Sermon CXXV.
Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled.
—St. Luke xiv. 11.
That was an unlucky guest who sat down in the first place and was sent to take the lowest. No wonder he was covered with shame; served him right. To be humbled in the very act of exalting ourselves is indeed hard punishment, sharp and painful as a pang in a tenderly sore spot. It is like being caught in a theft or a lie. For, truly, pride is theft. We have no right to be proud, because we own as our property nothing that we may be proud of. All that we have that is good is God's; to pride ourselves on that is to rob God of his due, and appropriate what does not belong to us. And pride is a lie, a deceit; "for if thou hast received," says St. Paul, "why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received?" A vain boast is simply lying.
To lie and to steal are very mean things to do. To be caught lying and stealing makes us feel very mean in the eyes of others; and that is what comes to us when our pride is evident and is found out by our fellow-men, and then we are humbled as was the poor guest spoken of in the Gospel. Truth is the badge of honor among men. Humility is truth, because humility is to know our place and keep it; in this is truthfulness and comfort also. We feel at ease when we are where we ought to be. A bone dislocated is a torture; anything out of place is an offence and a nuisance, whether it be a misshapen limb or a stove-pipe that doesn't fit and smokes. You remember in the fable the fate of the foolish frog who wanted to be as big as the ox—he blew until he burst and collapsed.
Now, is there not a great deal of that kind of work among us—I mean getting too big, reaching above us, exalting ourselves—in a word, not knowing our place? Let me instance: The poor will pass for rich: fine dress and flashy jewels in broad daylight on the street; at home, dirt, wretchedness, almost starvation. The ignorant will know more than they have learned, and so stretch themselves all out of shape, and wed in the most repulsive manner pretentious speech to gross ignorance. Not only is one man as good as another, but a great deal better. The layman will teach theology and canon law to the priest. The ward politician, who buys votes at five cents a glass, and trades them off for street contracts or other valuable consideration, can run the world, the Holy See not excepted. Our American boy of twelve thinks the old folks not a circumstance to him, and shows it in his behavior. The school girl who can do a sum and thump an "easy exercise" on the piano scorns domestic work, leaves the kitchen to "ma," and cultivates the fine arts in the parlor. Our talk, our press even, is fall of unreality, inflated bombast and buncombe. We have no degrees of comparison but the superlative. God help us for a vain, boastful set! What is it all but untruthfulness, want of humility, strutting up to the head of the table in one way or another? Our conversations are full of ourselves; we threaten horrors or we promise wonders; and it all issues, like the mountain in travail, in ridiculous failures. Let us know our place, or humiliation will teach it us. Adam and Eve were well off, and might have been till this day had they known their place and been satisfied; but they wanted to go up, to become as God—and they came down to all the miseries of fallen nature. Simon the Magician started, with the help of the devil, to ascend into heaven like our Saviour; but God brought him down before he got very far. "He that exalteth himself shall be humbled." Moreover, pride finds its punishment in the very ridiculousness of itself. The fool imagines himself to be other than he is; the insane insists on taking to himself a character which is not his. Well, brethren, the mock-king and queen of the asylum are not more foolish and insane, because not more untruthful, than the proud man.
The lesson, then, is this: Keep to the place God has given you, don't put yourself forward in conversation, acknowledge your nothingness before your Creator, be true and real to your fellow-men; thus you will escape shameful humiliation and deserve to be exalted in the esteem of others and in the kingdom of heaven.