Robert Barron: Don't Play the Pride Game — Sunday Sermon

Peace be with you friends. For this 22nd Sunday of ordinary time, um I want to talk to you about a very very important theme. Namely, the theme of pride and its antidote. Now, I say very important because I don't know a spiritual teacher who doesn't say the fundamental problem we have is pride. And of course, they're getting this from the great biblical witness. What goes wrong with us? Well, the most serious of the deadly sins, the capital of the capital sins is recognized universally by the spiritual teachers as pride. Now, I know we tend to say, "Oh, it's lust." We tend to associate sexual sin with the, you know, supreme problem. Don't write me letters. Lust is a deadly sin. Sexual sin is a serious problem. Don't get me wrong. But there's not one spiritual teacher that would say lust or sexual sin is the highest. No. No. The highest one, the most deadly one is pride. So, the Bible talks about it a lot. Well, what is pride? My go-to man usually is Thomas Aquinas. He says it's inordinate or excessive self-love. So, is there, you know, legitimate self-love? Sure. But an inordinate or excessive self-love, that's pride. Augustine, I've often quoted him, curvatus insay, when you're caved in around yourself, that's the attitude of pride. I put it this way, maybe it's an attitude that prevents us from real contact with reality. It's being caved in upon the self. It's it's a self- reggard that prevents me from getting in touch with reality. It's like living in a very cramped, narrow spiritual space. Maybe I'd use the metaphor of of the black hole that draws all things into itself. So instead of going out to the world, the world's drawn into the little narrow space of my self-p preoccupation. That's pride. And that's why it's such a deadly sin. Where does it come from? I've always liked uh Paul Tillik's answer. Tillik said, "Pride is born of fear." Now, think about it. To be finite is to be afraid. You know, we're vulnerable. We're threatened. We're not self-sufficient. And so, we have an instinct. It's like an animal instinct almost to protect oneself, right? To put up walls and barriers, to turn defensively against the world, to become curvato and say precisely out of fear. What does Jesus say? Perfect love casts out all fear. That's a key insight there, it seems to me. Now, this is also why the opposite of pride, the antidote to pride is called humility. And we automatically have a kind of superficial understanding of humility. But the key is in the etmology. Humilitas comes from humos, which means like the soil. It's funny, isn't it? You wouldn't think of that. But the soil to be humble is to be in touch with reality. See, it's literally down to earth or to use our our language, grounded. See, a humble person is is able to get out of the of the black hole of self-regard and enter into being into reality. In that sense, homeless, the ground, the earth. Think of a a farmer with his hands in the dirt. He's in touch with reality. That's the humble person. You know, something Jordan Peterson said a while ago, he might have said it, in fact, in this very room in a in a podcast that we did. He said, "Self regard, psychologically speaking, is identical to misery." I that it see strikes me as dead right and and very much in line with what I've been talking about. Self- reggard when I'm when I'm looking inward is psychologically speaking equivalent to misery. Think for a second everybody the best moments in your life. I I will guarantee you it's when you are least aware of yourself. When you're not looking in, you're looking out. You're not preoccupied with what's what's affecting you and what's threatening you and all that. You're you've forgotten that and you're in touch with humus with the ground with reality. Well, that's what we're talking about. That's the humility that stands against pride. Okay? Now, that's the general principle the gospel gives us. In typical biblical fashion, the Bible doesn't usually engage in sort of philosophical analysis. It tells stories. And we've got this great story that Jesus tells that's right to this point though. Listen. He says, 'When you're invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline a table in the place of honor. Rather, when you're invited, go and take the lowest place. Well, this he's drawing from his own time and culture, but it should be pretty uh obvious what he's talking about. So, a wedding banquet, everybody's there. It's a very public place. What do we prideful people want? Because we're afraid. Okay, I get it. We're afraid. And so, we want to elevate ourselves. We We protect ourselves by elevating ourselves. Look at me. I'm I'm in the prime position. I'm at the top table. And so, we jockey to get precisely in that position. Now, pick your walk of life. You can see this everywhere. It seems to me people trying to get into the higher position and more to it in a way that's publicly visible. That's why this wedding banquet image is so good because think of a bustling room full of people. It's not like I've quietly and privately moved into the highest position. I'm publicly visibly in the higher position and everyone can see, oh, he's at the top table as opposed to everybody else at lower tables. Well, that's a very familiar move. Um, can I give you some examples from uh the world that I know best, which is the ecclesiastical world? Now, I'm not picking on the church here. I'm I this is the world I know best. But pick your world. I mean, it's it's available everywhere human beings are operating. But the Catholic Church is a very hierarchical institution. We got deacons, we got priests, we got mansceniors, we got auxiliary bishops, we got bishops, we got archbishops, we got cardinals. And among the cardinals, you got cardinal deacons, cardinal priests, and cardinal bishops. Then you got the pope at the top of the hierarchy. We we have a very hierarchically arranged uh setup. Now, is that bad in itself? No, it's not bad in itself. But what does it set up? Well, everyone in the church is prideful. And I don't mean that to be critical of the church. I mean, all all of us human beings wrestle with pride. So when you bring pride now into that scenario, what's going to happen? Well, everyone's jockeying for the highest position. Who's rising in the hierarchy? Who's going down in the hierarchy? Who's who's on top? Who's on bottom? This I remember years ago I was in Rome for something and I went to this event. It was a talk. I got there kind of early and I the chairs were kind of arranged and I just took a a seat not in the first row but kind of up toward the front. And I wanted to have a good seat for the tongue and this this little man senior came out I remember and at the time I wasn't a bishop I was I was just a lowly priest you know and he came out no no no p and then he gestured cardinal arches monsori he was saying no no this is the section for the cardinals for the archbishops for the bishops and he sent me all the way to the back of the room where the little you know pi the little priest had to sit Okay, that's the way it goes. You know, we we tend to play these games out of a desire to elevate ourselves, you know, and I wasn't doing it on purpose that time. I just wanted to get a good seat. But the man senior was very aware of who belonged in what, you know, what position. Um, again, I I'm not implying everybody that we shouldn't have hierarchies or that they're bad in themselves. I'm just noticing how we prideful people end up playing that game. Um, now what's the way out? Well, you know, let me say something before I get to the solution, there's one more point I want to make. Uh, I've talked before to you about the the wheel of fortune, right? Which is this device in the medieval cathedrals. And the top of the wheel of fortune, someone that's mated, he's the king, and then the wheel turns and he's lost his crown. Then at the bottom there's the popper that has no power. And then you and then the guy who's rising up to power. And the point is the wheel just keeps turning in in life. You know, that's the way it goes. Well, the medievals knew this that all the points on the rim of the wheel are points of anxiety. But the worst of them all is at the top of the wheel, right? You're at the top of the wheel. Okay, I made it. My prideful soul is now satisfied. I'm at the top of the wheel of fortune. I'm in the highest seat. Yeah, but you know for sure that all kinds of people underneath you are jockeying for position and trying to knock you out of that perch. That's the least comfortable place of all to be. I think here of the great line from Oscar Wild. He said, "The only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want." I found that played out in many ways in my own life and the lives of others. Oh, the one thing I want. Oh, I I'll be finally satisfied. And I get it and I'm happy for maybe a day or two and then I realize that's the worst thing that could have happened to me. That's now put me in the worst possible position. So, what did Jesus say? You know, I know when you come in a room and you're at the banquet and I know what your pride dictates. Take the highest place. No, no. On purpose. Take the lowest place. On purpose. How come? Because you're consciously opting out of the game. See, the point is that playing the game at all will get you in trouble. Whether you're good at it or bad at it, whether you succeed at it or fail at it, playing the game of pride and self-elevation and seeking honor is going to harm you. Um, I'm going to date myself here, but there was a movie from the early 80s. I think it was called War Games, and it was kind of in the early early days of computers, and we're all kind of fascinated by computers. And it's about a kid that hacks into the NORED, you know, national defense system and is affecting our our nuclear defense and all this. Well, the movie climax, as I remember, in this great scene, they're inside of NORAD and and uh the scenarios are playing out of nuclear attacks of, you know, America attacks first or Russia attacks first and this city then that city and what would happen and and then they're looking at the board and all these scenarios hundreds hundreds thousands playing out before them of who's going to win a nuclear war. And then it ends and and up on the board or maybe there's a voice announces it saying the the only winning strategy is not to play the game. Well, I I go back to that line a lot because it applies in the spiritual order. There are games everybody that we all play. We we're all sinners and we're all full of pride and we're fearful and so we arrandise ourselves and and we we defend ourselves and we jockey for position. Okay, I get it. But the only way to win that game is not to play it. Get off the board. Get off the grid completely. And you know what I'm talking about. I don't care if you're you're a real estate developer. You're a dentist. You're you're an academician. you're you're a private investor, any walk of life, you know what I'm talking about here. And you can spend the whole of your life playing this game of who's up, who's down, who's gaining, who's losing. Hey, I'm on top and everyone sees me and before you know it, you're plummeting down again. See, don't play the game. So that's why Jesus says on purpose, take the lowest place. on purpose. Don't play the game. Here's a way to sum it up. Um, a lot of us sinners, we spend a lot of time and a lot of energy trying to please people around us or make people around us think we're really something. Forget it. That is an utter waste of time. You're handing the whole of your happiness over to the fickle attitudes of other people. Don't play that game. Rather, seek only to please God. That's the route of the humble person. And trust me, you'll be infinitely happier. And God bless you. [Music]