Freedom From Shame
Freedom From Shame
October 11, 2015
The Rev. Dr. Jay Bartow
Texts: Psalm 8; Phil 2:3-11; Heb. 12:1-2
The summer I turned sixteen I spent six weeks living with a family in Madrid as an exchange student with Youth for Understanding. They had a few books in English in their library and I read one of them titled, The Ugly American. That book made me so angry at our diplomatic ineptitude that I decided then and there that we could do better, and I would train to be a diplomat who spoke the language of the country where he was stationed, learned their culture, and sought to find common ground toward a more peaceful and just world.
So when I entered UCLA the next year I majored in International Relations, a decision I have never regretted. In fact, if I had it to do all over again I would choose the same major, because now more than ever our world stands in dire need of better understanding between its diverse cultures, language groups, and political perspectives. Technology cannot save us if we don’t learn how to get along with one another and to harness technology for beneficial purposes. Was it Einstein who said upon the harnessing of atomic energy, “Everything has changed except our way of interacting with one another”?
I began my first year at UCLA as an idealistic agnostic, but at the invitation of a fellow student I began to read the New Testament for the first time. I was amazed by what I found. The words and way of Jesus of Nazareth struck fire in my heart and mind. He addressed the deep problems of human behavior in a way like no other, and I felt that as his ambassador I might be able to address those problems more effectively than as an employee of the State Department. Paul says to followers of Jesus that we all are ambassadors for Christ. So with no disrespect to those in our department of State, I am glad I chose the path I did.
When we read the Bible we sense that we are entering into a different world, a different culture. And that is right. Our sacred book came into being in an honor-shame culture, a culture that prevails to this day in much of our world, but a culture different from our own. Much of what I say on this topic I owe to Bob Blincoe, a veteran missiologist, who has spent decades working in and studying the Islamic world. He draws in turn on the work of others, one of whom is David Pryce Jones, who in his book, The Closed Circle, says that in an honor-shame culture honor is what makes life worthwhile, while shame is living death, not be endured, requiring that it be avenged. Honor means public dignity, social reputation, tribal pride, and is a force more powerful than self-preservation. In our world today we witness the never-ending supply of volunteers for suicide bombing missions in places like Iraq, Iran, Syria, and our own nation on September 11, 2001, who believe that shame is worse than death to one who feels his family, faith, clan, or tribe has been dishonored.
Yusuf Idris in an essay titled The Deliverance, written on the occasion of the October 1973 War Against Israel, in which Egyptian forces pushed back the Israeli army from its territory, wrote: “With one stroke of a decree the miracle was accomplished: We were transformed from an honorless existence, an existence of beasts and animals, into human beings possessed of honor. And with Anwar Sadat’s decision not only our army crossed over the canal, but our people crossed over with it the deserts of obsequiousness and submissiveness, crossed over the emptiness and the ignominy, crossed over the agonies which man cannot endure.”
We bump up against the honor-shame worldview right here where we live. A friend of mine tutors middle school students in math. Two of her students mentioned that a friend of theirs was shot and killed. It appears that he was a member of a gang and was trying to leave the gang. But that would shame the gang, make it look like the gang had no discipline and loyalty from its members, and so the gang avenged the shame by killing this young man who tried to leave.
Violence between gangs is also about saving face and maintaining honor. Every score must be settled. At last count twenty-nine deaths this year in Salinas, most of them gang related. That is how scores are settled in an honor-shame world.
Here is just a sampling of honor- shame texts from the Bible. Leah, Jacob’s first but not favorite wife, says in Gen. 30:20 “God has endowed me with a good dowry; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.” In the heartrending account of the rape of Tamar by her half-brother, Amnon, David’s first born son, we hear her plead with her attacker: “No, my brother, do not force me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this wanton folly. As for me, where could I carry my shame?” (2 Sam. 13:12-13a) She was shamed and rejected by her attacker after his dread deed. And if you read this R rated story you will see that her brother Absalom avenged her shame by plotting and carrying out the murder of his half-brother, Amnon.
This worldview was and is prevalent throughout the Middle East, and even much of the Mediterranean world, and through most of Asia as well. It works itself out in ways we find shocking, but to one within that world, there is a cruel logic at work.
Here is a case in point. A Kurdish refugee living in the UK was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murdering his sixteen-year-old daughter because she had started a relationship with a Lebanese Christian boy and had become too “westernized.” By stabbing his daughter in the neck, Abdalla Yones performed what in the Muslim world is considered an “honor killing,” an attack on a relative who has brought shame to the family.
There are scores of such killings each year and the perpetrator holds his head high for having protected the honor of the family. The perpetrators believe that the worst punishment one can face is shame. How can one expunge it? By retaliation against those who bring it, and if that is not possible, by suicide. The high suicide rate in honor-shame societies like Japan and Korea has a basis in this worldview. If you fail to gain entry into the school your family expects you to attend, and for which they have sacrificed, you bear a terrible burden of shame. If you are a public official convicted of fraud you might choose death as preferable to a prison sentence.
Neither vengeance against the one who dishonors us, nor suicide are what I would call good options for one who feels shamed. But if we read the Bible we discover a way out, we encounter a pioneer and perfecter of our faith who died a shameful death to lift the oppressive burden of shame that weighs down those who live in an honor-shame world.
In Hebrews 12 the writer reminds us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, heroes and heroines of the faith, and we are to set aside every weight and sin that clings so closely and run with perseverance (a favorite word of John Calvin) the race that is set before us. How do we find strength to carry on? By looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God, which is, of course, a place of great honor.
Jesus endured the most shameful of deaths He was tried by a kangaroo court called together illegally under cover of darkness, convicted by a Roman governor, stripped, beaten, spat upon, railed at and ridiculed, and then nailed naked to a Roman cross. There is no fate more despicable than that. And while hanging there he prayed for his executioners, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
A Roman centurion who had seen many such executions after witnessing Jesus’ death said, “Truly, this man was God’s Son!” (Mt. 27:54) He saw what so many cannot fathom, that God means to break the chains of shame by taking it in our stead, offering us forgiveness and welcoming us to a place of honor in God’s presence.
Paul proclaims this same truth in that passage from Philippians 2 in which, like the writer of the Hebrews, he urges us to imitate and follow Jesus who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him that name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Chris is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
Paul proclaimed Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:23-24) Were Paul alive today he would say the cross is a stumbling block also to the Muslim, for the Quran reveres Jesus as a prophet and Muslims believe that God would not allow a great prophet like Jesus to suffer a shameful death on a Roman cross. That is unthinkable. That is beneath God’s honor.
Why would God take on shame? Why not avenge it? Because to avenge it is to perpetuate and magnify the hurt. Every retaliation leaves a family, clan, or nation in grief and determined to even the score. Observe history and you see where that takes us.
The vengeful terms of the treaty of Versailles destroyed the German economy and humiliated a proud and productive nation. As they simmered in resentment a demagogue rose to power promising to restore their honor, and soon a nation that was foundering was at work again and reclaiming lost territory and pride and igniting another war. Wiser heads prevailed at the end of that war, and a soldier statesman, George Marshall, proposed a plan to rebuild Europe and Japan, friend and foe alike, and Germany and Japan are now two of the most prosperous nations on earth and numbered among our closest allies and strongest trading partners.
I believe that the greatest achievement of General Douglas Macarthur was not on the field of battle, but in his administration of the occupation of post war Japan. Macarthur understood the importance of honor to the Japanese, and he treated the Emperor with respect, and the Emperor guided his nation through what could have been a period of bloody insurrection to a time of reconstruction and reconciliation. I believe that there were no American fatalities during the post war time of occupation in Japan. Macarthur trained his forces not to humiliate the Japanese. Compare that with what happened at Abu Ghraib, in Iraq, and compare the outcomes.
We see how important it is for us to understand cultures which differ from our own, how high the stakes are if we do not. We have spoken of the fate of nations, but we can and must understand our faith’s way of release from shame for ourselves. All of us have experienced to some degree ridicule, rejection, put-downs from others. Think how important it was for us to be accepted when we were adolescents. We wanted to belong, to be part of the “in crowd”, and we sometimes did foolhardy things to win entrance into that group. I confess that I did. Fortunately, nothing that did me or others lasting harm.
But when I became a follower of Jesus and began to read the Bible for the first time in college, I began to see that God bestows honor, an honor that no one can take from us. I chose Psalm 8 to be read today because it reflects on who we are as persons created in God’s image. The Psalmist ponders: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”
Think about that the next time you are tempted to demean someone or yourself. They and you are crowned with glory and honor. Treat others and yourselves accordingly. I am not saying that we approve of everything others or we ourselves do; many things are beneath our honor. But the way back and the way out is to remember who we are, created in God’s image, capable of great creativity, achievement, and above all, capable of great love.
John, the Apostle of love, writes in his first letter: “We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Every time we gather for worship we pray as Jesus taught us, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” When we realize that we are forgiven we are freed to forgive others.
Isak Dinesen in her moving novel, Out of Africa, describes this biblical view of God’s creation and human beings in particular in a passage on pride, a passage pointed out to me by friend, to whom I am thankful. Dinesen writes about healthy pride, or you could say honor. Not a pride that looks down on others. She writes:
“Pride is faith in the idea that God had when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God’s idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny. People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of God in the making of them, and sometimes they make you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or else it has been lost, and who shall find it again? They have got to accept as success what others warrant to be so, and to take their happiness, and even their own selves, at the quotation of the day. They tremble with reason before their fate.”
“Love the pride of God beyond all things, and the pride of your neighbor as your own.” (pp.271-272)
No one can take what God gives us: the honor of being created in God’s image, capable of great love. We dare not look to others to justify our existence or assure us of our worth. But if we have faith in the idea God had in making us and find our honor and security in carrying out that idea, then no human being or group or gang can shame us, for they cannot take away what God gives us. The cross of Christ takes away our shame, and the honor of the risen Christ is given to us in its stead. Claim these gifts and share them with the world.
October 11, 2015
The Rev. Dr. Jay Bartow
Texts: Psalm 8; Phil 2:3-11; Heb. 12:1-2
The summer I turned sixteen I spent six weeks living with a family in Madrid as an exchange student with Youth for Understanding. They had a few books in English in their library and I read one of them titled, The Ugly American. That book made me so angry at our diplomatic ineptitude that I decided then and there that we could do better, and I would train to be a diplomat who spoke the language of the country where he was stationed, learned their culture, and sought to find common ground toward a more peaceful and just world.
So when I entered UCLA the next year I majored in International Relations, a decision I have never regretted. In fact, if I had it to do all over again I would choose the same major, because now more than ever our world stands in dire need of better understanding between its diverse cultures, language groups, and political perspectives. Technology cannot save us if we don’t learn how to get along with one another and to harness technology for beneficial purposes. Was it Einstein who said upon the harnessing of atomic energy, “Everything has changed except our way of interacting with one another”?
I began my first year at UCLA as an idealistic agnostic, but at the invitation of a fellow student I began to read the New Testament for the first time. I was amazed by what I found. The words and way of Jesus of Nazareth struck fire in my heart and mind. He addressed the deep problems of human behavior in a way like no other, and I felt that as his ambassador I might be able to address those problems more effectively than as an employee of the State Department. Paul says to followers of Jesus that we all are ambassadors for Christ. So with no disrespect to those in our department of State, I am glad I chose the path I did.
When we read the Bible we sense that we are entering into a different world, a different culture. And that is right. Our sacred book came into being in an honor-shame culture, a culture that prevails to this day in much of our world, but a culture different from our own. Much of what I say on this topic I owe to Bob Blincoe, a veteran missiologist, who has spent decades working in and studying the Islamic world. He draws in turn on the work of others, one of whom is David Pryce Jones, who in his book, The Closed Circle, says that in an honor-shame culture honor is what makes life worthwhile, while shame is living death, not be endured, requiring that it be avenged. Honor means public dignity, social reputation, tribal pride, and is a force more powerful than self-preservation. In our world today we witness the never-ending supply of volunteers for suicide bombing missions in places like Iraq, Iran, Syria, and our own nation on September 11, 2001, who believe that shame is worse than death to one who feels his family, faith, clan, or tribe has been dishonored.
Yusuf Idris in an essay titled The Deliverance, written on the occasion of the October 1973 War Against Israel, in which Egyptian forces pushed back the Israeli army from its territory, wrote: “With one stroke of a decree the miracle was accomplished: We were transformed from an honorless existence, an existence of beasts and animals, into human beings possessed of honor. And with Anwar Sadat’s decision not only our army crossed over the canal, but our people crossed over with it the deserts of obsequiousness and submissiveness, crossed over the emptiness and the ignominy, crossed over the agonies which man cannot endure.”
We bump up against the honor-shame worldview right here where we live. A friend of mine tutors middle school students in math. Two of her students mentioned that a friend of theirs was shot and killed. It appears that he was a member of a gang and was trying to leave the gang. But that would shame the gang, make it look like the gang had no discipline and loyalty from its members, and so the gang avenged the shame by killing this young man who tried to leave.
Violence between gangs is also about saving face and maintaining honor. Every score must be settled. At last count twenty-nine deaths this year in Salinas, most of them gang related. That is how scores are settled in an honor-shame world.
Here is just a sampling of honor- shame texts from the Bible. Leah, Jacob’s first but not favorite wife, says in Gen. 30:20 “God has endowed me with a good dowry; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.” In the heartrending account of the rape of Tamar by her half-brother, Amnon, David’s first born son, we hear her plead with her attacker: “No, my brother, do not force me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this wanton folly. As for me, where could I carry my shame?” (2 Sam. 13:12-13a) She was shamed and rejected by her attacker after his dread deed. And if you read this R rated story you will see that her brother Absalom avenged her shame by plotting and carrying out the murder of his half-brother, Amnon.
This worldview was and is prevalent throughout the Middle East, and even much of the Mediterranean world, and through most of Asia as well. It works itself out in ways we find shocking, but to one within that world, there is a cruel logic at work.
Here is a case in point. A Kurdish refugee living in the UK was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murdering his sixteen-year-old daughter because she had started a relationship with a Lebanese Christian boy and had become too “westernized.” By stabbing his daughter in the neck, Abdalla Yones performed what in the Muslim world is considered an “honor killing,” an attack on a relative who has brought shame to the family.
There are scores of such killings each year and the perpetrator holds his head high for having protected the honor of the family. The perpetrators believe that the worst punishment one can face is shame. How can one expunge it? By retaliation against those who bring it, and if that is not possible, by suicide. The high suicide rate in honor-shame societies like Japan and Korea has a basis in this worldview. If you fail to gain entry into the school your family expects you to attend, and for which they have sacrificed, you bear a terrible burden of shame. If you are a public official convicted of fraud you might choose death as preferable to a prison sentence.
Neither vengeance against the one who dishonors us, nor suicide are what I would call good options for one who feels shamed. But if we read the Bible we discover a way out, we encounter a pioneer and perfecter of our faith who died a shameful death to lift the oppressive burden of shame that weighs down those who live in an honor-shame world.
In Hebrews 12 the writer reminds us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, heroes and heroines of the faith, and we are to set aside every weight and sin that clings so closely and run with perseverance (a favorite word of John Calvin) the race that is set before us. How do we find strength to carry on? By looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God, which is, of course, a place of great honor.
Jesus endured the most shameful of deaths He was tried by a kangaroo court called together illegally under cover of darkness, convicted by a Roman governor, stripped, beaten, spat upon, railed at and ridiculed, and then nailed naked to a Roman cross. There is no fate more despicable than that. And while hanging there he prayed for his executioners, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
A Roman centurion who had seen many such executions after witnessing Jesus’ death said, “Truly, this man was God’s Son!” (Mt. 27:54) He saw what so many cannot fathom, that God means to break the chains of shame by taking it in our stead, offering us forgiveness and welcoming us to a place of honor in God’s presence.
Paul proclaims this same truth in that passage from Philippians 2 in which, like the writer of the Hebrews, he urges us to imitate and follow Jesus who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him that name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Chris is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
Paul proclaimed Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:23-24) Were Paul alive today he would say the cross is a stumbling block also to the Muslim, for the Quran reveres Jesus as a prophet and Muslims believe that God would not allow a great prophet like Jesus to suffer a shameful death on a Roman cross. That is unthinkable. That is beneath God’s honor.
Why would God take on shame? Why not avenge it? Because to avenge it is to perpetuate and magnify the hurt. Every retaliation leaves a family, clan, or nation in grief and determined to even the score. Observe history and you see where that takes us.
The vengeful terms of the treaty of Versailles destroyed the German economy and humiliated a proud and productive nation. As they simmered in resentment a demagogue rose to power promising to restore their honor, and soon a nation that was foundering was at work again and reclaiming lost territory and pride and igniting another war. Wiser heads prevailed at the end of that war, and a soldier statesman, George Marshall, proposed a plan to rebuild Europe and Japan, friend and foe alike, and Germany and Japan are now two of the most prosperous nations on earth and numbered among our closest allies and strongest trading partners.
I believe that the greatest achievement of General Douglas Macarthur was not on the field of battle, but in his administration of the occupation of post war Japan. Macarthur understood the importance of honor to the Japanese, and he treated the Emperor with respect, and the Emperor guided his nation through what could have been a period of bloody insurrection to a time of reconstruction and reconciliation. I believe that there were no American fatalities during the post war time of occupation in Japan. Macarthur trained his forces not to humiliate the Japanese. Compare that with what happened at Abu Ghraib, in Iraq, and compare the outcomes.
We see how important it is for us to understand cultures which differ from our own, how high the stakes are if we do not. We have spoken of the fate of nations, but we can and must understand our faith’s way of release from shame for ourselves. All of us have experienced to some degree ridicule, rejection, put-downs from others. Think how important it was for us to be accepted when we were adolescents. We wanted to belong, to be part of the “in crowd”, and we sometimes did foolhardy things to win entrance into that group. I confess that I did. Fortunately, nothing that did me or others lasting harm.
But when I became a follower of Jesus and began to read the Bible for the first time in college, I began to see that God bestows honor, an honor that no one can take from us. I chose Psalm 8 to be read today because it reflects on who we are as persons created in God’s image. The Psalmist ponders: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”
Think about that the next time you are tempted to demean someone or yourself. They and you are crowned with glory and honor. Treat others and yourselves accordingly. I am not saying that we approve of everything others or we ourselves do; many things are beneath our honor. But the way back and the way out is to remember who we are, created in God’s image, capable of great creativity, achievement, and above all, capable of great love.
John, the Apostle of love, writes in his first letter: “We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Every time we gather for worship we pray as Jesus taught us, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” When we realize that we are forgiven we are freed to forgive others.
Isak Dinesen in her moving novel, Out of Africa, describes this biblical view of God’s creation and human beings in particular in a passage on pride, a passage pointed out to me by friend, to whom I am thankful. Dinesen writes about healthy pride, or you could say honor. Not a pride that looks down on others. She writes:
“Pride is faith in the idea that God had when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God’s idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny. People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of God in the making of them, and sometimes they make you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or else it has been lost, and who shall find it again? They have got to accept as success what others warrant to be so, and to take their happiness, and even their own selves, at the quotation of the day. They tremble with reason before their fate.”
“Love the pride of God beyond all things, and the pride of your neighbor as your own.” (pp.271-272)
No one can take what God gives us: the honor of being created in God’s image, capable of great love. We dare not look to others to justify our existence or assure us of our worth. But if we have faith in the idea God had in making us and find our honor and security in carrying out that idea, then no human being or group or gang can shame us, for they cannot take away what God gives us. The cross of Christ takes away our shame, and the honor of the risen Christ is given to us in its stead. Claim these gifts and share them with the world.
