I'll never forget something that happened when I was a college freshman--back before Noah’s flood!  It was during the Christmas holidays--and all of us, good friends from high school, had returned to the old hometown--in my case, Jackson, Mississippi.  The debutantes had planned a big Christmas dance in the rooftop ballroom of the tallest hotel in town--a whole ten stories above Capitol Street!  That hotel’s long since CLOSED now.  But in our day, it seemed like the Waldorf!

    I was invited to the dance by a girl who herself was invited--and who needed an escort.  Let’s call her “Jane”--NOT her real name.  Unlike most of us in our high school class, Jane had gone out-of-state to college--in fact, to a fancy women’s institution, up East.  And it went to Jane’s head!  We were amazed at how she’d changed--in less than three months!  Jane had completely lost her Mississippi accent--and now spoke with tones that seemed to blend English Oxonian and Back-Bay Bostonian.  She was far superior to us ignoramuses from her old high school.  But Jane condescended to ask me to escort her to the Christmas ball--there at the rooftop of Jackson!

    We both had a miserable time!  Jane didn’t want to dance at all--but, instead, just sit there and look sophisticated and bored and pretty and important.  And I was getting bored myself.  Finally, tired of making small talk, I pulled a package of chewing gum out of the pocket of my tuxedo, and asked, “Would you like a piece of gum?”

    Jane was HORRIFIED.  Her eyebrow hit the chandelier -- and she replied with disgust, “I DON’T CHEW!”

    --And I said, “Well, you must have a gizzard, like a chicken!”  --If you don’t chew, you must have a gizzard!”

    A few minutes later, Jane complained of a dreadful headache--and asked me to take her home--which I did!
    
    “I say to everyone among you,” says the Apostle Paul in our Second Lesson, that Ann Grainger read to us, from Romans, chapter 12--  “I say to everyone among you NOT to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. . . .”  Yes, friends, the LIMITS of self-esteem!  --You don’t hear that much today, when the WORSHIP of self-esteem seemingly above everything else is so widespread!

    The apostle is addressing these words to some Christians who feel pretty self-important --some Christians who have a real problem with their egos.  Now, notice carefully that Paul here doesn’t  ATTACK the ego.  He’s NOT telling us, “Christian, you aren’t  important!  ON THE CONTRARY, he’s simply saying, “Don’t ex-AGGERATE your importance!  Don’t think of yourself MORE highly than you should!  Don’t inflate your ego and look down on others!”


    Friends, you, I, --indeed, EACH MEMBER of the human family is tremendously important to God!  Isn’t that the message of the Eighth Psalm, one of the GREATEST of hymns in the Psalter, that you and I sang together today?  According to tradition, King David first voiced this canticle of praise.  And whether that tradition is correct or not, when I read or sing Psalm 8, I like to picture that great Jewish King walking on an evening out onto the flat roof of his palace, in Jerusalem.  It’s a clear night.  And staring up at the millions of stars stretching across the sky, he sings:  “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established, WHAT ARE HUMAN BEINGS, that you are mindful of them, mortals  that you care for them?”

    You know, if the psalmist, with his most limited knowledge of the heavenly bodies, could feel insignificant just by looking up at the stars, HOW MUCH MORE insignificant he would have felt had the Hubbell Telescope been in existence, had our psalmist possessed the astronomical knowledge that you and I enjoy! --The universe with its solar systems and light years and galaxies and black holes and myriads of suns, fading into infinity!

    But our psalmist, whether David or some other great Hebrew composer, immediately goes on to sing, “Yet you have made [human beings] a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor!”

    Yes, the ego IS IMPORTANT! --God has made you, and you’re very special to God!  Don’t ever forget that!  Not only has the Lord made you, but God LOVES you so much as to come into human life, in Jesus Christ, to seek you, to find you, to die for you, to claim you forever!  Tyron Edwards said (and I quote):  “True humility is not a groveling, self-despising spirit; it is seeing ourselves as God sees us.”

    I like that!  God see us as imperfect, flawed human beings.  But God views us as redeemed sinners--God’s children, cherished as God’s very own!  THAT should make you and me PROUD but HUMBLE at the same time!  The Apostle Paul, here in our Romans passage, is simply setting limits on our self-esteem, warning us not to exaggerate our importance and get vain.

    Thirty-three years ago this month, specifically, on August 16, 1977--it’s hard to believe it’s been that long!--the world was shocked by the sudden death of the relatively young man whom many regarded as the founder of rock music!  During the weeks after his death, as reports on his lifestyle filtered out, the story of Elvis Presley proved to be even more tragic.  Apparently, for all his talent, he was a man of great weaknesses and of SUPREME VANITY.  Presley would spend hours before a mirror applying make-up.  He’d buy boxcar-loads of Cadillac’s just for the HECK of it. He’d surround himself with paid admirers.  Gorge himself on food and pills!  And yet, despite his orgiastic lifestyle, behind the walls of Graceland Mansion, Memphis, he remained supremely lonely!  Yes, Elvis Presley--the curse of King Midas!  The curse of EGO--GONE MAD!

    “I say to everyone among you NOT to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. . . .” says Paul to the little group of Christians in Rome--and to YOU AND ME.  You and I, of course, aren’t Elvis Presley, but we church folks ALSO are tempted to inflate our self-importance.  Apparently in the early church in Rome, as in our congregations today, some folks tried to outdo everyone else--in showing off how well they could preach (say) or how eloquently they could pray, or how self-sacrificially they could spend their time and money to promote the faith.  But, you know, the older I get the more I realize that the truly great Christian men and women of this world are those who feel no need to put on such airs, who don’t feel the need to prove how holy they are!  The greatest of saints in our churches are those who are least aware of their saintliness.

    Some years ago a professor at a seminary told me a true story about Paul Tillich, one of the most outstanding theologians of the 20th Century.  It happened back when the professor himself was a graduate student at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, where Tillich taught.  It seems that one day the student and his five-year-old daughter were walking through the narrow tunnel under Claremont Avenue, that (I think) still connects the married students’ apartment building, where also some faculty live, to the main seminary building across the way, which itself fronts on Broadway.  Suddenly they met Paul Tillich, who, briefcase in hand, was headed in the opposite direction.

    Much to the student’s horror, his little girl, all at once, THREW UP HER ARMS and BLOCKED TILLICH’S WAY.  And she cried out (as only little girls can):  “I WON’T LET YOU PASS, UNTIL YOU TURN A FLIP FOR ME!” –  And so the renown Paul Tillich, at that time, the greatest living Protestant theologian in all America, with (no doubt) a guttural, German chuckle, put down his briefcase, emptied his pockets of change, and there—in the tunnel beneath Claremont Avenue, Manhattan—stood on his head and managed to TURN A FLIP to please a five-year-old girl!

    Well, what does all this have to do with YOU, the people of Community Presbyterian Church? –Simply this:  You and I are supremely important to God, who has called us to service.  God has given each of us unique, different, and very special gifts, and asks us to USE these gifts in building up the church.  Yet all of us have WEAKNESSES and FAULTS, as well.  NONE of us is perfect.  So don’t be puffed up with pride and think you’re BETTER than anyone else in the church!  Yes, the LIMITS of self-esteem!

    In conclusion, I hold before us ALL that SUPREME EXEMPLAR of humility—yet one who had a most HEALTHY attitude towards his EGO:  our LORD JESUS CHRIST.  Yes, the same Christ who, on the very night before his crucifixion, girded himself with a towel, and WASHED THE FEET of his disciples – in LOVE, in HUMILITY.

    “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself MORE HIGHLY than you OUGHT to think . . . .”

PRAYERS:
    Holy God, you welcome men, women, and children who are modest and loving.  Help us to give up pride, serve neighbors, and walk humbly with our Lord.
    Great God, whose Son Jesus came as a servant among us: control our wants and restrain our ambitions, so that we may serve you faithfully and fulfill our lives in him.
    Almighty God, in whose kingdom the last shall be first and the least shall be honored: cause us never to forget the dignity and the glory with which you have crowned us, your children.  But, at the same time, deliver us from thinking too highly of ourselves, lest in arrogance we forget you, and hinder the work of your great Realm.
    Put down pride, O God, not only within your church but also among the nations and leaders of this world, that wars may cease, that freedom may prevail, and that, at last, your peace may come on earth as it is in heaven.  Especially bless and guide the leaders of the U.S.A., of Iraq, Pakistan, Israel, and occupied Palestine.  We lift up before you those who are suffering so greatly from the floods in Pakistan and in China; and those miners who are trapped in Chile, and their families.
    God of all comfort, help and heal your children who are suffering or are in need in any way, particularly any who bow in pain in this place this morning. Sustain with your presence and promise those who mourn the loss of loved ones, and keep us ever in fellowship with our sisters and brothers and who now live with you in heaven.
    For we make these and all our petitions in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.  AMEN.