I Had a Dream
Reflections on Sirach 10.12-18
RCL Proper 22C
1 September 2019
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Sirach 10.12-18
10.12The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker. 13For the beginning of pride is sin, and the one who clings to it pours out abominations. Therefore the Lord brings upon them unheard-of calamities, and destroys them completely. 14The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers, and enthrones the lowly in their place. 15The Lord plucks up the roots of the nations, and plants the humble in their place. 16The Lord lays waste the lands of the nations, and destroys them to the foundations of the earth. 17He removes some of them and destroys them, and erases the memory of them from the earth. 18Pride was not created for human beings, or violent anger for those born of women.
Pride is bursting out all over.
In many parts of the world the month of August is filled with events in support of the LGBTQ community. Collectively these events often include the word ‘pride’ in the title and description. Given the cultural, social, political and legal forces that have kept and, in many places, still keep LGBTQ people hidden, hiding and subject to shame and discrimination, pride in oneself seems to be more than a fitting attitude to encourage.
Here in Canada there is a resurgence of pride among indigenous peoples as they claim their rightful place at the table as decisions made as to how we care for ‘this fragile earth, our island home’, how we make political decisions for the common good and how we celebrate the wisdom and gifts that the many peoples of Canada possess. Indigenous music can be heard in all forms of media and every basic television package includes channels such as the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.
Pride, it would seem, is a necessary expression of the love of self embodied in Jesus’ summary of the Law: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first and the great commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” [1]
Yet the writer of Sirach is not so sure that pride is a good thing. He considers it the product of sin and cautions his readers that “[the] beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.” [2] Yet I think that there is a bit more to explore here about what kind of ‘pride’ we’re talking about.
I had a dream.
The pride that we are witnessing in the LGBTQ community, among indigenous peoples throughout the world and among various groups of people who are resisting various kinds of public shaming by rejoicing in who they are is, I think, a healthy self-love. It is healthy self-lovebecause it does claim superiority over others by saying, ‘I’m better than you because I’m x, y or z.’ It is healthy self-lovebecause it is based upon respect for others, a genuine desire to build bridges and to learn from others, rather than mere tolerance that says, ‘Don’t tread on me and I won’t stomp on you!’ It is healthy self-lovebecause it expresses gratitude for God’s gifts in us rather than a more selfish worldview that believes ‘it’s better to be me than it is to be you.’
A few nights ago I had a vivid dream that may reveal how I’ve been struggling with whole question of pride. I was with two people, one of whom I wanted to talk to about matters of shared interest and one of whom I did not to talk to yet once more about their personal problems. I had managed to double-book myself and was trying to negotiate with them about with whom I would meet first and how long we would meet. Neither was happy nor was I. We were in a book store which had a statue that was known for asking passer-byes questions that they could not avoid asking.
I heard someone say, ‘Has she asked you the question yet?’ And before I do anything or say anything, I knew what the question would be: ‘Richard, do you love yourself?’ And then I woke up. I’ve been chewing on this question for several days and I think that I’ve begun to break the question down into ways that Sirach would appreciate.
Do I love who I am? Notice that I use the phrase, ‘who I am’. Each one of us has to undertake a realistic assessment of our strengths and our weaknesses, our hopes and our fears, our moments of clarity and our moments of confusion. We have to take ownership of the decisions we’ve made and those we have avoided making, recognizing that the consequences of ‘things done and left undone’ shape who we are and affect people around us. This kind of self-examination can lead us to realize that we may love who we are now because we are grateful that it is a stage on our life-long journey to become who God wants to be.
Love of self means a commitment of heart, mind, body and strength to work towards that ‘full stature of Christ’ which God has implanted in every human being, that ‘maturity’ which enables each one of us to love as God has loved us in Christ. Unless I love myself as I am in this way, then I may fall into the trap that I think Sirach is describing, a trap I’m going to call ‘chauvinism’.
Chauvinism takes many forms, but they all share one characteristic in common. Chauvinism is based on the belief that God is not the centre, but that something else is. Perhaps the centre is our ethnicity or our religion or our social class or our gender identity. There are just as many ‘liberal’ chauvinists as there are ‘conservative’ chauvinists --- maybe even a few ‘centrist’ chauvinists. If God makes any appearance among chauvinists, God is seen as having chosen our group, to the exclusion of all others, for some special purpose or blessings. We are proud of our identity not because it celebrates the diversity of God’s creation, but because it makes us better than anyone else. Chauvinism is not interested in the ‘common good’; it seeks advantage and preferential treatment.
Chauvinism always seeks the head table and is rarely, if ever, found in the kitchen cooking and serving the food. This is the poisonous, the contaminating pride about which Sirach warns us. Such pride is ultimately self-destructive because it collapses in on itself creating a spiritual, emotional and moral black hole.
Faithful pride is a self-love that never loses sight of the source of all that we are, all that we have and all that we might become. Faithful self-love rejoices that before we loved God, God loved us, all of us. Faithful self-love, especially on a Labour Day weekend, remembers that we live in a mutually inter-dependent world where remembering the labour and sacrifices of others arouses in us a commitment to work for a just and sustainable world where all God’s children are free.
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