{"id":655,"date":"2021-04-19T08:46:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T12:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=655"},"modified":"2021-04-19T08:46:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T12:46:28","slug":"winning-by-losing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/19\/winning-by-losing\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning by Losing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The average American may think that the \u201cBig Game\u201d is the Super Bowl, the seventh game of the World Series, or that magical hoops contest back in high school when he\/she won the state championship with a three-pointer at the buzzer.

But the game with the greatest stakes has always been the Honor Game \u2013 a dramatic public spectacle that\u2019s been played out in countless communities for thousands of years.  

Most ancient civilizations, including Israel, were shame and honor cultures.  The highest social value was to be publicly esteemed.  The greatest personal disaster (which might also spell disaster for one\u2019s whole family) was to lose face.   

Historically, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures have placed great emphasis on personal and family honor.  The same was true of the Age of Chivalry in Europe, Victorian England, and the Wild West and Deep South in the United States. 

Honor is a zero-sum game.  There\u2019s a winner and a loser in every transaction. 

In a shame and honor culture, there\u2019s only so much honor to go around.  If honor flows to someone\u2019s account, it has to be withdrawn from someone else\u2019s account. 

If you\u2019re the wounded party \u2013 especially if you\u2019re a male \u2013 your damaged reputation must be restored.  The heroic Greek ideal was to seek revenge.  The mythological champion Achilles wreaked havoc on anyone who offended him.  Modern cult heroes like John Wayne would have cheered him on.  To quote the Duke from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon<\/em>:  \u201cNever apologize.  Never say you\u2019re sorry.  It\u2019s a sign of weakness.\u201d    

Offended honor might require a duel.  \u201cI demand satisfaction!\u201d  If both parties fire their guns and miss, so much the better.  No one is hurt and both sides have preserved their honor \u2013 which is by far the most important outcome. 

We may not notice it, but honor and shame are at stake in virtually every Bible story.

As Brandon O\u2019Brien and Randy Richards point out in their book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes<\/em>, American Bible students often overlook the fact that Jesus\u2019 private conversations and public confrontations have a very different feel.

Whenever someone approaches Jesus seeking information, they do so privately. Think of Nicodemus the Pharisee questioning Jesus at night, and the disciples taking Jesus aside to ask him the meaning of his parables.

But whenever someone asks Jesus a question in public, they\u2019re not really seeking information.  They\u2019re seeking a showdown.  The game \u2013 the Honor Game, that is \u2013 is on.  There will be a winner and a loser in this contest, and the crowd will render the final verdict.  The loser will be silenced and shamed, while the winner will rise in public esteem. 

The disciples of John the Baptist ask openly why Jesus doesn\u2019t instruct his disciples to fast, the way they<\/em> were taught (Matthew 9:14).  The Pharisees want to know who Jesus thinks he is, since he shows no respect for the Sabbath (Mark 2:24).  The Sadducees, who don\u2019t believe in the afterlife, play mind games with Jesus in an attempt to make him look foolish. (Matthew 22:23-32)  Experts in the Law try to corner him on the red-hot issue of whether Jews should cooperate with their Roman overlords: \u201cShould we pay taxes to Caesar or not?\u201d (Luke 20:22) 

In each case, Jesus leaves them in tatters.  His questioners walk away feeling foolish.  The crowds can\u2019t get enough of it. 

This is not to say that Jesus is unloving.  But sometimes the truth hurts.  And in a shame and honor culture, the wounds of being shown to be wrong \u2013 in front of the watching world \u2013 can feel deep and raw.

And they can also feel unforgiveable. <\/em>

People sometimes ask, \u201cIf Jesus was this gracious, compassionate, perfect person, why did he have to die?  It doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d  But it does make sense in a culture where losing face simply has<\/em> to be made right. 

How can Jesus\u2019 opponents overcome their dishonor? 

Maybe they can trap him with better questions.  But his answers are so insightful, so surprising, and so disarming that one of his questioners concludes, \u201cNo one ever spoke like this man.\u201d (John 7:46)  After topping his critics yet again, \u201cthey did not dare to question him further.\u201d (Luke 20:40)

If Jesus can\u2019t be publicly silenced in the Honor Game, then his detractors will need to silence him forever.  They will cause him to lose honor by being condemned as a criminal.  By dying a slave\u2019s death \u2013 crucifixion was reserved by the Romans for those with the least public honor \u2013 their standing would be restored.  \u201cYou see, this proves he was a bad person.  He was dead wrong.  So we win.\u201d 

What makes Jesus so different from other ancient world figures is that he wins by losing<\/em>. 

Jesus loses the Honor Game \u2013 and in so doing he saves the world. 

At the Last Supper, as he kneels to wash the mud and manure from the feet of his disciples \u2013 a task explicitly reserved for the least respected servant in the household \u2013 he makes it clear that we are to give up playing the Honor Game as well: 

Then he said, \u201cDo you understand what I have done to you? You address me as \u2018Teacher\u2019 and \u2018Master,\u2019 and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other\u2019s feet.\u201d  <\/em>(John 13:12-14)

Every day we have a chance to win the Big Game \u2013 looking good, feeling good, and making good \u2013 the contest that\u2019s so important to so many people. 

Or we can choose to lose \u2013 and in the process find ourselves in God\u2019s Winners Circle. 
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The average American may think that the \u201cBig Game\u201d is the Super Bowl, the seventh game of the World Series, or that magical hoops contest back in high school when he\/she won the state championship with a three-pointer at the buzzer. But the game with the greatest stakes has always been the Honor Game \u2013 a dramatic public spectacle that\u2019s… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[213,214],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-honor-culture","tag-washing-feet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}