What Is Honor?

What is Honor?

A sermon delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson

October 22, 2017

at Bethany Presbyterian Church, Zuni, Virginia

Romans 12: 10b

Daniel 6: 1-5

Matthew 13: 54-58

Let us pray,

Help us to see despite our eyes

Help us to think outside of our minds

Help us to be more than our lives   

For your eyes show the way

    Your mind knows the truth

    Your being is the life.

Amen.

So we continue our work through the Marks of a Christian, with this week’s phrase, “Out do one another in showing honor.” Here is the reading of the full list again:

 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰ love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹ Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹² Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. ¹³ Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. ¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸ If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹ Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

So, “Outdo one another in showing honor. . .”

At least that is what it says in my NRSV translation, but if you are following along in the NIV, it says something completely different. . . it says, “honor one another above yourselves” hmmm. . . which is right? Because they really don’t mean the same thing. One of them has to do with competing in someway to be the most honorable, and the other one is just about honoring other people above what you honor yourself. . . I’m not sure which is the most challenging of the two. . . but the second one, the one about honoring other people above what you honor yourself is a lot like loving your neighbor as yourself, so it really doesn’t push the envelope, so when I was going through the study of it all this week, I was pulling for the other one, the challenge one, the one about competing. I guess I like competition, and especially when it has to do with honor.

When I was Freshman at Hampden Sydney, the college President was a legend, we all loved him, were in awe of him, just respected him to the utmost, General Sam Wilson, who recently just passed away. If you watched the Vietnam Documentary that just aired on PBS he was one of the people often interviewed, probably the most notable one was like the 2^nd or 3^rd episode where he gave the title to the episode, he said, “it was at that point we crossed the river Styx,” now, I was a freshman at orientation, and this man gets up to make the welcome speech, and I just remember him saying, “You men, are now Hampden-Sydney men, you are men of strong character, men of Honor,” and that was the first of many, all of his addresses to us included that phrase, “Hampden-Sydney Men, Men of Character, Men of Honor.” Honor was an important part of my college life. Hampden-Sydney has one of the oldest student run honor codes and councils in the country. . . the code was made up of two statements, and they echoed General Wilson’s description to us. . . it said, “The Hampden-Sydney man will behave as a gentleman at all times and in all places” and the second “The Hampden-Sydney man will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do.” These were the codes we held up, especially the second part, because the punishment for any violation of the Honor Code was Expulsion, first offence, no second chances. . . and it meant a lot to us, it meant we never had to lock our doors, never had to worry about where we stood, and professors did not have to stay in the room when they gave tests, and we had lots of otherwise freedom at the school. . . Both schools I taught at, Christchurch and Blue Ridge had similar honor codes, though neither took it quite as seriously, and it showed, and it frustrated me often. . . other teachers would police their students during tests and quizzes and couldn’t believe that I’d leave them alone on their own to finish theirs. . . it was amazing how much the standard being relax, destroyed the integrity of the honor code. . . so maybe that’s why I liked the idea of “outdoing one another when showing honor” so much more, because it meant that the standard would always be being raised, constantly going up, as people were making other people more honorable, not in a forced or judging way, but in a friendly outdoing and competitive way. . .there is much to say for it I think. . . but it really shouldn’t matter which Bible translation I like more, we want to get at which one is more accurate, which one embodies Paul’s original intent and meaning the best.

So again, we return to the Greek I guess, this is what they made us all take it for. . . to be able to decipher, and this is one that has to do with the grammar aspects instead of the . vocabulary, because again you have just a few words, ta, timay, allaythus, proaygoumenoy. . . and we dealt with allaythus last week, remember it just meant another. . . so we have the another, but are we supposed to honor others over ourselves, or compete with one another for honor. . . and this is the grammar part. . .now the tense of the verb that is either translated, outdo – or – view higher, truly means to be out in front, or to lead, be put ahead. . . so you can see it working either way, right, it just depends on who is being put out in front, is it a competition for that lead spot, or is it that we are just to put the other there. . . literally the grammar sends us into the outdo realm, be outfront when it comes to honor. . . but why the discrepancy? And this gets us down to the main difference between the NRSV and the NIV. . . which is truly why I am going through all of this. . . because I usually use NRSV and you all are use to NIV. . . and it isn’t really that one is better than the other, it just comes down to choices. . . and NRSV or its predecessor the RSV – revised standard version, tries to go for literal translations whenever possible, whereas the NIV takes into account the tradition of it all, and how it makes sense best according to the viewpoint of the tranlators. . . and they get to a phrase like this, and rather than be literal, they change it to what they think it is most likely to mean based on many factors. . . like I said tradition, or other parts in the Bible that it may parallel. . . so they would see a phrase like this and see, putting others above yourself in honor, because that seems to most reflect what they already know and assume Christianity is about, rather than letting themselves be challenged by a more literal translation that may make a little bit less sense, like people competing over who can be the leader when it comes to honor. . . I mean what does that even mean?

So let’s look at the other side of this, the word translated as honor is interesting, too, because maybe it isn’t the same as the honor code at Hampden-Sydney, where it is a list of things you don’t do, ie, Lying, Cheating, and Stealing, because how can you not do something better than someone else. . . what is that even like. . . I’m not. . . . I’m not. . .

That Greek word is Timay and it is interesting because of where else it is used in the New Testament, so that leads us to our Gospel reading, this from Matthew 13: 54-58

⁵⁴ He came to his hometown and began to teach the people^[h] in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? ⁵⁵ Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶ And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” ⁵⁷ And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house.” ⁵⁸ And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.

This is that famous line that keeps all pastors from returning to work at their home church, or to retrace their footsteps, it goes right along with that idea of you can’t go home, or a twist on the old Heraclitus line, you can’t step in the same river twice. . .though I think he meant something else by that, I’ve heard him quoted to describe this phenomemnon. . . Because here you have Jesus, he goes back to Nazareth, isn’t this that Carpenter’s son? Yeah we know him, we know everything about him, there is nothing special, nothing we don’t already know. . . you are up there preaching and they are remembering the time that you couldn’t stop laughing that time during communion, or that you had that special truck you always liked to carry around, or a blanket, or a dolly, awe remember that time when was in the Christmas pageant as a sheep with his little hat with the ears on it. . . remember when he had that speaking part in the play and forgot the words, They are thinking all of these things about you, and can’t see that you’ve grown up, that you’ve changed, that you’ve had a ton of new experiences. You could have been gone for 20 years, and come back and it would be the same. It doesn’t matter how long, these things happen, and they even happened to Jesus so you know they’d happen to us. . . but this word Honor here. . . A prophet is “honored” everywhere but in his hometown. That is the same word as from our passage, out do one another with showing honor. . . so what is the honor that Christ is lacking when he goes back to Nazareth. . . I think the term that the kids today would use for it is Cred. . . Jesus does not have enough Cred in his hometown, not like he might have elsewhere, and how interesting that is, how tragic. . . because what this word really means is value, it really doesn’t have much to do with Honor, though we think that Honor gives a person value, this word Timay is about Value. . . some other places in the New Testament it is used to describe the payment given for something of Value. . . interesting. . . so this is the tragic thing right, the people in Nazareth love Jesus, but they don’t value him for his true worth, but instead for the box that they have put him in. . . that box that says, o that’s just Joseph the Carpenter’s son. . . .

Let’s look at the Old Testament Lesson. . . here we have Daniel, who has come to be pretty valuable to the King, during the exile. .  . this is Daniel 6: 1-5

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred twenty satraps, stationed throughout the whole kingdom, ² and over them three presidents, including Daniel; to these the satraps gave account, so that the king might suffer no loss. ³ Soon Daniel distinguished himself above all the other presidents and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king planned to appoint him over the whole kingdom. ⁴ So the presidents and the satraps tried to find grounds for complaint against Daniel in connection with the kingdom. But they could find no grounds for complaint or any corruption, because he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption could be found in him. ⁵ The men said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.”

I love the story of Daniel, it is much like Joseph, but in Babylon instead of Egypt, he interprets dreams he faces trials, and all throughout he remains steadfast, and this steadfast devotion wins over the king, he becomes respected, because the king sees his value, but how interesting that when this value is seen the first thing that others want to do is break him down. . . there is jealousy and backstabbing going on in this court, and Daniel is caught in the middle of it, again and again, but each time he comes through it because he is steadfast, he is a man of honor, and character, perhaps he went to Hampden-Sydney in some ancient time travelling exchange program.

But does the world put value on such things any more? If we look at those who make the most money as having the most value then maybe not.. . . If we look at those who have the most power in Washington or at the state and Local level, then maybe honor and character and steadfastness are not honored there either. . .gettign things done, saying the right things, having the right connections, the right donors, that is what is of value there. . .we seem to value athletic prowess pretty high, too. . . if you look at where our money goes. . . actors and msicians when they get famous seem to do pretty well, talking heads on tv. . . but I think lately we are seeing through it more and more, seeing through to the fact that many time there is nothing of real value and substance behind it, and it is glaringly apparent. . .

I remember another speech, this one not be General Wilson, but by this guy who was the President of the Board at Blue Ridge, and he gave the graduation address to the boys the year before I did, and he was going through it, he was kinda gruff like General Wilson was, same generation, and very similar backgrounds in Intelligence, this guy had worked at the CIA or the like, and he was talking to the boys, and he just said, “You all will be men of honor, or you’ll be of no damn worth to anybody. . . we need honorable men as much as we don’t need men without honor. . . You might not be rich, famous, a boss, whatever, but you will be a man of honor, because that is all that matters. . . maybe there is a connection, real value is about being honorable. . . at least according to many. . . I’d agree. . . though there is no dollar amount you can put on it, honor is of real value in this world.

Let’s look at something that someone wrote anonymously so I don’t know anything about him, but that may be because he wanted it to be about someone else, the subject of the piece, it is called “One Solitary Life”

"He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpentry shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

When the tide of popular opinion turned against him, his friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies. He was tried and convicted. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never went to college. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompanies greatness.

Yet all the armies that ever marched, and all the governments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, have not affected life upon this earth as powerfully as that One Solitary Life." ~ Author Unknown

Now I’m not sure whether we are supposed to out do each other in showing honor or not, or whether we are to honor others above ourselves, I’m not sure which of those is a better rending of Paul’s original words, but I know that both of them is a good place to start, and both of them seek to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. . . and if the Marks of a Christian are about what it means to be a Christian, and the word Christian means little Christ, walking in Christ’s footsteps are a good place to follow, and I like the out do because it is never done. . . it doesn’t finish. . . because you can’t short of the cross, you can’t follow Christ all the way to completion without it, so on the journey along the way, we can seek to grow closer to that final goal, even if we cannot attain it perfectly. . .