Many cultures around the world have systems built on honor and shame. The journey back from disgrace is to restore one´s honor. How do you do the honorable thing even when it does not save you from the possibilities of pain and/or heartache? How do you make amends so that you can be redeemed from shame and restored to an honorable position? Christians have spent the last two millennia talking about being free from paying the price we owed. I am left to ponder if somewhere along the way we lost our honor in all that talking. Navigating current events with honor can be difficult when it appears as if the answer to being “supportive“ or providing a “counter-argument“ can lead you to being shamed, with no way back to actual forgiveness or being restored to an honorable place. I am stuck on the supposed simplicity of Mathew 22:37-39. Two scriptures to sum up the ENTIRE OLD TESTAMENT? Forgiveness is absolute, but what comes after that is also important.
The following thought process began with a fall and a potentially broken wrist.
I have always been the “big kid“ where I grew up on the mission field. If the younger children got hurt, I was made to understand by their parents that my actions caused the kids harm, despite the fact that we were all playing together. This led me to become overly fearful as an adult around kids. In my teens and twenties, I eventually declared that I did not like kids in general. After nine years of immersive kid therapy with my nephew and my best friend´s kids, I have learned to have fun, and still, watch out for a kid´s general well being. This has allowed me to connect with the Missionary Kids (MKs) here in my community.
Recently, one brave MK put their trust in me to try something in the name of fun. In a series of physics miscalculations, I made a horrible judgment call. This caused the brave MK to fall from a great height and land on their wrist. The way they landed on the tile floor…broken for sure. They had placed their trust in me and I failed. Enter in years of past shame and fearfulness. It was enough to make me want to hide and pull into myself. However, that is not the way to forgiveness, restitution, and renewed honor. I sincerely believe that as an honorable Christian it is my responsibility to seek forgiveness from that child. It is also on me to seek how I may offer restitution for the damage I caused. That is my duty as a loving Christian friend. I hold myself responsible for damaging my MK friend, even though it was not intentional. I hold the blame for their pain and also the undue stressors it puts on their parents. It is only through asking forgiveness and offering restitution that I can hope to be forgiven and also forgive myself.
God loves us unconditionally, that is part of His hesed. In his book, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness, Michael Card defines hesed as “When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.“ Christians can choose to enact a form of love via hesed to restore honor through forgiveness including releasing the need for restitution or they can forgive and allow the process of restoration through restitution. Either way, the offer of restitution should be made to help repair the relationship. The results should be the same, a restored communal relationship, and the act of restoring honor and trust for yourself. Blessings abound for both sides in this story. God had compassion on the MK and myself. The wrist was not broken, just severely bruised. Which is painful in its own right, but better than broken. However, the story continues as I have begun the journey of restoring my honor with that young MK. God´s blessing made the journey easier for me, as it did not result in ruining their fun with a cast as a constant reminder during summer vacation. However, the honor of their trust will still need to be restored. It is a work in progress or in some ways a measure of restitution.
So what is the neat little bow that ties this all together? I do not have an answer to that. All I have is more questions. As Christians, have we become less than honorable in how we treat people? Not even just the community at large? After separating from the Catholic Church and the idea of penance, has the Protestant Reformation trivialized true restitution for those of us who identify as “saved through grace“? In other words, do we play at offering up restitution, but in our hearts, we go to the person(s) we wronged with a malformed idea that they will forgive us without having to truly engage in restitution? If they do ask us to make restitution, do we then grumble about their “lack of forgiveness“? Do we allow ourselves to grow bitter because we did not go into that situation with the right attitude and a correct heart?
Take for example Zacchaeus, after an encounter of forgiveness from the Master, he declared a plan of action to make restitution at a rate of four times the original amount. I am sure that his honor in the community was greatly restored because of this action. Do we rejoice in making restitution and renewing our honor like Zacchaeus? Has our concept of practicing “grace,“ led the church as a whole to not fully grasp the concept of true hesed? Are we even less capable of understanding that now, because we do not engage deeply in the idea of restitution and honor as a Christian discipline? How many times would our relationships be strengthened if right restitution was made and honor on both sides was restored? How much could be accomplished as a tight-knit community, if we had healthier bonds of honor? These are the questions I am wrestling with at the moment.
Here are two simple ones for you:
Are you loving God with all your mind, body, soul?
Are you loving others as you are loving yourself?
