Hubris: excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.

Whenever I read stories of Jesus’ interacting with the Pharisees, I wonder how they could be so blind and ignorant to Jesus’ true identity and authority.  How could they stand there and condemn the Son of God for his behavior?  How could they be so full of their own knowledge and self aggrandizement?

Who were the Pharisees really?  They were the religious men of Jesus’ time who held the power in the religious and social constructs of their day.  They were proficient in ‘the law’ of God and of men.  They knew the scriptures; what was acceptable behavior and what was against God’s will.  Jesus was always butting heads with these men.  They believed they knew everything.  Hubris was their sin.

One has to wonder, if Jesus were standing among us today, would he be pleased by what he saw and heard?  In His day, he walked among the poor and the outcast, the disenfranchised.  They were the poor in spirit that Jesus spoke of in His famous Sermon on the Mount.  

These were the people who knew they were desperately In need of a savior.  The Pharisees – they thought they had it all together.  They did not believe, need or recognize Jesus, in fact his very presence was a crisis which threatened their very livelihood and authority.  Some were changed by encountering Jesus, but most were not.  We all Know what happened….

About five years ago, in an effort to come to terms with a ‘crisis’ in my life, I attended a conference in Kansas City of The Reformation Project.  You see, my 18 year old son had come to his father and I the previous year, with the news that he is gay.  This was, for me, a spiritual crisis, triggered by the realization that everything I thought I knew about my son and about scripture was in question.  How could this young man, who accepted Christ as a child, be gay? Why would God do this to my child?  I never thought it was a choice, he said he had struggled for years praying to God to make him straight.  

So here I was in Kansas surrounded by hundreds of LGBTQ persons worshipping God with everything they had.  Many of these folks had been cast out of their own churches but in this safe space they were free to be themselves and worship Jesus.  I had conversations and made new friendships with young men who’s own parents had thrown them out.  My heart was broken for them and I was confronted with my own sin of Hubris.  I had studied the scriptures for years and was sure that I knew those scriptures backward and forward!  I was confident in my knowledge of what was acceptable and what was against God’s will.  Or was I?

Could God be using my crisis to break me of my own self confidence and pride?  I began to reread  scripture from the perspective of the people I was meeting and coming to love and felt God saying to me, “now you’re getting closer to my Heart.”  

What if the Pharisees of our day, whose interpretation of the scriptures exclude the very people that Jesus included, are wrong?  What if when we get to Heaven we are asked how well we loved the people on the margins?  I would like to be able to say that I erred on the side of love, including all of God’s children in the good news of Jesus Christ.  Am I cured of my sin of hubris?  By no means; I’ll say that I’m a recovering Pharisee.  And I am grateful that God broke my heart for what breaks his.  

How’s your heart?  Would Jesus be pleased with what’s inside?

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40

Merryl Dietz

12/2020