Welcome! Today is our
final message in our Shame/Honor series. To whet your appetite on today’s
topic, the Gospel, I want to give you a quote and a scripture. The quote is by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Ethics:
“Shame
can be overcome only when the original unity is restored, when man is once
again clothed by God.”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Isn’t that great? I
like the word “again.” Early in our series we looked at the fall of Adam and
Eve with honor/shame lenses, and we noted that after their shameful
disobedience, Adam and Eve tried to hide and cover their nakedness with fig
leaves. But it didn’t work; they still felt intense shame and wanted to avoid
God. How did God cloth them? With animal skins. An innocent animal had to give
up its life in order to cloth and cover them. Figuratively, symbolically, man
is again clothed by God, this time
with something unspeakably more precious, the body and blood of Jesus. Jesus’
covering is eternal; unlike Adam’s, it does not wear out. But I am getting
ahead of myself.
The scripture is Mark
10:45:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. – Mark 10:45
The Gospel is a term
that means “good news” and it is fantastic news. It speaks powerfully to our
guilt problem, to our fear problem (or you could call it our curse problem),
and to our shame problem. If you recall, our series began by explaining that
there are three major “axes” of influence in a given culture, where by “axis” I
mean a kind of pull or mindset that tends to dominate how a culture or
individual thinks or responds or “resonates” to various ideas and situations.
People and cultures are a mix of all three axes, but often one axis tends to
dominate significantly more than the others. I call these influences axes also
because, like axes in a mathematical plot, there is both a plus infinity and a
minus infinity. Sorry for the math on a Sunday morning, but the idea is that one
end is the “opposite” of the other, and one can be strongly in one direction,
strongly in the other direction, or somewhere close to the middle (zero on the
axis).
In America and Western
Europe, the axis that dominates the culture is guilt and innocence; this kind
of culture is dominated ideas such as law-keeping and lawbreaking, fairness and
unfairness, and rights. A second major axis is fear and power. People for whom
this axis is dominant see the world as strongly affected by unseen forces that
are typically called spirits or gods (lowercase g) or demons. Curses are
perhaps the greatest fear. You find this kind of thinking scattered throughout
Africa and Asia and South America especially in rural or tribal communities,
but you also find it among individuals throughout these continents. The third
major axis, which has been the focus of our series, is shame and honor. You
find this kind of thinking predominant over widespread regions of most of the
world apart from those strongly or historically influenced by Protestant
Christianity. You also find this in the Middle East today as well as at the
times that both the Old and New Testaments were written.
Honor and shame, in
contrast to guilt and innocence, are primarily based on what others think of you. For this reason,
honor and shame ideas are prevalent in highly communal societies. Honor is when
others think highly of you, and shame is when they think poorly of you. In a
communal society, these opinions are extremely important, because they affect
every relationship you have. People in such societies are motivated by the goal
of maintaining or increasing honor and avoiding shame far more than they are
motivated by an internal sense of right and wrong, as occurs in guilt-innocence
cultures, and far more than they are motivated by a sense of staying safe and
avoiding physical or spiritual harm, as occurs in fear-power societies.
I have given two
reasons this series has focused on honor and shame: (1) Because honor and shame
are major themes in the Bible, arguably much greater than guilt and innocence,
coming to better understand these themes helps us to better know the heart of
God. (2) Because so much of the world lives by the honor-shame code, our
traditional western way of sharing the gospel may not resonate with them. We
want to be able to share the gospel effectively to all people (including
foreigners who come to live in America), and so it is important to be able to
share the gospel in an honor-shame context. This is the focus of today’s
message.
Now, let me quickly
review some definitions that have come up during the series.
Ascribed honor refers to the value or worth given to a person
based on their family, bloodline, and heritage. You are born with a certain
amount of ascribed honor. This amount can change if, for example, your son or
another family member does something very shameful. Kinship and family
relationships are therefore extremely important in an honor-shame culture, far
more than in a guilt-innocence culture. Adoption into an honored family was a
rare but extremely profound experience for someone because it meant that you
could have your ascribed honor transformed upwards, a situation that in normal
circumstances would be impossible. For a woman, marriage also accomplished
this. However, it was extremely rare that a man would marry a woman from a
family of much lower ascribed honor than that of his.
Achieved honor refers to the value or worth given to a person
based on what they have accomplished. Your achieved can either increase or
decrease your total honor based on what you do throughout your life. Unfortunately,
increasing your honor through achievements is a slow difficult process, whereas
you can destroy your honor overnight with one particularly shameful action.
Therefore, the ideal that “I will always do
my best!” is a common internal motivation in an honor-shame culture.
Face refers to a person’s dignity, prestige, reputation, and
overall honor status in a community. One can “give” face to others by praising
them in front of people important to them and in many other ways. One wants to
do this in part because of the universal Golden Rule; they want others to give
face to them. If you do the opposite, for example openly criticizing someone,
or even doing an action that on the most subtle level might be inferred to be the least bit critical or non-praising,
“takes away” from their face, and if perceived as culturally inappropriate,
takes from your own as well. For example, it is better to say “maybe” to an
invitation when you mean “no” than to say “no”.
Patronage refers to a relationship between to people of
very different honor-shame status in which the person higher in status (the patron) is expected to provide the other
person protection, money, and other resources (such as providing introductions
to other honored people) while, in exchange, the person lower in status (the client) is expected to bring the other
person public praise, loyalty, and gratitude.
In a patron-client relationship, the client was expected to make his deepest needs known to the patron, so that the
patron could work at helping the client with these needs. At times, a patron
might need to make real sacrifices to do this; such actions only increased the
honor status of the patron. The client’s honor status was increased, because
they had the personal help of such a highly honored person.
Honor-shame reversal refers to situations (in real life or in
fiction) in which a person with high ascribed honor but otherwise mean or who has
other negative character qualities loses their honor status while a person with
low ascribed honor but otherwise kind or who has other positive character
qualities gains in honor. Although not seen as an absolute rule, there is a
tendency to view honor and shame in honor-shame cultures as a zero-sum game;
that is, one usually only gains honor status at the expense of the honor of
someone else. (Note that patronage would seem to be an exception to this.)
Challenge and riposte:
Challenge refers to a verbal contest
between two people of relatively similar honor status in which the challenger
seeks to gain honor at the expense of the other person through making them look
unwise or foolish. Riposte refers to
a quick and appropriate response to the initial challenge; the term is based on
a sword-fighting term that describes a quick defensive movement that seamlessly
turns into an attack. Challenge and riposte are done in a public setting in
which the audience determines the winner (who gains in honor status) and the
loser (whose honor status is diminished).
Injustice: In an honor-shame society the poor and
disadvantaged are the easiest to take advantage of through unfair means because
they don’t have the resources or connections to seek their own justice. Many
societies have stratification of honor based on wealth and the lack of it, as
well as on the presence or absence of physical deformities or illness. People
who are poor or ill, including orphans and widows, are shamed, experience
misery instead of compassion, and often internalize the external pronouncement
of shamefulness that others cast on them.
Before I talk directly
about how the Gospel addresses all these ideas, let’s look at perhaps the most
famous parable, that of the Prodigal Son. Due to time restraints, I will not
look at the parables before this, that of the lost sheep and that of the lost
coin, even though all three are part of a continuing conversation between Jesus
and the Pharisees and teachers of the law, who complain about how Jesus is
eating with “sinners” and tax collectors. I am also going to skip the final
verses of the parable, where the older brother becomes grumpy because the
father lavishes so much on the prodigal son.
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger
one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided
his property between them. – Luke 15:11b-12
From an honor-shame
perspective, what do we see here? First, we see a son who dishonors his father
in just about the most extreme way imaginable, telling his father that he in
effect wants a “divorce.” He wants to leave his father! And he wants to take
whatever money was coming to him! This was a taboo topic to discuss while the
father was still alive. In essence, the son is saying, “Father, I wish you were
dead already, so that I could get out of here with my share of the estate and
do what I want apart from this dreadful family!” This is as far from the commandment
to honor your father and mother as you can get!
But second, we see a father
who inexplicably agrees to such an outrageous demand! This is perhaps even more
shocking than the actions of the son. The father would be totally within his
rights to expel the son from the family forever, to kick him out and cut him
off. He could even bring his son up for charges with the religious authorities,
and it was conceivable that, at least in Old Testament times, according to the
Law, he could have been given the death penalty. Under Roman occupation, the
Jewish leaders were far more limited in what penalty they could pronounce. But
no, this father does none of these things. He agrees to the division! The small
community he lived in would certainly find out this is going on, as small
communities find out everything that
is going on, and this is a pretty big deal, plus the departure of the younger
son with lots of wealth (not to mention the father probably selling off many
items to raise the necessary cash) would be obvious. Note that the son does not
only bring tremendous dishonor on himself, but also on his father, who
apparently out of love, does not give the son what he deserves, but instead
gives the son what he asks. The son has destroyed the face of himself and his
father. From another perspective, the son has challenged the father (even
though he did not have sufficient honor status to appropriately make the
challenge), but the father has made no riposte at all.
“Not long after that, the younger son got
together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his
wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine
in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself
out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He
longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one
gave him anything. – Luke 15:13-16
So here we have an
honor-shame reversal. The son shamed the father and left without honor but with
wealth, and in the distant country he would have the honor that accompanies
wealth in and of itself. But now, the son has lost everything, deservedly so.
His shame is so great that even the unclean pigs are eating better than he is.
And he now works in one of the most disreputable and dishonorable jobs
imaginable from a Jewish perspective.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many
of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to
death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have
sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your
son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his
father. – Luke 15:17-20a
From an honor-shame
perspective, this too is shocking. This takes a lot of chutzpah, to use the Yiddish term. How could he, disgraced so
completely, even think of going back to his father, whom he treated so
terribly? Yes, he isn’t thinking of going back to him as father. He isn’t
seeking to talk to him as patron. He is coming to him like a hired hand, a
stranger, one that wishes to sell himself to servitude in exchange for basic
provisions.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father
saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his
arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned
against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But
the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him.
Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and
kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is
alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. – Luke 15:20b-24
The father is the
center of attention here, not the son. Despite the terrible things the son has
done, the father loves his son. He doesn’t even care that his honor is further
degraded by allowing the son to come to him. He runs to him in a most undignified
manner, adding dishonor upon dishonor. (For an elder to run at all was seen as
extremely dishonorable at that time.) The father rejoices in the son and gives
him the best he has to offer, as if nothing had ever happened. The community
(who, remember, determines one’s honor status) must have thought the father had
completely lost his mind.
This entirely ruins the
honor-shame reversal story that appeared to be going on here! The son started
with honor, living in an honorable family, but he threw that all away when he
acted so disgracefully towards his father. Why is he ending up back in the
family? Why is he being thrown a party? What did he do?
The answer is that he
didn’t do anything! He couldn’t!
There was absolutely no way to “earn” his way back into his father’s good
graces. The only thing he did do was return to his father. His father did
everything else, including dishonoring his own name even more.
This presents us with a
picture of the gospel. I am now going to present the gospel from an honor-shame
framework. This is based on a gospel-sharing technique called the Three
Circles. The following links present the Three Circles from a guilt/innocence,
fear/power, and shame/honor perspective. My version incorporates some ideas
from the shame/honor perspective but goes into greater detail.
Three Circles: (note
that this particular fear/power version uses Muslim terminology because it is
intended for outreach to Muslims)
Guilt/innocence
version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYU-a2wIbxc
Shame/honor
version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqBlOUKqBNM
Fear/power version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6rwHjwUqHQ
Adam and Eve were the
first people that God made. Adam and Eve destroyed their honor when they
violated the one command God had given them. In listening to the serpent who
encouraged them to do this and then eating the forbidden fruit, they too made a
challenge to God, even though they too were nothing approaching God’s equal.
Like the prodigal, they wanted to be divorced from God’s oversight. And so God
gave them what they wanted. But there were consequences: expulsion from the
garden, having to work hard, pain in childbirth, and death, a limit to life.
But as hard as these consequences were, they could have been infinitely worse.
God was entirely within his rights to “unmake” man (and this is conjecture, but
perhaps this was the serpent’s real goal all along). For the angels were there
before Adam and Eve were made, and yet it is man, lower than the angels, who is
the creature made in the “image” of God.
The world was broken,
and Adam and Eve now lived in this broken world, separated from God and
completely dishonored. In their disobedience they also brought down the honor
of God, partly because the disobedience of children reflects on the parents who
raise them and partly because God let them go like the father in the parable.
God had an original
design for the world, and that design is that we would be a part of God’s
family. God would be our Father, who would love us, who would lead us, who
would bless us and who would provide for us, and we would be His children, who
would honor Him, who would obey Him, who would follow Him, and who would
represent His holy and perfect and awesome character to the world.
But, we did not follow
God’s original design, and to not follow God’s original design is called “sin”.
Sin is when we disobey our Father, and sin is also when we fail to represent
God our Father’s perfect holy and righteous character in this world. What are
some ways we sin? We sin by not honoring and loving God above all others, by
worshiping created things or man-made deities or idols or philosophies. We sin
by not loving and honoring those around us as much as we love ourselves and
seek to build our own honor at the expense of others. Some ways we do this
includes lying to others, stealing from others, harboring bad thoughts against
others, coveting what others have, and dishonoring our own parents. Every one
of us has done some of these things and done them many times.
As a result, we are
like Adam. We live in this broken world, and we contribute to its brokenness
with our actions. We are without honor, without face.
Many people try to fix
themselves, to get back somehow to God’s original design, to restore their
honor. But like the prodigal son, they cannot do so. Some may try to restore
their honor through good works. But no amount of good works can restore our
honor, because God is without sin. He has never sinned, never broken his honor.
We cannot undo what we have already done. And the truth for most of us is that
even as we try to do good works, we continue to sin even more.
Some well-meaning
people may try to restore their honor through religious activity such as
attending services, making sacrifices, or giving gifts. But even if this activity
is intended for the true God and not a false one, it still is completely unable
to restore our broken honor. We remain trapped in the broken world, separated
from God.
Many people feel the
pain of this separation and brokenness and dishonor even if they do not
understand the cause. They may try to drown out the pain through drugs,
alcohol, entertainment, or consumerism (the purchase of stuff). But not only do
these activities to fail to eliminate the pain, they also do absolutely nothing
to deal with the cause of the pain. We feel this pain because deep down we know
that we have sinned against God. God, because He is completely without sin, without
dishonor, has allowed us to separate ourselves from Himself. We were created to
be God’s children, but now, we are separated from God. In fact, we are not His
children, but those who behave as enemies of God. With each sin, we declare our
independence of Him; with each sin, we only dishonor ourselves further. We do
not admit this, but our actions communicate, like those of the prodigal son,
that we essentially wish He were dead. Now, separated from Him, we are like the
prodigal son, out on our own, no longer living as a member of His family.
Even worse, the first
part of Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. We are working to
dishonor God, whether we admit it or not. And this “work” has wages of death, eternal separation from God.
But there is good news!
Despite everything we have done, God loves us and wants us to be a part of His
family. And God did something to make this possible; again, there was nothing
we could do.
God entered into the
world!
He entered into the
world through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, fully God and yet
fully man. He entered into this world, and He honored God perfectly through His
obedience. He represented God perfectly in His words, His thoughts, and His
actions, and in His character. He was God’s perfect representation in this
world. Many people challenged His honor, but He overwhelmed them with His
wisdom, His knowledge, and His goodness. He had compassion on those low in
honor, both those whose shame was undeserved and those whose shame was a result
of their own inappropriate actions. He also performed many miracles as a kind
of proof that He really was from God. Jesus entered into this world with
unsurpassed honor as God’s Son, but He increased His honor even more through
His actions.
The people who
challenged Jesus eventually lost so much honor through these confrontations
that they sought to have Jesus arrested and killed. Although Jesus knew it was
about to happen, He continued to perfectly obey God. God willed Him to go
through it, and Jesus, even though He did not deserve it at all, experienced
shame as He was mocked and brutally beaten, and He died the most shameful of
deaths on a cross. Why did God will it? Because Jesus was the only one who
could “cover” our “nakedness.” Only Jesus could take our place as the one
separated from God. Only He could do something about our situation; He could
give up His honor and die a shameful death in our place. But in taking our
shame upon Himself, He took our shame from us.
How do we know that God
allowed this, that Jesus’ undeserved shame removed our own?
Because after three
days in the tomb, Jesus rose from the dead! This was a confirmation that Jesus’
sacrifice on our behalf was accepted!
After He rose from the
grave, God gave Jesus the greatest seat of honor in the whole entire world, and
He made Jesus king of the world.
And God promises that
if we would trust in Jesus, if we
would trust that it’s through Him that our sins are forgiven and we are brought
back into God’s family,
and that we would turn and follow Him (to follow means that Jesus is our king, He’s our
master, He’s our leader, and we re-orient our lives to be in accordance with
His will),
then God promises that
we would be brought into God’s
family, that our honor would be His honor, that He would forever be both our
patron and our Father, and that we would be called His children,
our sins forgiven,
and we would be
promised that we will live with God forever in a place called heaven. Yes, the
first part of Romans 6:23 says that wages of sin is death, but the second part
says that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When will we go to
heaven? At some unknown date in the future. Some people who trust and follow
Jesus will go straight to being with Him in heaven without dying. Others who
trust and follow Him will die before going to heaven. In either case, heaven is
only available to those that have trusted and followed Him, because it is only
as we trust and follow that we are brought into God’s family, our sins
forgiven, our honor not our own but Christ’s.
How do we follow Him?
We do this with the aid of the Holy Spirit, who is also God, which lives in our
hearts. We now, with His help, do good works for God, loving and honoring Him
and loving and honoring those around us, not to restore our relationship with
God (because God has already restored that relationship if we have trusted in
Him and turned and followed Him), but because we seek to grow His honor both in
the heavens and here on earth. One way we do this is by telling others about
Him so that they too can be forgiven and have their honor restored.
Now you are in one of
two places: either you are either trusting in and following Jesus, therefore
you are in God’s family, you are God’s child; or, you are not trusting and following Jesus, and you are separated from God. The
option to choose to trust and follow Jesus is only available why you are still
alive; because we can die at any time, and nobody knows when they will die, it
is extremely unwise to put off making this decision if it makes sense to you
and you long for a restored relationship with God and an end to the pain of
separation from Him.
The question is, where
are you? Are you separated from God, or are you in God’s family? If you are
separated from God, where would you like to be? If you would like to be in
God’s family, the way you get there is by talking to God, which is what prayer is. Just like you cannot really accept
a gift without receiving it—taking it into your arms—prayer is how you receive
God’s gift of forgiveness and enter His family. In your prayer you tell God
that you understand that there is nothing you can do to restore your honor or
your relationship with Him, but that you understand that He sent Jesus to die
on the cross for this purpose. You thank Him for doing this for you, and you
praise Him for restoring you into His family and seek to follow Him.
So, this 3 Circle
method is one way of presenting the gospel from an honor-shame perspective. One
of my favorite conversion stories is in Acts 16:
The crowd joined in the
attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped
and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown
into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he
received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in
the stocks. – Acts 16:22-24
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and
singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly
there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were
shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came
loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword
and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But
Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” – Acts 16:25-28
The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell
trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs,
what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you
will be saved—you and your household.” – Acts 16:29-31
Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and
to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them
and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were
baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he
was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole
household. – Acts 16:32-34
We may not see such
miracles like earthquakes that loosen chains as people come to Christ, but
every conversion is no less a miracle. It is the Lord Himself that changes
people’s hearts, that brings them to repentance. One reason I love this account
is because it is in the context of community (hearing the badly wounded
believers singing praises to God together) that the jailor asks how he can be
saved. As Jayson Georges writes in the 3D Gospel,
“Through a community
encounter, unbelievers come to redefine their court of reputation (i.e., who
decides which people are honorable) and honor code (i.e., what is truly
honorable and shameful) in light of God’s honor.”
He also writes,
“True face only comes
from encountering the Face of God. Relationally knowing God’s Face, as revealed
in the face of Jesus, is the only definitive source for gaining a new and
esteemed status.”
And he writes,
“Eternal glory comes
solely through God’s Son (John 17:22) because only God’s opinion will last
forever. When people reject God as the lone source and arbiter of honor, they
choose finite honor over infinite glory (John 12:42-43). Christian mission
replaces false shame (‘I am a worthless nobody’) and false honor (‘My group is
best!’) with true honor from God.” –Jayson Georges
Note that Paul saves
the jailer’s life by yelling out “we are here.” By choosing not to flee, Paul
and Silas potentially sacrificed their own lives to preserve his life and
honor. In sharing a meal together, they demonstrated with action the reality
that the jailer (formerly their persecutor) was now truly a member of their
family, the amazing and diverse family of Christ.
A key point of the
series is that the themes of shame and honor run deeply through all of Scripture
but our worldview blinds us to much of it; these themes do not naturally
resonate for us like they would for those who were around when the Bible was
written. As Sam Winfield, a missionary who works within honor-shame cultures,
asks hauntingly of those who would share the gospel (which should be all of us,
since God commissions us all to do it),
“If I as a messenger
happen to be a product of the most individualistic culture in history, how is
that affecting my spiritual walk personally, my conception of the community of
God corporately, and my message cross-culturally?” – Sam Winfield
The answer is that our
western worldview of course affects us profoundly
in each of these areas. I think it is important for us to recognize and
remember this! Hopefully this series begins to make a dent in our thinking, but
I encourage you to continually ask God to continue to open your heart and your
eyes to these ideas so that we could know God better and love Him more. I also
encourage you to continually ask God to help us to be more effective witnesses,
ministers of reconciliation, and ambassadors for our glorious King. May we sing
with multitudes in Revelation 5:
You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals, because You were slain, and with Your blood You
purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
– Rev. 5:9
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