September 1, Ordinary 22C (Proverbs 25:6-7; Luke 14:1, 7-14)

Arrogance destroys. Those who glorify themselves at the expense of others end up ruining relationships at every turn. As the book of Proverbs warns, “arrogance yields nothing but strife” (13:10).

It’s not just human relationships that are threatened, since, we are taught, God finds egotism detestable. Proverbs again: “Every haughty person is an abomination to the Lord” (16:5). In the same spirit, the Talmudic sages imagine God declaring, “Anyone who is haughty—he and I cannot dwell in the same world” (BT, Sotah 5a).

Why is arrogance so bad? For one thing, one who spends her time admiring her own achievements (whether imagined or real) quickly forgets how much she needs others. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are all inescapably dependent on others—parents who birth us, teachers who nurture us, farmers who feed us, artisans and factory workers who help clothe us, and so on, almost literally without end. And to be alive is to be dependent on God, who brings the world, and us within it, into being. The Talmudic sages insist that that one who becomes full of herself is as one who denies the reality of God (Sotah 4b); their observation is not hyperbole but an explanation of the inner logic of arrogance.