The Evils of Pride and Self-Righteousness
Barbara Brown Taylor

In a culture that sanctions every individual's right to seek his or her own path to perfection, selfÄrighteousness can seem only an irritating character flaw. One person decides that steaming vegetables is the responsible way to eat and turns pale when her friends order meat. Someone else discovers the aerobic benefits of running and begins to badger all his sedentary friends. We all do it on some level. We find something that gives us life and we want everyone else to have it too. We want to share the good we have found, whether it is as simple as a new way of losing weight or as profound as a new way of approaching God.

But when I turn my good into your duty and judge you for your failure to perform it according to my standards, then my wish for your wellÄbeing becomes something darker and more dangerous. My altruism becomes selfÄrighteousness, which is no longer an annoying habit but a pernicious pride that works evil in the human soul.

It may be difficult at first to hear something as common as self-righteousness called evil, but read any gospel listening for that connection and it is hard to miss. Take Luke for instance. John the Baptist sets the stage as early as chapter three. "Do not begin to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham for our ancestor,'" he warns the crowds (3:8), reminding them that God alone is their progenitor. No other lineage can save their lives, not even honorable Abraham's. The matter of their righteousness belongs to God alone.

Then in chapter four Jesus preaches his first sermon in his hometown synagogue, telling all those faithful Jews how God sometimes prefers foreigners to chosen people (4:24-27). Stung to the quick, they hustle him to the edge of the town cliff.

They mean to kill him for challenging their righteousness, which means that Jesus' first act of ministry foreshadows his last.

In the sermon on the plain he continues his theme. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned" (6:37). Advising the crowd that they are as blind as those they seek to reform, he suggests that they do some work on themselves before presuming to fix anyone else.

His disciples hear him but do not understand. When a village of Samaritans refuses them hospitality on their way to Jerusalem, they ignite. "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them" (9:54)? They are as murderous as the offended ones who led Jesus to the cliff.

In the parable of the loving father, the younger son's prodigality turns out to be less damning than the elder son's selfÄrighteousness. At the end of the story it is the older brother who is standing outside in the dark, perfectly right and perfectly alone (15:1ff).

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 the Pharisees," Jesus wails at them, "for you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God" (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. Sometimes it kills them softly with gossip and cruel humor. Sometimes it works systemically, consigning some people to live in grim buildings with broken plumbing while others stroll neighborhoods full of thick green lawns. And sometimes it works violently, getting people in the middle of the night to light torches and break windows.

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. The only cure is to recognize each other as kin, united by the only one who was ever right. "Why do you call me good?" even he protested. "No one is good but God alone" (18:19).

Barbara Brown Taylor is Rector of Grace Calvary Episcopal Church, Clarkesville, Ga. Her book, The Preaching Life, Cowley Publications, will appear in 1993.