Community and Kinship

Welcome! Today we continue our series on Shame and Honor, a series in which we hopefully are becoming better acquainted with honor-shame cultures and use this understanding to better grasp the heart of God towards people. A secondary goal is to become better able to relate to people in honor-shame cultures and present the gospel to them in a way that resonates with them. I encourage you, if you have missed either or both previous messages in the series, to look them up at our website.

In the first message in the series, one of the things we talked about was that honor-shame cultures tend to occur in places and situations in which there are very strong family or community bonds, where nothing is secret, and where interacting with family or community is not only a daily thing, but even an hourly thing; it is ever-present. There aren’t a lot of places or communities that can be appropriately characterized as honor-shame cultures here in America, but in the first message I mentioned that the military is an example of a culture that has some honor-shame characteristics. This is because people who serve in the military typically work and live on base, separate from the community and culture at large. In addition, people in the military are taught and continually re-taught that supporting your fellow soldier and obeying your superiors is everything: that quite literally life and death can depend on it.

After talking with some people here after the second message, it dawned on me that performing arts communities also tend to have some honor-shame characteristics. Although people who, for example, act, tend to go home to their own locations at night, they put in tremendous hours doing intense things closely together – and this leads to the formation of a tight-knit community. The community also, figuratively, lives or dies together, as success of a production depends on not only the actors doing their part (pun intended) but also all the support personnel performing their roles (pun also intended). It is a high-pressure environment that is also heavily judged by outside critics, so that good reviews lead to honor and bad ones lead to shame.

A third example of a very tight-knit community is, in at least some cases, missionary teams. We saw an example of one such team in the video last week on Mercy Ships, where a floating hospital that is really a complete community lives together to provide desperately needed medical treatment in impoverished countries. Everything is done on-ship, from food preparation to providing schooling to having your own fire department.

In the ancient world, including the world of both the Old and New Testaments, as well as in most parts of the world today, communities were incredibly tight-knit, and people depended on one another for the communities to thrive or even just survive. The core units within such communities were (and are) families, not just what we call “nuclear” families with parents and their immediate children, but extended families, with aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins and other relations. Often extended families lived in essentially the same house, with new additions adding on, well, new additions to the house.

As I mentioned earlier in the series, your family lineage was a critical part of your honor status – your ascribed honor. But in addition to this, your achieved honor could also have a severe effect on the honor of your entire family. Talk about pressure!

We see an interesting example of this in Mark 3. Although this account is early in Jesus’ ministry, it takes place after Jesus has chosen His disciples, miraculously healed people and taught with unprecedented wisdom and authority, and He has attracted large crowds that follow Him wherever He goes. Turning to verse 20:

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that He and His disciples were not even able to eat. When His family heard about this, they went to take charge of Him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” – Mark 3:20-21

What is going on here? Jesus’ family thinks Jesus’ has lost it, gone nuts, and they are coming to get Him. Now, from your newly acquired honor-shame framework, understand that they aren’t just doing this out of compassion; they are doing this also because Jesus is becoming a threat to the honor of the entire family!

Now the passage goes on to talk about how teachers of the Law came down specifically from Jerusalem to argue against Jesus – again, this is a sign of just how “bad” things have become for the family. It’s like Jesus is not just in the local papers but is now attracting national notoriety. The passage explains how Jesus defends Himself, but I want to jump down to verse 31 where the family shows up.

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they told Him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are My mother and My brothers?” He asked. Then He looked at those seated in a circle around Him and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! Whoever does God’s will is My brother and sister and mother.” – Mark 3:31-35

Hopefully with your honor-shame eyes you see just how shocking this statement really is! These people are strangers! The statement is a double shock – a shock in how inclusive He is of these people around Him, and a shock in how dismissive He is of His kin.

Mark doesn’t tell us what happens next. Does His family leave? Or do they follow along with the crowd for a while? In any case, we do know that eventually His family does come to see that Jesus is exactly who He claims He is. He doesn’t normally just come out and say it, because He is keeping to a schedule, and wants to build into His disciples before He is killed. But we do learn that they become believers.

Now, again, the shock is not just how He treats His family, it is also that He “adopts” anyone who is willing to follow Him, who “does God’s will.” Unfortunately for us, I am afraid that we tend to be tone deaf to the amazing promise of this passage. It’s like when unbelievers hear the word Easter and all they think about is chocolate bunnies. We think it “sounds nice” that Jesus calls followers by family terms, but we tend to think He is just using flowery language.

Beyond the structure of the family was the clan, families united by a common ancestor as indicated by their lineage. Jews were altogether of one clan, in this sense, in that they were all children of Abraham. They took pride in this, and generally kept quite separate from gentiles. But they also took some pride in their lineages from various sons of Jacob. You see this in many names – the prophetess Anna in Luke 2 is described as a daughter of Asher. Paul describes himself as a son of Benjamin. Even Jesus is described as of the tribe of Judah. And then the priests were all descendants of Levi.

Jesus and the Jews he interacted with repeatedly used the phrase “children of Abraham.” We in the west have a very difficult time seeing this at all, because it doesn’t matter much to us, but it was an essential part of Jesus’ arguments. Let me give you an example, from Luke 19. I will back up a few verses to give context and to talk about other honor-shame dynamics in the passage:

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, He looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed Him gladly. – Luke 19:1-6

Now tax collectors were hated by the Jews, because they tended to overcharge and well, they came to you and took your money. Tax collectors in Israel were Jewish, but they were viewed almost as traitors, because they worked for the Romans. Note here that Zacchaeus was not only a tax collector, but a chief tax collector. It says he was rich; note that he had become rich off the money of those whose taxes he had collected. As a result, Zacchaeus was not a popular person. He was famous in way, but really a better term would be infamous. What was his honor-shame rating? Low in honor, high in shame. This would apply not only to him but to his wife, his children, and even more distant relations (assuming he had an immediate family – the passage does not say).

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” – Luke 19:7-10

There is an interesting play on words here – when it says salvation has come to this house, in Hebrew or Aramaic this would be a word very close to the name Jesus; recall in the first chapter of Matthew the son of Mary was given the name Jesus because He would “save His people from their sins.” So, when Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house,” with the wordplay, He also means, “Today I have come to this house.”

But the main point I want to make here is that Jesus says why He came to Zacchaeus: it is because of his kinship! He is a son of Abraham, just like they are. Even though Zacchaeus’ achieved honor is extremely negative, his name, his kinship, overrides this. Ironically, Jesus understands the value of kinship even better than they do.

The message here that Jesus was demonstrating to His disciples is that there is nobody so shameful, so low on the honor-shame spectrum, that His salvation is not available to them if they repent and called Him Lord. The word “lost” is apollymi. This is an extremely strong word; it is most often translated in the Bible as destroyed or perished. The Son of Man came to seek and save not just some person wandering around who doesn’t know where he is, but even people who have destroyed their lives, people who through their sin and shame have destroyed their connection not only to their kin, but to God Himself.

Here is a second example, from Luke 13. Again, I will back up a bit for context:

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then He put His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” – Luke 13:10-14

This woman was another person at the bottom of the honor-shame spectrum. She had endured 18 years as a severe cripple. Typically, people assumed people like this were in such circumstances because of something they had done that was sinful or shameful (either them or their families). There is no evidence of this in this passage.

Note that the synagogue leader is indignant because she dared to come and be healed on a Sabbath! He is mad at the woman. This is a different twist than elsewhere in the Gospels where the officials’ anger is directed squarely at Jesus. In some ways I find attacking this woman even more offensive. He is presuming to speak for Jesus, as if to say, of course, Jesus wouldn’t want to heal people on the Sabbath, so leave him alone on this day! This is offensive because (a) he doesn’t speak for Jesus who has had nothing to do with the synagogue leaders (b) they have never healed anyone – so who are they to presume that their honor gives them the right to speak for Him? (c) they don’t have a clue what they are talking about.

Note that how Jesus responds next will strongly affect His own honor status. If He allows their statement to go unchallenged, He will essentially be ceding his status and agreeing that He is subservient (and subservient in honor) to them.

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” When He said this, all His opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things He was doing. – Luke 13:15-17

His opponents were shamed. That is exactly what humiliated means. They had presumed to speak for Jesus publicly without His permission, and in response He shamed them publicly by disagreeing not only with their premise but also with their implicit assumption that Jesus was subservient to them.

The argument is stinging – they don’t even act this way towards their animals. This woman, whose honor is infinitely above that of livestock, and not only this – did you notice it this time? – she is a daughter of Abraham, so she has the same basic ascribed honor that they do! So Jesus’ response is fundamentally an attack on their honor – how can you treat your kin worse than your animals?

Now you may feel a bit of discomfort when you think about how Jesus keeps tying His role to the kinship of the Jewish people – the sons and daughters of Abraham. Well, I remind you of the Roman centurion in Matthew 8. This person, who was not Jewish, asked Jesus to heal his servant. I am sure the disciples were amazed that Jesus would even talk with respect to this person! Jesus asked if He should go with him and heal him, but the centurion said that he knew it was not necessary for Jesus to physically be there; He obviously had the authority to do it from anywhere.

When Jesus heard this, He was amazed and said to those following Him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” – Matt. 8:10-12

The “many” that will come will be fully accepted into the future community of God. On what basis do they enter this community? Through faith in Christ. What about those who are kin of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Their kinship connection will not be the basis of whether they will enter and partake of heaven. 

Jesus also refers to clan when confronting those who plot to kill Him. He argues that by doing such shameful actions, they even lose their kinship! Again, we tend to gloss over such arguments, but look at the force of Jesus’ argument in John 8 and think about how this must have made Jesus’ listeners feel:

To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They [unbelievers] answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” – John 8:31-33

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill Me, because you have no room for My word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.” – John 8:34-38

“Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.” – John 8:39-41a

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on My own; God sent Me. Why is My language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. – John 8:41b-44

Do you see how this argument speaks so powerfully to those who rested on their “laurels” of kinship? Jesus went even further by contrasting following Him with following one’s own family; the assumption in these verses is that one’s own family is not following Christ. Jesus basically said that when this is the case, you must choose Him first. From Luke 14:

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them He said: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. – Luke 14:25-27

How did this sound to those who thought family was everything? And from Matthew 10:

Whoever acknowledges Me before others, I will also acknowledge before My Father in heaven. But whoever disowns Me before others, I will disown before My Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’  - Matt. 10:32-36

Anyone who loves their father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for My sake will find it. – Matt. 10:37-39

This teaching is hard for us, but even harder for those for whom family was above everything. Jesus’ hard words were explaining that when the various commandments of the Ten Commandments come into conflict with one another, it should always be the first commandment that takes precedence: to love (honor) the Lord above all others. To put anything else in front of the Lord (including family) is to make an idol out of it.

Now, let’s talk about what happened in the Book of Acts and is explained in the letters of the New Testament. In Acts 2, a new family, a new community was born. The early believers truly lived like a family:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. – Acts 2:42-47

The early believers began calling one another brother and sister. And they lived with a love for one another, empowered by the Holy Spirit, that was breathtaking. Before long, Rome realized that they were a threat, because they were growing like crazy. It reminds me of how the Egyptians responded when the clan of Jacob’s descendants also grew like crazy there. In both cases, the response was persecution.

The New Testament letters repeatedly refer to our new position in the family and clan of Jesus. This position is for all who call on the name of Jesus, Jew and Gentile. I’ve selected just a few such passages:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. – Gal. 3:26-29

Abraham is mentioned again; but here, it is saying that the true children of Abraham are those who put their faith in Christ. As such, we are also children of God, and we are in the clan of God.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. – Eph. 2:11-13

For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. – Eph. 2:14-18

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. – Eph. 2:19-20

We now live in God’s home! Again, the honor-shame context is that we are now members of His family! We are an add-on to His home, because the family has grown

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. – I Peter 2:9-10

Note how we are a people now, a community, a kinship.

Now, I have only a little time left, but this is where I want to ask the most controversial question of the day. If we are to be a community of believers, how should we live? Should we live as an honor-shame community?

I believe the answer from Scripture is YES. But it is different from the honor-shame communities of the prevailing culture in Bible times and it is also different from the honor-shame communities of today. How is it different?

One area is membership. In traditional honor-shame communities, membership is usually closed. It is based on your family and your clan. These are things you cannot change. But as we have seen, in the New Testament, membership is based on whether you have become a believer. In a traditional honor-shame community, new members are only added through birth, but in the New Testament community, new members are added through conversion, through being born again. In fact, in an honor-shame community, baptism – which is something we do because Jesus instructed us to do it – is symbolic of more than the individualistic decision to follow Christ; it is symbolic of becoming a part of this new honor-shame community of faith, of leaving the old community behind, if necessary. Just a note on this – you see repeatedly in the New Testament examples of entire households becoming believers at once.  This was a result of the extremely close family bonds back then. It wasn’t that family members were joining just because the patriarch of the family was joining – this is why Jesus warns people that following Him may split apart even families, as we read earlier – but it was that they had such respect and love of the family leader that seeing him choose to follow Jesus was an extremely influential testimony to them that it must be true and that following Jesus was the right decision for them also to make.

In honor-shame cultures, and I am thinking here specifically of Muslim cultures, what sometimes happens from what I have read is that the husband becomes a believer only after reading through the entire Bible and having many deep conversations with another believer or small group of believers. The wife only peripherally takes part in these discussions, if at all. She is busy making meals, taking care of the children, etc. When the husband becomes a believer, he simply informs his wife that the entire family will now follow Jesus. She agrees, because culturally that is what you must do. In multiple Muslim countries, to become a follower of Jesus means that you are breaking the law, and if you are found out, you will be arrested. One reason that Christianity has been slow to grow in these countries is that after such a husband is arrested, the wife and children go back to her father – to her family, and she again lives as a Muslim. Because she never personally became a believer, she may even feel relieved to be back home. When authorities come and question her about who her husband was associating with, she feels no compunction against telling them everything she knows, and unfortunately this leads to even more arrests!

We will talk more next week about various dynamics of living in honor-shame communities, including the Christian community of the New Testament, but finally today I want to highlight one additional difference between traditional honor-shame communities and communities of believers as prescribed in the New Testament. This is in the purpose of shame. Yes, both types of communities have and use shame. In a traditional honor-shame community, when someone does something bad, he and his entire family lose honor. In severe cases, other families no longer associate with him or his family – they are shunned. This serves as a kind of protection mechanism for the community – it serves as a powerful warning to other families to do the right thing – or else.

Certainly, Christian communities shouldn’t do this, right? Well, wrong. Paul prescribes exactly this in I Cor. 5:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. – I Cor. 5:1-5

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. – I Cor. 5:6-8

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. – I Cor. 5:9-11

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” – I Cor. 5:12-13

Did you catch in the passage the reason Paul gives for doing this? It is so that his “spirit may be saved.” The idea is that expulsion in the New Testament community is not permanent, but only until the person repents, admitting their wrong behavior and discontinuing it. At that point, the person is to be re-admitted back into the community and fully restored. Paul mentions this also in Galatians 6:

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. – Gal. 6:1-2  

Again, the goal is restoration into the community. The following short table summarizes some of the differences we have talked about between traditional and New Testament communities.

	Traditional H-S Community	New Testament Community
Membership	By birth family	By faith
Purpose of shaming	To keep others “in line”	To bring about repentance
Restoration	Nearly impossible, limited	Fully upon repentance

We haven’t had time to explore the practicals here of how we are to live in community; this would be an entire additional series! But I want you to see that when Paul and the other New Testament writers talk about how to live in their letters, they are writing in second person plural (y’all) not just because they are writing to multiple people, but also because the instructions are community-focused! We in the west often barely understand what living in a community is about, as we live very isolated lives. We may have our small circle of close friends, but even there the closeness is often just based on hanging out together. The New Testament community is meant to be miraculous: miraculous in the depth of love people have for one another, miraculous in that it is led by Christ who is God Himself, and miraculous in that outsiders are hungry to join it (and welcomed with love when they do). The miraculous New Testament community is often made up of those the traditional community shuns – the Zacchaeus’s and bent-over women and centurions. Let us seek the Lord for such a community among us!