Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World

by E Randolph Richards

Proverbs 3:35, “The wise inherit honor, but fools get only shame.” Proverbs is describing opposites, but the problem is the translation.7 The New American Standard Bible translates it better: “The wise will inherit honor, but fools display dishonor.” Dishonor is the opposite of honor. Respect is the opposite of disrespect. Grace is the opposite of disgrace. But honor is not the opposite of shame.

In the Arab world, when children fail to embody the community’s values by being disrespectful to others, or failing to greet someone, or not sharing their things, Arab parents will often say āb (pronounced abe, meaning “shame”). When we were newly married in the Middle East, we saw this happening and declared, “We will never say āb to our children.” Of course, we planned to correct them when they did things wrong, but not by saying āb. Fast-forward six years. We had an eighteen-month-old son. My wife was in the grocery store, where the man who worked there routinely gave our son a banana. We often remarked on how kind and generous he was. Our toddler son had become used to this man’s generosity. One week, my wife was shopping for vegetables, and our son pointed to a banana and said “Nana.” The man hadn’t yet offered him one. The shopkeeper felt embarrassed. My wife looked down at our son and found āb on the tip of her tongue. She loves our son and wanted to protect both him and the man from embarrassment. Her heart was for “we,” the community, including both of them. The man felt embarrassed for not offering a banana and thereby appearing stingy. Our son should have felt embarrassed for asking before it was offered. My wife felt embarrassed by the old women who were clucking their tongues. (Judgmental moms and grandmothers are not just an American phenomenon.) Saying āb to our son would protect everyone. My wife would be protected because it would show the neighborhood tha...

I WAS SITTING WITH SOME MEDITERRANEAN FRIENDS in my living room studying Mark’s Gospel. We got to the story where Jesus’ family hears all he is doing and decides to take charge of him.1 This is a very collective way of dealing with such a problem, so everyone in the living room was nodding along with the story. We got to the part where it says: Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mk 3:31-35) Suddenly my Bible study group went crazy. Ghaith stood up, arms in the air. “There is no way Jesus said something as offensive as that!” I wondered what all the fuss was about. It’s a nice story about loving one another, isn’t it? Nothing to get all worked up about. Months later the Bible study group remembered the story and said it was one of the most challenging stories in the entire Gospel of Mark. I had missed something: the foundational role kinship plays in organizing Mediterranean society. Worse, I had glossed over a scandalous statement by Jesus about how life altering the Christian message is to be. Mark probably had expected me to react like Ghaith.

Tammy, my actual sister. Recently, we were both visiting my folks. I was sleeping late, and she needed to dash over to the grocery store to buy some milk. She took my car without asking me. She knows me and knew I wouldn’t want her waking me up to ask. She can borrow my stuff, and I can borrow hers—because we’re siblings. While my sister is my blood sister, my Indonesian Christian brothers and sisters saw our relationship just the same way. One morning in Indonesia, I woke up and walked into our living room, and all our furniture was gone. I walked into the kitchen, where my wife, Stacia, was cooking, and said, “Our furniture is gone.” Without even looking up from cooking, she said, “Yeah, I noticed that, too.” I went off to teach class at the seminary where I was serving. When I got home for lunch, the living room was still empty. Later that afternoon, a truck pulled up with all our furniture. People unloaded it, put it back, and started to leave. “Wait a minute,” I said, coming in from the kitchen. “Where has our furniture been?” One of the men on the way back to the truck, said over his shoulder, “At a wedding.” When I still looked confused, he added, “It was early this morning, and you were still asleep. We knew you wouldn’t mind.” Christians are family, and families loan things. Perhaps churches in the individualist West have forgotten how to be family. One church owns a church bus. If another church needs it, are we family? “Our insurance policy won’t allow it,” my d...

Jesus says, “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves” (Lk 22:27). Jesus’ question isn’t a trick. The one sitting at the table is more important than the servant who serves. Jesus is not encouraging a Christian leader to call himself a servant but still stand up at the front, to be thanked by everyone, and to be honored. In the picture Jesus gives, the servant is not honored, not thanked, perhaps not even acknowledged. All too often “servant leadership” today is a euphemism. A true servant leader ensures the recipients of the gifts know the servant leader is just the broker, not the patron. In Jesus’ story, the servant is Jesus, highlighting his role as our broker. As we imitate him, Christlike brokers use their skills, ability, and gifts to benefit others, without seeking to be repaid honor or gifts in kind, as if they were the patron. This is what Christ means by being a servant leader, a broker. It means taking the servant’s status, those who aren’t being honored when they serve.