“Oops, I did it again”: if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall

The Third Sunday of Lent, 23 March 2025, Austwick, Clapham

“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall”

Considered one of the most memorable moments in all of British television, and frequently top of the polls for the funniest sitcom moment ever, is the scene from Only Fools and Horses where David Jason’s Del Boy falls through an open bar counter.

You know the scene: Del Boy and Trigger are leaning against the bar eyeing up the ladies, ready to impress, when, not noticing that the barman has opened the counter behind him, Del Boy tells Trigger to “play it nice and cool son, nice and cool,” leans back, glass in hand, and falls straight to the floor.

“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall”

There are other great comedy moments to which those words of St Paul to the Corinthians very readily apply. Like that moment in Dad’s Army when Private Pike is confronted by a German officer demanding to know his name, and Arthur Lowe’s Captain Mainwaring fills the silence, yelling out “Don’t tell him, Pike!”

“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall”

And there’s the scene in the Vicar of Dibley when in a dream-like state the Reverend Geraldine Granger is walking through a country lane with a handsome stranger, splashing through puddles, when she jumps into a deep puddle, ending up submerged chest high in muddy water. I only recently discovered that Dawn French badly twisted her knee doing that stunt, needing a steroid injection, and eventually knee replacement surgery.

“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall”

There’s a word – hubris – which means excessive pride or self-confidence. It can lead to comedy, as in those sketches; or it can equally be damaging to individuals, or society. The dictionary definition of hubris offers this example: ‘the self-assured hubris among economists was shaken in the late 1980s’. In other words they were so confident about their financial grand designs that they just did not see Black Monday coming, nor the recession which followed.

Paul wanted to warn the Corinthian believers against hubris. He gave them a history lesson to remind them how the people of Israel – with whom they now belonged – had time and again got themselves so comfortable with their elevated status as God’s chosen people, that some of them began to turn their back on their loving heavenly Father and to go their own way, becoming ‘idolaters’, Paul writes, embracing all kinds of immorality, which led to their downfall.

“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall”, he wrote, urging them to learn from history to keep an eye on themselves, lest they too began to let themselves be calamitously led by excessive pride or self-confidence, rather than the virtues which Jesus taught them.

Why do we humans fail to learn from our past mistakes?

Why do we find ourselves nursing hangovers, and saying ‘never again’ just weeks after the last time we nursed a hangover, and said ‘never again’?

In our relationships why do we keep having the same disagreements over the same behaviours, finding ourselves saying, “I’ll change, I promise”, on repeat?

“Oops, I did it again,” sings Britney Spears, who just can’t help herself, and seems to be enjoying herself just that bit too much to really want to help herself to change.

We could each reel off a list of big mistakes that societies keep on repeating; and for Christians who, by faith, are now so closely connected with the people of Israel, one question troubles us more than any other today: how can a people who so recently suffered a terrible holocaust, now themselves inflict the same such deliberate mass slaughter on their Palestinian neighbours?

In our synagogues, mosques, and churches, this current genocide in the Holy Land hangs over our worship like a dark cloud, and our judgement on it should be unclouded: we are witnesses to heinous crimes against humanity which we should do all we can to call-out and resist. [3]

Scripture shows us that in this world of conflict, outer and inner conflict, there are two ways we can go. We can repeat or we can repent.

Firstly, Paul teaches that in history such terrible acts do not go unpunished: he says that the perpetrators, those who think they are standing, are ‘destroyed by the destroyer’: caught up in a cycle of violence, evil repays evil between empires greedy for land and power. It’s the same cycle which repeats between neighbours locked into dispute, or ceaselessly squabbling siblings.

It all seems hopelessly endless, like our world is on repeat, but Paul teaches that God provides a way for us to break this cycle: “he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,” Paul writes, “but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

Notice how there is a testing, and a way out, in Jesus’ story about the merciful gardener begging the vineyard owner to give the fruitless fig tree one more year to be tended, just one more chance to bear fruit.

This brings us to the second point. Scripture has a special word to describe the way we can break the cycle of hubris. The word is repentance. In today’s gospel passage Jesus twice says “unless you repent, you will all perish” just as other hubristic offenders perished before.

What tone of voice does Jesus use here? How does he phrase that sentence? Let’s imagine that he’s speaking less like the merciless vineyard owner announcing his judgement before reigning down instant destruction, and more like the merciful gardener giving hope that if we turn around and allow him to tend to our spiritual well-being, then there’s every chance that, even now, we will bear fruit.

Repentance is a substantial thing. It sounds far less like “Oops, I did it again” and far more like “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me”.

Repentance is what we do when we realise we think we are standing, and start watching out that we do not fall.

Repentance is what happens when, having kept an eye on ourselves, resisting excessive pride or self-confidence, we allow God’s Spirit to lead us into the virtuous, fulfilled, life which we know can be ours in Christ.

Notes

[1] YouTube: Del Boy Falls Through the Bar; Don’t Tell Him, Pike!; Vicar of Dibley – Puddle.

[2] YouTube: Britney Spears, Oops!… I Did it Again.

[3] Statement on Israel’s latest assault on Gaza. Campaign Against the Arms Trade, 18 March 2025. Katie Fallon, Advocacy Manager at CAAT said: “The genocidal attack that Israel has unleashed on the people of Gaza is designed to inflict maximum suffering and terror on Palestinians. Israel has been violating the ceasefire agreement for weeks, increasing attacks and blocking all aid for over two weeks including food and fuel. Our government continues to support Israel politically and militarily through arms exports, including for F-35 jets which are used to drop 2,000 lbs bombs on Palestinians. We demand a full two way arms embargo with Israel. We demand an end to the UK government’s complicity in and military support for genocide, occupation and apartheid.”

before reigning down instant destruction, and more like the merciful gardener giving hope that if we turn around and allow him to tend to our spiritual well-being, then there’s every chance that, even now, we will bear fruit.

Repentance is a substantial thing. It sounds far less like “Oops, I did it again” and far more like “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / That saved a wretch like me”.

Repentance is what we do when we realise we think we are standing, and start watching out that we do not fall.

Repentance is what happens when we keep an eye on ourselves, and, resisting excessive pride or self-confidence, allow God’s Spirit to lead us away, towards the virtuous, fulfilled, life which we know can be ours in Christ.

Notes

[1] YouTube: Del Boy Falls Through the Bar; Don’t Tell Him, Pike!; Vicar of Dibley – Puddle.

[2] YouTube: Britney Spears, Oops!… I Did it Again.