How Do I Rate?

12th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/28/22 Proverbs 25:6-7a How Do I Rate? Regular, systematic, self-assessment has become a way of life for many of us. Usually on an annual basis, you might be asked or even required to provide a self-assessment. Students, that request or requirement might come from your class advisor. He or she wants you to assess how you rate yourself in several areas of academics. Employers regularly ask or require the same from their employees. Your supervisor wants to know how you rate yourself in several critical areas of the work that you do. I do the same. Through my circuit pastor, the synod wants to know how I rate myself in areas such as preaching, teaching, evangelism, visitation. But when I’m finished providing it, I always wonder why I’m requested to do it. And the reason for my question is that self-assessments are notoriously inaccurate. Take a look at the studies that have been done on them. A self-assessment is only moderately useful to your advisor or supervisor. And why is that? Because the people who provide self-assessments are prone to think their abilities are greater than they really are. In other words, we tend to have an inflated view of our abilities and our worth. And that’s nothing new. It’s been that way ever since the fall into sin. In today’s Gospel, we heard how Jesus observed that very issue playing out in front of him at a dinner in the home of a prominent Pharisee. The dinner guests were providing a visible self-assessment of their worth. And it reminded Jesus of the words before us this morning here in Proverbs 25. This morning’s text comes from one of the shortest readings in the entire pericope, but it’s packed with application and meaning for our lives. It’s asking us to make a self-assessment. Let’s do so and answer the question, “How do I rate?” Are you familiar with the Book of Proverbs? Maybe not. It’s not one of the more widely read books of the Bible. Perhaps that’s because it doesn’t contain any narratives. It’s full of short pieces of wisdom, which are intended to cause you to think, and that takes a little bit of work. First, you need to determine the intended meaning of the proverb in front of you. Then that proverb leads you to reflect on past experiences in your life. How often have you found what it’s telling you to be true? From that point, it pulls you to test and explore the limits of what it’s stating. Is it always true? But, then more importantly, since this proverb is a portion of God’s word, it leads you to consider the proverb in the context of your salvation. What is it telling me about myself and what my God has done for me, chiefly in saving me? And, finally, it leads you to keep this proverb in mind for future guidance. Let’s keep those points in mind as we make our way through this proverb before us. What was your first reaction to this proverb? Did it almost knock you out of your pew? I doubt it, but it might have if you had viewed it actually taking place in the setting described. The behavior being condemned is shocking! A common person is in the presence of royalty and he or she doesn’t know his or her rightful place. Their self-assessment is whacked! They’re rating themselves unimaginably high and it makes no sense. To bring this home for yourself, imagine being invited to a fine dinner in the palace of the Queen of England. Hard to imagine, right? But if it actually occurred, you wouldn’t enter the massive dining room and make your way to the seat right next to Her Majesty, would you? Of course not. You’d wait for someone to indicate where you should sit. And yet, we see that behavior in others on a daily basis and we’re repulsed by it. It’s a daily aggravation in your employment environment to see and hear one of your “team members” indicate all day long how much better they think they are than you and all the others on your team. They always want you to know everything they’re doing and to be recognized for their efforts and successes. Meanwhile, the truth is the opposite. They’re a drag on your team. Your team would be much better without them. Sound familiar? But sinful pride isn’t isolated. It’s pandemic. Think about it. You watch the behavior of others, and you quickly conclude that yours is superior. You listen to the horrific accounts on the news and thank God that you’re not like that. You listen to others who obviously don’t have the education or experience that you do, and you immediately place them beneath you. You hear about the sins of someone else, and your response to it is prideful disgust. You would never stoop that low. That’s our natural reaction; our sinful natural reaction. Without realizing it, in these reactions we’re actually rating ourselves. We’re higher than they are. Our seat is closer to the king’s than theirs, if they’ve even made the guest list at all. I rate higher than they do. The problem with our self-assessments, however, is that they ruin our relationships with others. How long do you put up with associating with people who think they’re better than you are? Not long at all! It’s too painful. So, if others think that way about you, how long will they endure it? Only as long as they have to. Almost immediately they begin erecting walls between the two of you. And that means, what you crave most from them—their approval—you will never get. Instead, you face their rejection. But what’s worse is that your sinful pride begins squeezing the Lord out of your life. A sinfully proud person wont’ admit they need anything from anyone else. That would reveal a weakness. A sinfully proud person has difficulty seeing how he has offended God and others with his words and deeds. And if you can’t recognize your sins, you have trouble recognizing your Savior from sin. And the result is that the Lord gets pushed to the remote edges of your life. Did you hear what James stated in today’s Second Reading? “He who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.” It doesn’t matter how many commandments you think you’ve kept; if you’ve only broken one of them one time, you’re a lawbreaker. You’re guilty in God’s eyes. But that’s not the culture we live in, is it? Instead of competing to be the first to admit our guilt, we spend our days competing to receive approval from others. It’s rampant in social media. How many views and how many likes will you receive? The number is right there on your screen, and it only takes a second to measure that number against someone else’s. And it’s never enough. We never find what we’re looking for which is ultimate, unconditional, eternal acceptance. So, what’s the solution to our self-rating dilemma? View your life through the lens of God’s word. Take to heart what your Lord tells you through James. I am a lawbreaker. I’m not the Christian that I want others to think I am. My life is just as much a sinful mess as yours is. God’s law rates me at the bottom, the last, the worst. That’s who I am, and it does me no good to pretend it isn’t true. God, have mercy on me, a sinner! And when I’m there—the last—God’s word shows me Jesus Christ. He didn’t come into this world and lord it over others. Instead, as God’s word declares, he humbled himself. As true and eternal God, he had it all. Everything was his. But he let it all go and took on human flesh and blood. And the reason he did that was so that he could humble himself all the way to Calvary’s cross. Imagine that! The punishment that I deserved as the worst, the last, the First One took on himself. That makes no sense! But that’s God’s way of providing forgiveness and eternal life for me, for you, for the whole world of sinful human beings. And now, in his word, the King looks at me, looks at you, and he extends his nail-scarred hand and declares, “Come up here. Come to me as your Savior from sin. Come to me, the one who knows you perfectly and accepts you completely. Come to me and enjoy my eternal love and endless blessing. Come to me and have life—real life, meaningful life.” In fact, he tells us that he’s preparing a heavenly banquet for us, a banquet so wonderful and so enjoyable that it’s beyond human comprehension and expression. He rates you so high that he wants you to spend eternity in heaven with him. Blows your mind, doesn’t it? We struggle daily for acceptance from mere sinful mortals like us, when we already have been fully and freely accepted by the King of kings and Lord of lords. Amazing! And that means I can live today in freedom. I don’t have to impress anyone with how wonderful I am. Instead, I’m free to serve them, to do what they need me to do for them. I’m free to enjoy the calling in life that God gives me at this moment, instead of incessantly wishing that my life was different, better, happier. I’m free to find people to help, instead of always scanning the crowd to see who can help me achieve what I want in life. Liberating, isn’t it?! And it happens as I stop rating myself and take to heart the rating God has already given me. In fact, he stamped it on me on the day of my baptism. On that day, he adopted me as his child and gave me his name, “Child of God.” That’s the highest rating ever. Why would we crave anything else?! Dear friends, abandon forever your self-assessment attempts and bask in the rating God has given you. He died for you. He rose for you. Thank and praise him by living for him, not yourself. Amen.