be an American”, “I am proud to be a Chinese”, “I am proud to be a Jew”, “I am proud to be a Canadian American” or I am proud to be a Korean-American.” Having pride in oneself isn’t bad. It’s actually good and necessary to have a positive image of oneself in order to be happy and have a positive relationship with others. However, humility isn’t often regarded as something important to be pursued. The world is full of proud people who think that they are better than others and therefore look down on them.

We have been learning a lot about the coming of God’s kingdom in Luke’s gospel. Jesus said that the coming of God’s kingdom will be sudden and unexpected (17:20-37). In last week’s passage, we learned that the followers of Christ should always pray and not give up. We should never remain discouraged but continue to pray because our God is willing to see His children to get justice, which he means “the kingdom of God.” (18:1-8) Today’s passage is the continuation of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God. Although there are two sessions in today’s passage; the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (9-14), and the story of little children (15-17), it seems that the author Luke seems to focus on humility as a necessary characteristic of discipleship or the citizenship of God’s kingdom. In fact, Jesus put humility as the number one blessing in the Beatitudes. (Mt 5: 3; Lk 5:20) “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3)

Look at verse 9. “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable.” In Jesus’ time, it was not hard to meet someone in Israel who was confident of his own righteousness. I am not sure whether it was true or not, but they say that in Jesus’ time the Jewish men gave thanks to God everyday for three things. According to Jewish prayer book, they prayed, “Blessed are you, Hashem, the King of the Universe, for not having made me a Gentile, a slave and a woman.” It’s very surprising to hear this kind of discriminative and unwholesome prayer topic. What is also surprising is that even Plato, a great Greek philosopher, would give thanks to god for similar things. He said, “I thank god that I was born Greek & not Barbarian, free man & not slave, man & not woman, … ” According to the teachings of Genesis, we learn that all men and women are created equal in the image of God. (Gen chapters 1-2) But throughout the history of humankind, people of the world, including the Jews, have had a twisted view of others. Their twisted views led them to oppress and discriminate against weak people. We know the painful history of slavery in this country, as well as the attempts of Hitler to annihilate the entire Jewish people because he believed in the superiority of the German people. The imperial Japanese did similar things to a lot of Asian people during World War II. Are we any better now?

Recently, I read an article, titled “Why are there so many unhappy people in the world?” The article is basically saying that people are unhappy with their life because they are either poor, physically impaired or under-privileged. Yet the article points out that it isn’t just socially inept people who are unhappy but the intelligent and rich people who are also discontent with their life. Why? It’s because of their ego. In other words, they are discontent because they are preoccupied with themselves. When we live our lives based on an exalted view of ourselves and our own importance, we are doomed to be unhappy. Unless we overcome our self-centeredness and vain conceit, there is no way that we can be truly happy. That’s why Saint Paul said in Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Success is important. But personal success isn’t enough for our happiness. Our true happiness largely depends on our attitude toward ourselves, others and God. Jesus saw so many unhappy people in the world, including religious and successful people in the world. Having said this, we can say that Jesus came to this world to bring true happiness into their lives, which is the beginning of the coming of God’s kingdom. According to Jesus’ teaching in today’s passage, we have to have a right attitude, which is humility before God, in order to be truly happy.

Look at verses 10-13. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself, ‘God, I thank you, that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’” There were sharp contrasts between the two men. First of all, reputation: because we heard so often that the Pharisees were hypocritical, we always think that the Pharisees were worse than anyone in society. But that’s not really true. In Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were models of righteous behavior. They were probably honor students who worked hard and earned success in society. On the other hand, the tax collectors were the bad apples in society with their sinful behavior.

Interestingly, these two different people went up to the temple to pray. At that time, the Jews prayed in standing position. Probably, the Pharisee didn’t want the tax collector to be close to him. He stood on the front side of the temple courts, right behind the door of the Sanctuary, lifting his both hands high while the tax collector stood at a distance in the back. The Pharisee’s prayer was about how good he was. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men- robbers, evil doers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” It’s hard to believe that this man actually uttered such words in public. Even if he might not have said it out loud, it was for sure that he was proud in his inmost thought. (Lk 1:51)

What made him think that he was righteous and feel confident of himself? It’s because his standard was low. According to what he said in prayer, his standard was the tax collectors and other law breakers. He became self-righteous because he kept some basic religious rules, such as fasting and tithe. He actually kept a lot more rituals and religious rules than that were required for ordinary Jewish people. Especially, when he compared himself with all bad people, he thought that he deserved praise, recognition and honor from God. He had self-confidence because he also a good reputation among the people. So he didn’t need God’s mercy. On the other hand, the tax collector thought that he had nothing to be righteous about himself before God. Of course, he knew that he was a sinner. Contrary to the Pharisee, the tax collector didn’t have self-confidence or a good reputation among the people. The only thing that he could depend on was God’s mercy. So he prayed, beating his breast, “God, have mercy.”

Look at verse 14a. “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.” I am notorious for getting parking tickets. Even though I am tempted to complain, I am also guilty for parking illegally even though it was not intentional. I have to pay the fines. Jesus declared that the tax collector was justified, meaning that he was declared justified, meaning “not guilty” even though he was guilty of many sins. Then why wasn’t the Pharisee declared to be justified? It was because he claimed his own righteousness, which was not good enough in God’s sight. In fact, the Pharisee rejected the gift of God’s righteousness, which was offered to him through Jesus Christ who died on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.

It is interesting to see that the Pharisee in the parable stood before the blood-sprinkled mercy seat failed to think about why God had to design the mercy seat in the Temple. (Ex 25:17, 18; Heb 9:5) It was God’s will to save all men and women, including the Jews, by the way of God’s mercy, not by their merit. The gift of forgiveness of sin is already prepared through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. We don’t go to heaven by our religious activity or behaving better but only by God’s great mercy. All people need to do is to accept it.

Why does the New Testament constantly warn about the hypocrisy of the Pharisee in Jesus’ time? It’s not necessarily because the Pharisees in the early century would read the Bible and repent of their hypocrisy although it was very possible and necessary. But isn’t it true that the Scripture warns us Christians of all ages? We are called to be the salt and light of the world. In Luke’s gospel, however, Jesus does not teach too much of the sinfulness of the world. Jesus actually teaches much about the wrong attitude of religious people in his time, thus he was encouraging his followers to avoid the sin of hypocrisy, here the sin of pride in particular, which desensitizes our minds and hearts. It’s easy for Christians to be desensitized by their superficial religious life. When they do so, they are far away from God’s kingdom and cannot truly have joy and happiness.

How can we remain humble in heart and spirit? We should stop comparing ourselves with others. We should stop piling up religious achievements as signs of our merit. Instead, we should keep our lives in perspective. In other words, we are to live in the eyes of God, examining ourselves in light of the scriptures and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Pride and humility are very subtle things. We can be humble at some points and then become proud. It’s easy to become conceited while pretending to be humble. In fact, the devil is the champion in disguising humility.

The devil also tries to plant proud and evil thoughts in the minds of God’s children. How can we overcome the devil’s temptation? We should learn to be humble all the time. We see so many able, famous and successful people fall miserably because of their excessive pride. They wallow in it for long period of time. When David was a young man, he depended on God wholeheartedly. He was humble, considering himself unworthy to be the king over the people of Israel. But after he became successful, he slowly became proud and didn’t even know that he became proud. He started depending on his own experience, leadership and the number of soldiers and people he thought he controlled. God was displeased with David because of his pride. David’ pride caused so much tragedy to the people of Israel. No one is immune to the infection of the sin of pride. The hardest thing about pride is that it’s difficult to detect it. Therefore, we have to always watch that we don’t become proud or conceited. Jesus said in 14b that God exalts the humble and scatters those whose inner most thoughts are proud. Proverbs 18:12 reads, “Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.” Proverbs 29:23 also reads, “A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.” True success and happiness come through humility. Some said, “Humility is not a grace that can be acquired in a few months: it is the works of a lifetime.”

That is true. Therefore, we should learn to be humble in all circumstances. In fact, Jesus is the prime example of humility. Saint Paul said how we should imitate the humility of Jesus in Philippians 2:5-8, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on the cross!”

In verses 15-17, we see another illustration of humility through little children. One of the best ways to learn humility is through the example of little children. A fan once pressed a famous actor for an autograph while his eight-year-old son was at home. The fan felt so honored by getting the autograph of this famous actor. After the fan left the house, his son looked at his famous dad and said, “Can you believe that they want your autograph?” Some of the best teachers on humility are little children.

Look at verse 15. “People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them.” Obviously, it was a customary for the Jews to bring their small children to rabbis for blessing. But why would the disciples rebuke the people? We don’t know. Perhaps, they didn’t think the babies were important. They rebuked them because they thought that these parents were bothering Jesus who had more important things to do. Jesus, however, corrected the disciples and encouraged the parents to continue bringing their children to him. Look at verse 16. “But Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” In those days, children, along with women, were not considered equally important as adult men, so their numbers were not counted in gathering, even in the Bible. Why would Jesus call the children and spend time with them? Was it a political display? No. He genuinely cared for each of them because they are also humans who bear the image of God. What makes little children so special? Of course, children are not humble in the same way that some of the adults show humility. But they are humble in the sense of being totally dependent and unable to provide for themselves. They simply receive rather than provide. They have absolute trust and dependence. In those qualities they are a good example of humility. That’s why Jesus said in verse 16b, “The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

When we were young babies, all of us were cute, naïve, pure and humble. Children easily trust others without doubt. So children often become an easy target of evil people. However, the childlike humbleness should be preserved and not be abandoned. Christians should be pure and wise. In verse 17, Jesus challenges all grown ups, including his disciples and the Pharisees, to have childlike acceptation of God’s kingdom, without pretence or doubt. “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” How can we have a childlike attitude? Humanly speaking, it’s almost impossible. But what is impossible with men is possible with God.

Once a prominent Pharisee named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” What he was asking is “Are you the Messiah who would bring God’s kingdom to Israel?” Or he might be asking, “How can I have eternal life?”

In reply, Jesus declared the necessity of a new birth and being born of the Spiritual. First of all, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (Jn 3:3) “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” Then Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” (Jn 3:5) Nicodemus could not understand what Jesus said to him.

Even though Nicodemus was a prominent Pharisee and a great leader of the Jewish community, he had deep doubts about his religion. He was not sure about himself either. He perhaps even doubted God’s love for him and for all humankind. How can God who is holy save men from their sins? If religion fails, what can offer such salvation? Can Greek philosophy, modern psychology, medicine, science or money save men from their sin and God’s judgment? Do we need a new religion? No.

We need God’s grace of forgiveness of sins, which is given to us through Jesus Christ can! The gospel of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, is not religion. The content of the gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ, may not sound sophisticated enough, compared to the worldly wisdom and philosophy. The gospel of Jesus Christ may not sound as religious or convincing as the traditions and religions of the world. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. The gospel can transform anybody into God’s children and bring them to the kingdom of God. The grace of forgiveness of sin can bring peace to troubled souls, healing to wounded hearts and freedom to the oppressed. All we need to do is simply trust and accept God’s blessing of salvation. As God’s children and disciples of Jesus, we need to continue to depend on God’s mercy and learn to be humble. It’s easy for us to be like the Pharisee in the parable. Pride and pretence are something we should always watch out for. May we not take pride in our inner most thoughts by comparing ourselves with others and depending on our own religious merit. May we not exalt ourselves but grow in humility and never look down on others. May we grow in the leadership with humility.