'Honour killing' of a different kind - over a pair of trousers

Photo credit - Screen capture of online Mmegi article

Botswana just had a wonderful celebration last weekend of its 56th anniversary of Independence. 

It was all the more a celebration as just two days before, it was announced that the last of the COVID restrictions would be removed…and so the country felt like it was celebrating two freedom events!

However, it wasn't a happy day for everyone….or at least not by the end of the day.

I read a story this week in one of the local papers about two friends. Here is a re-telling (in my words) of that story:

They started out their day with great joy, ready to celebrate Independence Day along with the rest of the country. It is a day of gathering, celebrating, feasting, wearing special clothes from the best of your wardrobe and/or traditional attire of various sorts. 

These two friends each chose some special trousers for the occasion.

But from then things didn't go too well. 

Instead of being focused on the joy of the day and the honour of the nation of which they were both a part, they got focused on each other and the trousers. 

Then they began down the slippery slope of comparing their trousers. 

Each one suddenly wanted to have the 'best' trousers…..better than the other's trousers. 

No-one wanted to be 'less' than the other by being judged by the other as having lesser trousers as a result of the other claiming to have the best trousers!

It was probably a 'mine is better, no mine is better, no mine is better' kind of argument.

Less than the 'best' trousers meant that the person wearing them had chosen 'less than the best' and 'less than the other'. Being rated by another as being 'less than' is to lose honour, and is to thus be judged by default as something 'shameful'. But number one rule and goal is to gain and maintain honour and avoid shame. To put on what you thought were the best trousers only to have your friend claim they had the best trousers, resulted in two people zealously defending their 'best trousers upper position' and refusing to let the other 'take' that position away. Accepting that another had the 'best trousers' would be to put oneself in a 'lower position' - a condition each obviously wanted to avoid at all costs.

And 'at all costs' it became….to the death…literally.

At the end of the day, one of the friends was dead, murdered by his friend over a pair of trousers.

Such a sad story. 

On the surface the story is: 'one friend kills another for the sake of a pair of trousers', 

but what is going on is a deeper honour issue.

What was meant to be a day of gladness ended as a day of grief.

That's what happens when we seek after mis-placed honour. We devote ourselves to fighting for that which in the end will destroy us.

Remember the story of Cain and Abel?

Whether then or now, the stories are not so far apart.

In this world, mis-placed honour is seen as a 'limited good' - something that if I see you have honour, I thus don't have it. It is a win-lose situation. And no-one wants to be on the losing side! So we fight to win at all costs. This story is on a one-on-one 'small' scale but the reality is no different on a larger scale. Maybe some current global contexts might come to your mind!

But this is also a reminder that the gospel is the good news of 'unlimited good', of God's true honour gifted to us in Christ - his grace to us. The honour God bestows is not a 'limited supply', there is more than enough for all. Time and again Jesus in his miracles showed that what he brings is not 'limited' - just think about wine at the wedding, feeding the 5000, and then the 4000. Christ didn't just come to bring life, but abundant life of restored glory in Him, for all who come to him and partake. We can never exhaust God. We may fail to give God honour that is due him and thus in that way incur a debt of honour, but we can never lessen God's intrinsic honour, nor reduce how much honour he has to bestow through his grace/favour in Christ. 

But coming to enjoy more of God's grace - His unmerited gift of glory to us in Christ, first requires us to grow more in our understanding of where we let mis-placed honour direct our lives so we can turn from that and turn to Christ. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes its bold, but most of the time we are blind to it and unaware of how much of it lurks in the spaces and dark corners of our lives, in the unusual events and in the daily mundane activities and choices we make. The more we look into God's Word and see what true honour and glory looks like and have the light of that truth permeate our hearts the more we are likely to have those 'blind spots' and dark places on our life path, illuminated (Psalm 119:105).

We don't have to fight over honour

We don't have to fight over honour. We can be warned by the story of Cain and Abel. We can learn that we don't have to find a way to ensure we get the 'best' seat above others in order to have honour like the disciples thought and their mother wanted (Matthew 18:1, 20:21, Luke 22:24). We don't have to make sure others like us and our choices (even trousers), we don't have to be ruled by the opinions of others and what does or does not please them (Galatians 1:10). 

We can rest in the fact that in Christ we all are seated with him in heavenly places as joint heirs at the Father's right hand. 

We can rest in the honour we have in our ascribed position in Christ and that its God's opinion that matters most. 

We can live from that position and put our confidence (faith and trust) in what God does and does not accept/approve of, and conduct our lives accordingly. 

We can give others honour without losing what we have, and who we are, in Christ. 

Instead of fighting for honour from others, there is freedom to share and give honour to others.

How can you demonstrate this truth in your context, for the watching world to see? In what ways can you be light in a dark world of mis-placed honour and draw others to Christ?