The Only Cure for Pride

Spend a few minutes with this wise and gracious mentor, Barbara Brown Taylor, as she reflects on humility. What strikes home for you? Where might Jesus be extending you a gracious invitation by the Spirit?

Jesus has a relatively easy time with sinners. Their hearts are already broken, so it is not hard for him to get inside. But the righteous are like vaults. They are so full of their precious values and so defended against those who do not share them that even the dynamite of the gospel has little effect on them. “Woe to you Pharisees,” Jesus wails at them, “For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God” (Luke 11:42).

He cannot seem to make his point often enough. Self-righteousness kills not only those who are bludgeoned by it but those who wield it as well.

Jesus does not preach humility because modesty is becoming. He preaches it because it is the only cure for the deadly pride and arrogance that make us want to kill each other, whether the murder is as subtle as purging someone from our circle of friends or as bloody as nailing someone to a tree.

- Barbara Brown Taylor, The Living Pulpit, October – December 2005