Honor

Tuesday, October 21, 2008 -- Week of Proper 24

Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 989)
Psalms 26, 28 (morning) 36, 39 (evening)
Ecclesiasticus* 6:5-17
Revelation 7:9-17
Luke 10:1-16

* found in the Apocrypha; also called the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach, or just Sirach

When I got interested in flower gardening, I learned a maxim about propagating certain perennials. In the strange arithmetic of flowers, "When you divide them, they multiply." So I have hostas from several friends who have divided their plants and given them to me, and I have done the same for others. There are always more hostas. For me to receive another, someone else doesn't have to lose one.

A zero sum game is the description we give when we believe there is a finite, fixed amount of some resource. For anyone to gain more means that someone else must lose a comparable amount. When we have a cherry pie for dessert, that is a zero sum game. If I get a bigger slice of the pie, somebody else's slice will have to be smaller.

In the ancient world, and in much of the Mediterranian today, honor is a zero sum game. It is believed that there is a finite amount of honor in the world, and for anyone to gain honor means that someone else must lose honor. The competition for honor is a complicated match. (In our culture, urban gangs are organized according to an honor hierarchy -- they compete for "respect.")

It is good to gain honor in such a culture. Little else is more important. One's honor is one's status. Yet it is not good to be seen grasping for honor, because by doing so you are injuring your neighbor -- it is a zero sum game. One must accrue honor modestly, by living honorably and by competing for honor correctly. The opposite of honor is shame.

And so we read of Ben Sira's advice about friendship. Friendship must be practiced very carefully, he advises, because one's friends are also one's competitors for honor. "Let those who are friendly with you be many, but let your advisers be one in a thousand. When you gain friends, gain them through testing, and do not trust them hastily... Keep away from your enemies, and be on guard with your friends. Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter: whoever finds one has found a treasure."

Knowing a bit about the honor code helps us understand some parts of the Bible that can be mystifying, such as Jesus' retort when someone calls him, "Good teacher." "Why do you call me good? Only God is good." In his culture, to complement another is to tell that one to his face that he is rising above his appropriate level. When this man called Jesus, "Good teacher," it was an act of aggression. Jesus repudiates the compliment, as any honorable man would.

In today's Gospel reading we hear of the sending of the seventy. How each city receives them will be a measure of that city's honor or shame. Jesus gives to his disciples his own identity and honor. They are his representatives and agents. "Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me." Jesus' followers share in his "glory," the early church insists.

Beyond that is a more radical claim. Jesus tells them, "whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me." In an honor/shame culture, that is a blasphemous claim. Jesus is claiming to have the honor of God. Such a claim is bound to create a hostile reaction. Part of the scandal of the Church was its insistence that Jesus, a human being, had the right to claim the honor that is reserved only for God because Jesus is God's unique Son. Knowing a bit about the honor culture helps us realize how radical and threatening such a claim would have seemed.

Jesus' message compromised the honor/shame system. He invited people into a world of infinite honor and infinite love -- he invited them into a relationship with God. He called those who entered that relationship "friends," not servants. To be Jesus' friend is to be a friend of God. Instead of competition, the wealth of honor just became boundless.

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas