JEREMIAH 14:7-10,19-22

PSALM 84:1-6

2 TIMOTHY 4:6-8,16-18

LUKE 18:9-14

Sermon – October 24, 2004

In his Autobiography, Ben Franklin enumerated ten qualities he possessed which, he declared, made him the successful, brilliant, prosperous, famous, popular person he was, and he talked about how he could check them off each day to make sure he was keeping to his program of self-improvement.

One of his friends, upon reading Franklin’s self-congratulatory list, dryly suggested to him that maybe “humility” should be added to his list. Franklin readily agreed and declared that made eleven qualities in himself he could check off each day.

Which proved that, for all his brilliance, Ben didn’t quite get it. Humility is one quality which, if we think we have it, we don’t.

So while humility should be on all of our lists of qualities to strive for, we shouldn’t think that we can ever check it off as something we’ve accomplished. Only other people – or, ultimately, God – can say of this quality, “This person gets it.”

I will therefore contrast with Ben Franklin a world class celebrity I met for the first time two weeks ago: a Nobel Peace Prize winner, one of the most significant people in his country’s history, and the most famous Anglican Church leader in the world. I was in line, checking in at the Diocese of New Jersey’s clergy retreat. There were people ahead of me and people behind me (as often happens) in lines, and after I had signed in and picked up my name badge and room assignment I turned around to see who was behind me and said “Oh! Archbishop Tutu!”

He had someone to drive him to the conference (he doesn’t have a car in this country, after all), but no entourage, no groupies, no trumpet fanfare, just one more clergy person checking in. Well, almost.

We had (surprise) the largest turnout for any clergy conference in my memory and I (and I suspect a number of others) hoped that in addition to his formal addresses to us, we’d have forums of bull sessions full of “And then I said to President Mandela” anecdotes. No.

While we did listen to him give four addresses, as planned, and while his books were on sale (and could be autographed for free) and he even posed for individual pictures with us (yes, I stood in line for that), he told us the main focus of our time together was not to listen to him but to pray. In silence. Including meal times and social hour. To listen to God, in short.

You know how hard it is for clergy to shut up for 24 hours?

Well, we tried, or some of us did anyway, but ultimately he conceded that “The conference has defeated the retreat,” that the urge for collegiality – a good thing – had trumped the mandate for silent prayer – a better thing.

When Desmond Tutu conceded that his expectation for us to be in silence had not been met, he did so with good humor, something he brought with him throughout our time together. Silence did mean that I ate dinner at the same table with him and neither of us said a word, just pantomimed when we were passing dishes.

He told us, by word and example, to keep disciplined lives of prayer and to keep our senses of humor because especially in times of great stress we would need both. Good advice. And he did tell stories – like about the birthday card he got from his wife. On the cover it said, “Ours is a beautiful and unique relationship.” Open it up and it said to him, “I’m beautiful and you’re unique.”

The dude is funny, endlessly, and so not full of himself. And I missed seeing him on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, but my son saw him and that clinched his place in Tom’s pantheon. Archbishop Tutu had and has a lot of very serious things to say, including in his book There is No Future without Forgiveness which I read in full and recommend highly. His seriousness and profundity comes from a man who is brilliant, famous, significant – and humble. It can happen.

There are temptations for all of us to be otherwise. Let me just mention two of the ones I experienced shortly after my ordination in Boston.

Going around Boston in a clerical collar, black shirt and black suit 20 years ago was very different from going around Central New Jersey similarly attired today. Like the time I was in the Boston subway and my token jammed and I couldn’t get through the turnstile. When that happened to most people, the MBTA employees ignored them. For a priest, two guys leapt out of their booths with “Oh, let me help you, Father.” Then there was the time I was shopping for wallpaper for the rectory with my wife and sister-in-law. I walk into the store and four clerks run over to wait on me – including some who left other customers.

I have to say, I liked that treatment a little too much. I’m glad I only got three years of it and not thirty. It could do something, something bad, to any efforts at humility.

Spiritual pride – described in today’s Gospel – is in my opinion the most odious kind of pride and it is not limited to clergy (though clergy are at least as vulnerable to it as lay people). Righteousness is good; self-righteousness is not. The twin temptations are (1) to ignore the risks of self-righteousness and (2) to be so concerned about becoming self-righteous that one never tries to be righteous!

So we should strive to be good, but not sprain our arms patting ourselves on the back for our accomplishments at goodness!

So let’s look at today’s Gospel. The Pharisees, for all the “bad press” they get in the New Testament, were the Jews who were theologically closest to Jesus – they believed in the resurrection and held obedience to biblical teaching to be more important than anything else – and they were people who devoutly strove for righteousness. However, too often – like the Pharisee in today’s Gospel – they succumbed to the temptation to spend their time looking down at other people instead of up at God.

That’s what a lot of this Pharisee’s “prayer” is: instead of adoration, confession, thanksgiving or supplication addressed to God, it’s a “prayer” of self-congratulation, explicitly comparing himself to one of his fellow worshippers, whom he despises.

And with good reason. While the Pharisees were the ultimate in respectability, tax collectors were highly unrespectable. These people – like Matthew, who became an apostle – were Jews who were working for the Roman government of occupation. Picture a Palestinian working for the Israeli forces occupying part of the West Bank today, or an Irishman working for the British when the British were occupying Ireland, or a Frenchman working for the Nazis in World War II. That’s how much tax collectors were considered traitors by their fellow Jews. Plus the tax collector had bought his franchise at competitive bidding from the Romans – enriching the enemy further – and often used his power to extort more than the taxes he was supposed to collect.

So Jesus holds up one of them as a spiritual example to emulate?

Shocking.

That’s the point. The tax collector in this story prays, and prays humbly, not even looking up, but “was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’” His prayer was accepted by God; the Pharisee’s wasn’t.

So let us strive for “the crown of righteousness” but not be as sure as St. Paul seems to have been that there is one with our name on it already reserved. Let us combine the joy and the zeal for righteousness of the Pharisee with the humility of the tax collector. Let us give God the glory when we are guided to do the right thing or serve as a blessing to others. Let us follow our Lord, who “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” That is how we can say, when we reach our life’s end, “I have kept the faith.”

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church