Pastor's Corner by Rev. Dr. Dan Robinson   (Monthly article)

One day, after being promoted to co-host the Today show, and before becoming an evening news anchor, Tom Brokaw found himself wandering through Bloomingdale's during his lunch break.  As he explains, he was feeling good about himself and his recent successes.  After a career that started in Omaha, Nebraska, progressing to Los Angeles and then to Washington, D.C., he now found himself in New York -- at last he was near the top, in the Big Apple, hosting a national network morning program.

As he browsed through the men's department, he sensed that someone was watching him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man peeking around the tie rack, studying him closely, while cautiously drawing near.  Brokaw was warmed inwardly by the attention.  The satisfaction of "being someone of notoriety" brought a hint of embarrassment mixed with an expanding dose of pride.  At last, the watcher mustered the courage for a direct approach, and Brokaw prepared himself to act graciously.

The man pointed his finger and said, "Tom Brokaw, right?"

"Right," said Brokaw.

"You used to do the morning news on KMTV in Omaha, right?"

"That's right," said Brokaw, secretly preparing himself for the accolades that were sure to follow, along with the acknowledgment of his rising career.

"I knew you the minute I spotted you," the man said.  Then he paused and added, "What ever happened to you?"

Pride always proceeds a fall.  Jesus had a great deal to say about putting oneself in places of importance and of 'thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.'  The correct placement, he said, was at the lower places of the banquet table, and then we might be invited to move upward from there.

It's all about that troubling question of humility.  Humility is a slippery attribute, for once one acknowledges to oneself that we have achieved it; we lose it in the same thought through pride.  Or like the humorous title to a fictitious book puts it, "Pride and How I Achieved It."  The important thing to remember about this tension between pride and humility is that all of us -- each and every one of us -- are created.  We are equal in terms of our creaturely matter, and therefore we are to be humble before one another, and especially to be humble before our Creator -- Almighty God.

Pastor Dan