You can’t expect people to see eye to eye with you if you are looking down on them.

 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3

If I had to guess I’d say the one thing that most of us lack in this world isn’t love or money or things or stuff.   Instead I’d probably say it’s humility.   
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote “Christianity is a religion of pity.”   (A note of fairness here.  Nietzsche later went crazy and spent his last days in an insane asylum.) 
Do we really pity people?   Do we think to ourselves, “I feel so sorry for them.  Thank God I’m not like that.”   
A few weeks ago, I was in the grocery store and a man in one of the electric carts was struggling to reach something on the shelf.   I pushed my cart up to him and asked if I could help. 
“Son, I don’t need your pity,” he said.  “I can do it myself.”   
O.K.   
This morning I was in the grocery store again and a woman in an electric cart was in front of me.   She too was struggling to reach something off the shelf.   For a moment, I thought about just passing on by.   My last experience wasn’t all that great.   Something inside of me told me to stop and see if I could help.  
“Bless you!” she exclaimed.   After I got her item off the shelf, she looked up at me and said, “Would you mind to follow me over to the next aisle? There’s something I want there too.”    
There is a thin red line between humility and pity.   When we pity we look down at someone else’s situation.   Sometimes we feel moved to help.   Sometimes we feel helpless and hope that someone else will have enough pity to do something about it.   
But if we’re humble.   Now that’s completely different.   If we’re humble then we understand the situation someone else is in.   We feel love and compassion for the person and are moved by a deep sense of injustice to help in any way we can.   
Pity is a feeling we have.   Humility is a habit we form.   
Now don’t get me wrong.   A lot of good has come out of pity.   We pity the poor so we give some canned food to a food bank.   We pity the homeless so we donate some clothes to a local clothes closet.  We pity those in other countries so we send a small check each month to a relief organization.   
There is something to be said about pity.   
But being humble.   Just imagine.   
What would this world be like if we worked in those soup kitchens; went to the streets and handed out those clothes along with hugs; served as missionaries in other countries building schools.   
The real difference between pity and humility is the one thing we too often forget.   
Love. 
This day ask God to show you how to love more and pity less.   

Let us pray.
Dear God.  Help us to see beauty where we might be tempted to see ugliness, in ourselves, as well as in others. And may your “joy” be found there as well. As you have washed our feet in Christ, lead us to washing the feet of others. As you have lifted us off our knees, help us to lift others up. For we all were created in your image. So, today, re-create in us a new heart, O God, one that beats in tune with your own. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.