Deliver Us From Me-Ville

Top Highlights

“But superbia is more insidious than mere pride. It’s not rooted in accomplishment so much as it is preoccupied by the selfness of the self and the otherness of others. Sinners in the hands of superbia establish their own experience as the baseline by which all others must be judged, and anyone who fails to achieve that baseline is typecast as inferior—and not just inferior but freakishly so. It’s wrong not to be how I am. It’s senseless not to have come to the understanding that I have. It’s ridiculous not to have accomplished what I’ve accomplished. I’m normal; the rest of you fall short.” (source)

“Out of his love for me, Jesus becomes like me so he can save me from me.” (source)

“Superbia is often translated as ‘pride.’ Pride is a heightened sense of self-satisfaction; our pride comes through our accomplishments and our associations. The things we have done or said or avoided, the people, places, and things we surround ourselves with, strike us as uncommonly impressive. A friend once heard the crowd at a Duke University basketball game yell, ‘Our SATs are better than your SATs!’” (source)

“Our way out of ourselves will involve Jesus coming to us and displacing us.” (source)

“The challenge for us is to look for small ways of welcoming Jesus into our world and letting him look around. The first step in following Jesus out of Me-Ville, then, is letting him in.” (source)