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We come now to the conclusion of our sermon series on the Seven Deadly Sins. Today we tackle the “sin” that prods on the other six: pride. I say “prods on” because if you are arrogant, you can more easily commit any of the other of the Seven Deadlies. You are entitled after all, are you not?

I was in for a bit of a shock on Friday. I looked over and there– on my desk– was placed this week’s order of service cover. It was not the same as the one you have in your hands. Instead of the cartoon of the pompous man, there was my picture from the Eliot web site!

One of our staff had decided to play a little trick on me, and when I saw the order of service cover, my jaw just about hit the floor. I knew that by then the orders of service had already been folded, and it was too late to design and print another. How could they have done this?

Of all the seven deadly sins, pride is the least easily forgiven. We may forgive some poor Joe for being a glutton; we may sigh at hearing of some poor Jane’s greed. Maybe they’re just ignorant. But people who are proud and ignorant of their state don’t get pity, they get contempt.

Better my picture had been stuck on anger or sloth, but pride? Ouch! I opened my order of service to check the inside and then I found the one that you are holding. There had only been one special bulletin cover made, and it had been made especially for me.

Sometimes, that’s they way life deals it out to us– we get a special invitation– made to order– just for us– to take a closer look at who we are.

Since we are concluding our series, it also may help to put the “seven deadlies” into perspective. Consider the Seven Deadly Sins of Gilligan's Island. It is based on the theory that each of the seven characters on the island represents one of the seven deadly sins.

1. The Professor: Pride.
2. Maryann: Envy (She was always jealous of Ginger's glamour).
3. Ginger: Lust.
4. Mr. Howell: Greed (Who else takes a trunk full of money on a three-hour cruise?)
5. Mrs. Howell: Sloth.
6. Skipper: He's big enough to embody two deadlies himself: Anger (He hit Gilligan at least once an episode) and Gluttony (His girth qualifies him superbly).
7. That leaves Gilligan. Always dressed-in-red Gilligan. Who is he?

Gilligan is SATAN. Think about it. Who is their captor? What keeps them trapped there? Gilligan. [resource formerly at http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~dadams/gilligan.htm.]

Here’s a question for you: do you have an internal Gilligan? Do you have a little voice or a little urge inside you that moves you away from who you say you’d like to be:

Hey Professor– pretty ingenious invention there, must be proud, huh? Hey Maryann: nice dress, but Ginger’s got more coconuts on hers, huh?

And so forth, a little Satan voice inside us there. Most of the time, this is pretty petty stuff, and hopefully, we catch ourselves and laugh before we do ourselves or another any injury.

But pride can blind us a bit, it give us excuses to do things that otherwise don’t have much excuse. And pride on a big scale writes tragedy into history.

Fourteen years ago, at the time of the first invasion of Iraq by American troops, the conservative columnist George Will wrote on pride & nationalism:

"A peculiar kind of patriot today says that by this war America "will get its pride back"... since when has American pride derived primarily from military episodes? A nation that constantly worries about its pride should worry. It is apt to confect military occasions for [urging itself on], using foreign policy for psychotherapy (Newsweek, 2/25/1991 pp 34-35).

Closer to home, there is pride & tribalism. This is kind of like some of the poor white kids I grew up with. They were poor, not smart, not powerful, but at least they could beat up other kids.

A UU minister, the Rev. David Bumbaugh, told of growing up as a poor white kid, but that people in the neighborhood with the same class status he had, would try and maintain a sense of self-esteem, a sense of honor by saying– we may be poor, but at least we're not black.

And so, there is a kind of pride, a tribalism or nationalism that attempts to capture self-esteem. And it gets that pride through putting some other group, some other person, down. By making someone else a demon, how much more angelic do we appear?

So there can be a relationship between low self-esteem & pride: "Well, we ain't much, but at least we ain't black."

But there is also a relationship between high self-esteem & pride: "I am master of my fate, captain of my soul! I can do anything! Ha ha!" The supremely arrogant are constantly tempting fate. At least, that’s our hope.

Pride is a tricky word. We may support Gay Pride or Black Pride or Scottish Pride. By that we mean an adequate sense of self-esteem. It is "okay" to be gay or black or Scottish. In fact, it can be something to celebrate. An adequate self-esteem is a good thing.

Because if self-esteem is too low, it can engender a different kind of pride– being "better" than other people. But self-esteem, when pumped up too much becomes arrogance.

Louis 14^th, the French monarch, referring to an occasion when a coach he had ordered arrived just in time, said:

I almost had to wait.

Or the British actor in a post office, who pointed at a stamp in the middle of a sheet, and said:

I'll have that one, please. Attributed to Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853 - 1917) British actor and theatrical impresario.

So "pride" can mean self-esteem or it can mean arrogance. This sin of pride, as we consider it today, is the sin of arrogance, which is the sin of selfishness. By this we mean we are "concerned with our own interests, needs, and wishes while ignoring those of others."

Beyond what pride can make people do as nations or as individuals in post offices, there is the insidious effects of pride in families– especially the effects on children.

Sometimes a parent’s desire to be proud of their kid makes them push that kid to accomplish things– not for the stated reason of making a better kid– but for the less palatable reality that the kids’ accomplishments will reflect well on the parent.

Solomon Schimmel in his book on the Seven Deadly Sins, writes:

"Too many a successful father, uncritically proud of his own achievements, has destroyed the spirit of a less able son by insisting that he aspire to goals too difficult to master or of no interest to him" (31).

Pride can poison the most intimate of relationships. In Love in the Time of Cholera, Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez portrays a marriage that disintegrates over a bar of soap.

It was the wife's job to keep the house in order, including the towels, toilet paper and soap in the bathroom. One day she forgot to replace the soap. Her husband exaggerated the oversight: I've been bathing for almost a week without any soap.

She vigorously denied forgetting to replace the soap. Although she had indeed forgotten, her pride was at stake, and she wouldn't back down. For the next seven months, they slept in separate rooms and ate in silence.

Their marriage had suffered a heart attack. Even when they were old and placid, writes Marquez, they were very careful about bringing it up, for the barely healed wounds could begin to bleed again as if they'd been inflicted only yesterday.

How can a bar of soap ruin a marriage? The answer is actually simple. Because neither partner would say, Forgive me. Les Parrott III, All For a Bar of Soap, VitalMinistry, September-October 1999, 18.

Sometimes we are called upon to swallow that lump of pride and reach out to another and say: Forgive me. When are we called to do this?

When it occurs to us that this might be a possibility. That is our clue– that is our cue– that is a call to service.

When are you called to say: Forgive me? When it occurs to you to say this. Or, worse, when one of your friends tells you it ought to occur to you.

It can be painful, swallowing your pride. It can be difficult because we didn’t see the fault first. No one wants to admit they were being arrogant. It is easy to see in others, it is hard to see in our selves. There is bumper sticker theology, sometimes painful but often true: Pride is what we have. Vanity is what others have.

Humility is not a virtue that comes to religious liberals easily. After all, how can we be humble, when we're as great as we are?

Many years ago, I was in seminary, in the library one day. I had just finished reading over an essay in a minister's magazine I had written. The name of the magazine was First Days Record. I was pretty proud of this because I was the first student minister to ever write in this particular magazine.

A visiting minister happened into the library. I happened to know who she was and I thought she knew who I was. She began to look at the magazine display table. There were probably 100 different magazines there– Biblical Archeology Review, stuff like that– real page turners.

I pointed at the UU ministers magazine and blurted out– I'm the first student to write for it.

She kind of murmured an "uh huh," and kept right on perusing the covers. It occurred to me what I had just said probably sounded a little weird. It also occurred to me that repeating myself would be even worse, so I left the table and went elsewhere.

Later on in the day, in conversation with a bunch of us students, after hearing my name, she turned to me– and in front of my classmates, and said– oh, aren't you the one who writes for First Days Record?

And I nodded my head slightly, smiling on the inside. It is so much sweeter to hear someone else sing your praises than for you to have to sing your own. Of course we don't have to sing our own praises, unless we're trying to convince someone– a client, a patient, a partner– that we are worthy of their time & consideration.

What this means though, is that we have an obligation to sing someone else's praises. For some reason, some of us have difficulty with this. People who are perfectionists have a hard time singing someone else's praises on occasion, I think. But praising someone else in front of other people, is how we perform a special religious act– which we might call "blessing."

I heard Rev. Bonnie preach once a number of years ago. Her father was in the audience. After everything was all over, Rev. Bonnie asked what I thought of her sermon. I remarked that I liked it, that one story in particular was good, her delivery was excellent, one anecdote might have been a little long, overall a good message, and so forth.

I asked her what her Dad's response was. She said, after it was all over, he stood up and started telling everyone around him who would listen– hey! That's my daughter! Wasn't she wonderful? She's a great preacher, isn't she? That's my daughter!

So same question– what did you think about the service? And two different answers. One answer was offered positive critical analysis.

The other was a blessing. And I have to tell you that I have learned it is more important to offer a blessing first. Always.

If you want to counteract your pride, or your arrogance, then make this your spiritual homework this week– Practice random acts of blessing: compliment the cook, encourage your cashier, honor your mother or father. Take a leap of faith, and bless someone. Bless someone for no particular reason, except that it is a spiritual act for you, and a blessing for those you bless. Amen.

Now, I know that it can be tough to try and confer blessings on others; especially, when you don’t feel so blessed yourself.

Let’s talk about the opposite of pride for a moment– and this is a difficult concept for religious liberals– humility.

Humility does not mean feeling insignificant and worthless. That way lies nihilism. That way lies suicide or serial killing. That way lies anarchy and destruction because nothing– not other people, not our selves has any value or meaning.

The orthodox definition of humility is that we– you and I– are despicable sinners in the hands of an angry God. We are only deserving of an ignominious destruction. But that is not what our religion teaches. Our religion has a different conception about humility.

Authentic humility does not mean that we should deny our gifts or be overly critical of ourselves. If we are rich, we shouldn't pretend to be poor. If we are good looking, it is not our fault (although I wouldn't say that out loud, if I were you).

To be humble is not to deny the gifts you actually have– whether they are for the law or music or being a good parent. To be humble is to acknowledge your gifts and to use them in service to something greater than your own immediate satisfaction. Whether we are humble or proud can be determined by how we use our gifts.

Truth be told, there is a disconnect between how we think and how we act. Jane Austen said, in Pride and Prejudice:

"I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle."

In principle, we are not selfish. In principle we are kind, generous, thoughtful, creative, moderately successful, intelligent, strong, respectful, and on and on. But in practice– well, sometimes we look closely at our actual practice, and other times we have a helpful spouse helpfully point out our shortcomings to us.

Sometimes, when we are really ready to forgo pride, we can gain transcendence. I am pretty good at some things, I have a much greater sense of self-esteem now than I did growing up. I've accomplished some things, I've made some self-improvements, but since January of this year, I have also been learning humility.

On January 2, I began violin lessons with my daughter Jessie, age 9. Beginning violinists are known to sound pretty awful, and I have been no exception.

Of course, if you are a kid and you are a beginner, it looks normal. A middle aged man as a beginning violin student is– I must imagine– painful not only to hear, but to watch.

A couple weeks ago, our teacher, Shirley Heustis, had a violin recital with all of her students. It happened to be here at Eliot Chapel, the evening after the Eliot Chapel annual meeting. We had two practice sessions in advance– at least for all the beginning students.

Not only was I the oldest student at the practice sessions, a significant number were younger than 9 years old. I was a giant among small people. But of course, almost every one of them was a much better violin player than I was.

To hear these children and teenagers play violin together was an amazing experience. Some of the teenagers were so good that I wanted to say Hey! Enough already! That was really good, but cut it out! Now you're just showing off!

Some of these kids were barely old enough to ride a bicycle but they'd had lessons for five years. I'd had lessons for five months. Did I mention it was a humbling experience?

My teacher thought I should play in the recital, even as inexperienced as I was. I was to play Go Tell Aunt Rhody with about 20 other violinists and also: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

I reluctantly agreed, even though I knew it would be virtually impossible to hide behind the small children, even in the back row.

Me and the other “raw recruits” played at the very end of the 2 hour recital. And I have to tell you it was the best seat in the house. I was standing toward the middle of the group, so I had most of the violinists around me, and I was up here on the chancel, where music has a sweet spot.

To be playing violin– even Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star surrounded by 20 other violinists– even though most were small children– was an experience I will never forget.

To be a part of something that you contribute to, that moves through you and with you; to be a part of something which you help to succeed in some small way; to be part of something where your success depends on other people being successful; is to be a part of something magnificent & glorious & spiritual. And this is true whether it's music or church, or even church music.

To be in a company of musicians and in the moment where the music seems to just pass through you and be weaving all around you– that was a transcendent moment, a moment of grace, a moment where any and all pride is simply wiped out, and the space instead is filled with humility and grace, & gratitude at being alive and in that present moment.

Thank God I was alive for that. Thank-you, God. Alleluia and Amen.

Now Let Us Sing, #368.