Ask RC- Why is pride such a sticky sin?

The story is told that Benjamin Franklin, as a young man, took it upon himself to keep a running inventory of his moral progression. He wrote down a list of ten to twenty character traits and gave himself a score for each on each day. He abandoned this process not long after he started, when he noticed that the higher his scores in general, the lower his scores on humility. The lower the scores he gave himself in general, the higher the scores he gave himself in humility.

One could argue that Franklin ran into this problem, that pride is persistent. It doesn’t often flee from us, whatever victories we may have won. In fact, with every victory, pride is there to pat us on the back and tell us what a good job we have done. And, as Franklin found out, even when you gain no victories and find yourself humbled by your failures, the devil is there to praise you for your humility.

Which brings us to the second thing that makes pride so sticky. There are an immeasurable number of axes on which it can come. My skills as a handyman may be so bad that no one would ever mistake me for Mr. Fix-it. My earning power may have me on my tiptoes reaching for the bottom rung. My looks may attract the eyes of others, not because I’m handsome, but in disbelief that someone as ugly as me could be out in public. But if in the midst of all that I can still believe I’m more pious than my handy, high-earning, good looking friends, I’ve found a perch from which I can look down on them.

A third reason ought to be obvious to us all- it’s kind of tough to lose when we are the judge. The very piety I think I have that allows me to look down on others may be no piety at all. The Pharisees surely saw themselves as exemplary men. Others, however, rightly saw them as examples of pride. Worse still, we often find ourselves using what we perceive as our victories as cover for our defeats. I may think, “I don’t have the same kind of earnest prayer life, the kind of constant emotive closeness to Jesus that this one has, but it’s okay because my theology is so much more precise than his is.” Sound familiar?

Pride is what brought the devil down in the first place. It is then the root sin of sin, both for him and for us who are by nature his children. He is the expert and we his all too eager students. The devil fell when he compared himself to all the rest of the creation and, rightly, concluded that he was the best and the brightest. And wrongly concluded that those below him should serve him. Had he instead compared himself to the almighty, the Creator, he would have realized he was nothing, and should do whatever his Creator commanded.

When Adam and Eve fell, they were already thinking the same way. God, they thought, was trying to rob them. Them, of all people, the only people. They deserved better, they thought. Why should they have to wait for His blessing to eat of the tree? They, after all, were superior to all the animals. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Lord, I pray for humility. And if it takes humiliation, send that. Do what You know to be best, O Lord, God of my salvation.