(With consciousness of C S Lewis’ famous warning that those who rail most against pride are usually the ones most guilty of it.)

There are two interesting expressions in the Book used to describe a person’s attitude to others. One appears in a story that Jesus told about a proud Pharisee, who was confident in his own spiritual achievements and ‘looked down on everyone else’. The other is in a conversion story of an ancient Babylonian king who once looked down on others, but after a humbling experience, now ‘raised his eyes to heaven’.

There are some who think that the way out of this so-called narrow binary is to look neither up nor down, but to look out. In other words, not to think more highly of oneself than anyone else, nor to think at all about God. It all sounds so humanly possible, but it’s not, for it fails to come to grip with the insidious nature of the germ that lives within us called pride, that can only be quelled and conquered by looking up and acknowledging the God of heaven.

Those who refuse to look up will inevitably look down on others. They may not mean to, nor think they in fact do so, but that is the nature of the germ. Those however who intentionally look up will find grace to recognize the condition, grace to repent of it, and the spiritual resources to look on others with love, and to see their worth and to wash their feet.