Redefining Our Relationship with Honor

We believe that we are made for honor. We’re made to be known, to be seen, and to be delighted in.

But along the way, the joy of being honored somehow gets distorted. Shame, envy, or exploitation often tarnish our encounters with honor. As a result, many of us either shy away from it or diminish its significance. Alternatively, many of us may find ourselves chasing a counterfeit version of honor, pursuing attention, affirmation, wealth, or status.

Why does receiving honor often evoke discomfort within us? Today, Dan and Rachael explore the essence of our relationship with honor — uncovering the underlying reasons behind our unease and highlighting the honor and glory we are all meant for.

Episode Transcript:

Dan: Rachael, we’re going to begin with a question about you. Is that fair? Okay. Have you had surprise birthday parties?

Rachael: Yes. Kind of. 

Dan: How did it go?

Rachael: Well, to be honest with you, it went great because I planned the party and then the surprise was that my mom’s sister and my mom’s best friend flew into town to surprise me, and it happened in my 30th birthday. So it was like I planned an awesome party. And then the surprise was that people came to my party that I wasn’t expecting to get to see, which turned into a weekend of celebrating. I wasn’t expecting.

Dan: Oh, so sweet. So you ruined my beginning, but I’m fine with that. No, no. I mean, the fact that you have actually had a semi, which I think is important to say, a semi-surpise.

Rachael: Yes, a semi-surprise

Dan: But I would say most people, as much as it may be enjoyable at some point, most people cannot bear the honor of being surprised that people would want to come out to participate, to create this awe-some experience. So what we’re going to mess with today is our struggle, and maybe it’s not yours, but our struggle with honor.

Rachael: Oh, it is. It is.

Dan: Yeah. Some of this came up because about three or four months ago, I got a email from the academic institution that I participated in as an 18-year-old, my college. And I was informed that at the 50th anniversary, which is coming up this summer, I have been elected to be the alumni of the year. It freaked me out. First of all, it’s such a fundamental discrepancy from my sense of my role and place and understanding particularly of my experience in this particular school, which I will not name, but anybody could look at my vitae and see where I went to school. Two things come immediately to mind. Within the first two weeks of being an undergraduate, I was sent to two remedial courses. The first course was a speech class, the second was a writing class. Both professors, I don’t think in consultation with each other, threw me out of the class and both said in their own amicable way, don’t ever ever plan on having a job where you need to speak in public and the other don’t ever, ever have a job where you have to write. So when I think in terms of that honor, which is an immense honor, I’m very, very touched by it, but I’m living with the fundamental discrepancy between my experience of myself, not only now, but then, and the honor that is being offered. So when we begin to talk about honor, and you said it’s a struggle for you, how so?

Rachael: Well, I mean, let me first just say I’ve heard that story before and every time it just still hits at a guttural gut punch level. So your ambivalence about being honored in this particular context comes even more into sharp focus. And I think what you’re showing is that so much because we live in the already not yet reality of being human, meaning God has come in a metaphysical way to change everything, to make things right, but it’s not to completion yet here and now in the way that we’d like it to be. Honor never gets to be totally, it’s never gets to come in the way it’s most meant to come in the already not yet. And yet we’re still meant to receive it. So I think what makes honor hard is it’s often so deeply tied… very few of us have experiences of real honor, and the places where we do experience honor typically either comes with strings attached or if not strings attached, like some kind of exploitation and/or some kind of envy that you are being honored in a way that maybe others are being dishonored or not seen or not named or not appreciated. And so, yeah, I guess what I’m saying is to receive honor in this moment in time and the people that we are is to receive it in the midst of profound brokenness and profound beauty.

Dan: Well, it is what we are freaking made for. You were made for honor. I just want to read a small portion of Psalm 8. “What is mankind that you are mindful of them. Human beings, that you care for them?” The question as is being is meant to express what I would call kind of a universal incredulity, like really? human beings? And this verse, you have made them a little lower than the angels and crown them with glory and honor. So this question like the mess of humanity, why do you think about them? And the answer, because he has crowned you and me and everyone who’s listening and everyone who’s not with glory and honor, and yet our glory and honor more often than not has not been honored, not been named, or when it has as you put it, so well, it’s created debris, pressure on one hand and envy on the other and probably a whole lot more. So where have you found your honor distorted as a consequence of having that crown?

Rachael: That’s a good question. Even to talk about it, is to step into the complexity of the desire, longing to be honored, to be delighted in, to be seen, to be known. And yeah, so aware of the debris because we know we live, we know what we’re made for, but we know we live in a context where there’s a lot of disorder. So instead of a multitude and abundance and extravagance of experiences of honor and delight, we know a lot of heartache and marring or words. I’ve heard you use time and time again like murder and adultery, which you can put nuance to so much better, but that’s what I’m trying to get at. So many of the experiences we do know they don’t get to escape some of the realities of the world that we live in. So there is debris. So I think, yeah, I know experiences of being honored, but honored in a way that’s at the expense of other people. Have you ever received a compliment? That’s true about you, but in the very way that it comes, it’s also meant to be like a dig at someone else. This is true about, especially in public, this is true about this person, but what’s being also spoken is but not true about you.

Dan: Sunday at church, we had been gone for a week, came back and a sweet friend said, how was your week? And I said, it was phenomenal. It was great to be with my best friend, Tremper Longman, III, out in D.C. we got to go to blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, wow, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a friend that long? And I’m like, yeah, it is. And you’re saying it like, wouldn’t it be nice to be rich? Wouldn’t it be nice to be famous? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a long-term friend of 58 years? But in the compliment, honor, was the presence of some degree of resentment, envy, loss on his part for not having someone in that. So one of the dilemmas with being honored is that you are being raised up. You were being raised up in the presence of others. And we’ve talked about this before, but it’s called the tall poppy syndrome. And the notion, I heard this particularly when we were in New Zealand and Australia, but it’s also common in Great Britain the notion that if you stand out and you stand above your mates, you’ll be chopped down because you become more noticeable than others. So that sense of the degree to which you bear honor, you’ll pay the price of other’s envy, but also your own sense of disparity, which I was putting words to it initially, the discrepancy, the disparity between what I’m receiving with honor and what I know to be true of my own personal fragmentation. But that’s where we need to come back to that category that if we’re meant for delight and honor, and I believe that’s true from what we know as Genesis 1: 26 through 28, that were made in the image of God, we are unlike any other of God’s creation, including the angels, in that they are never referred to as being made in the image of God. But yet in the Psalm 8, were made a little lower, which implies that again, there was a certain power we don’t have that angelic beings do have. Yet we are crowned with glory and honor. And in that we know that all sin is ultimately a reversal of what God intended, not only for ourselves but for what we were meant to receive. So I would make the connection between what we know as adultery or idolatry and the ruin of delight, meaning delight is meant to be an intimacy, a sweet, rich, sensual pleasure of having someone wildly and warmly enjoy you. The very opposite of that is any form of finding life apart from your beloved, which is both idolatry and adultery. So as we see, we’ve all struggled not only with our own lust, but the lust of others which ruins delight. And then if we look at the nature of honor, it is to be awe-some and awe that which is it takes your breath away, takes a sense of glory and brings you face to face with something so great. You can’t help but be humble in the presence of it. So you were a little late today because you were out looking at something glorious. What was that?

Rachael: Yeah, and I know this podcast episode will air after this experience, but right now I’m looking at my window and it looks like the sun is about to set because it is the total eclipse of the sun, of the sun. So right now, total eclipse of the heart. That’s a good one. It’s a great karaoke song also for those of us who have spiritual abuse stories, also has a lot of stories. Anyhow, yeah. So yeah, I am staring at something awesome that is really humbling that we live on this planet that goes around the sun and the sun is being covered by the moon right now, or the moon shadow is, I think that’s how it works, right? I’m not a scientist.

Dan: I dunno. And I live in Seattle where we live with a permanent cloud cover.

Rachael: I think part of the awesomeness of it too is that these are, even though they happen, their rare occurrences. So it’s been interesting in the news these past few days to see the people who know this will be the last eclipse they see in their lifetime because we’re not having another one for a long while. And these awesome events and moments that remind you of in some ways the fragility and the smallness of your particular humanity. In a moment it’s a good thing.

Dan: So as lust, Jesus calls adultery in that sense, it’s the ruin of delight. We were meant for honor. And the ultimate dishonor is murder. The ultimate violence against humility is to take away someone’s life. And so in that sense, you can see that there is a part of us that in our lust, we are fighting against delight. And in some ways, in our anger and merger, we are in one sense at war with our own hunger for honor. I will dishonor you because I have known so little honor that has been able to be received as true and good. So what we’re wanting for you all to engage is what is your experience with honor and where has your ambivalence been and when it has come, have you been able to honor honor and receive it knowing, oh yeah, there’s always a fundamental discord discrepancy. Yet on the other hand, there is something being named about your awe about how you bring delight and goodness to this earth. And in that there is something that we are told again and again in the context of Proverbs, that humility must precede honor or honor will be in some ways demanded in a way in which it becomes not only presumptuous and in some ways violent, but it becomes narcissistic. And so we’re living in a world in which from TikTok to Instagram, people are virtually selling their souls to get honor, to get more hits, to get more whatever they call them friends, but in such a process that we’re living in a world in which almost dishonor becomes a way of gaining honor of not being tied to standard structure, wisdom, goodness, kindness. And we can go through so many of the proverbs where it is the kind woman who receives honor. It is the humble man who receives honor, where those who seek wealth gain nothing but shame. And you kind of go, wow, our world is built that wealth creates the opportunity for honor. It is the reverse of indeed what the scriptures teach. And so this whole topic, don’t you find yourself wanting to kind of go, let’s get over it, let’s do another podcast. There’s a certain uncomfortability, at least I experience.

Rachael: Yeah, and I think what complicates it is when you start thinking about honor in the collective, which we’re talking about, but just the sense of when we are in, when empire is real and systems of supremacy are real and some have more privilege than others and some are under more threat than others, and there’s not equity in how we experience the world, then it complicates it even more. Because if what you’re saying is that there’s a dishonor to our human dignity when we’re cut off from access to safety and life and flourishing, which is true for every human being, we live in this world. So even if you have wealth, like you’re saying, it doesn’t necessarily keep you from having to navigate the realities of sin and death and power that comes against you, the work of evil. But I’m just thinking about how when you throw scarcity in the mix, genuine scarcity, not just envy but envy, that’s tied to a kind of hunger and deprivation that it’s almost like, well, who has the luxury of honor doing things in an honorable way? I’m just trying to survive. And yet knowing that’s what our souls most long for and that honor doesn’t have to come in the form of celebrity. And I think that that’s so powerful to me about the times that I’ve experienced the most humbling kind of honor have happened in really quiet, not hidden, but quiet moments where I’ve been seen and named with a kind of precision and honor that is incredibly humbling and feels so kind, and feels like that kind of kindness, that heaps heavy burdens. Where my joke often is, I think I’m ready to retire. I’m just tired. I’m tired of, I’m of pouring out and the world is scary and I don’t have as much resilience as I want to have, and I’m in a lot of discipleship to grow that. But when you experience and taste a kind of honor that you’re meant for, it heaps, that kind of burning coals of kindness, that then there’s a responsibility you bear to give back and to participate in the kingdom of God and the ways that we’re most meant to. So honor and delight have this capacity to grow our heart’s imagination, for dreaming, for hope, for greater capacities of love. And so I do think it’s actually something we have to learn to receive better and learn to give more fully and more with a lot more nuance as well.

Dan: We’ll get to that in a moment, but let’s go back to this. I found it as the pondering honor over the last period of time, like a passage like Proverbs 11 verse 16, and I’ll just sort of summarize it, but the kindhearted woman gains honor and it’s contrast that so often the proverbs, you get sort of side A, then you turn it over to side B, and they’re often meant to be held with something of a kind of like, oh, how do you hold those two things together? So the kind hearted woman gains honor, and then it says, and ruthless men gain only wealth. So what you’re actually seeing, the contrast from my standpoint is that kindness looks so small, whereas power looks so big. And so we often honor people for in some ways their use of power for well or not, but the small unseen or hardly seen, the person who just decides to reach down and pick up a can that’s littering their neighborhood, carries it and then throws it away in their own trash. What honor do you want to offer that person? Should they get citizen of the year? Yeah, they should, but they’re not going to because it’s so small. And I think that’s where we need to begin with this whole category of do you allow for yourself the honor that the kingdom of God has for you, for the very small things that you would probably see to be nothing other than your normal day, the normal things that you do for your family or for your friends or for your labor at work. But what does it mean for you to step back and be able to say that choice to walk over, put your hand on the shoulder of a friend and be able to say thank you so much for the care that you offered. I mean, that’s offering honor and then because many of us are better at honoring others than being honored. What does it mean when somebody notes the small and draws attention to it? Is there something in you that can receive it without deflecting, defending or minimizing? This is where the playground, I think of God shows itself that glory is seen more often in the small, not the large.

Rachael: I’m smiling because where this took me, and I think you’re absolutely right. Where it took me though is my son at the end of elementary school was a safety officer. They designate safety officers who help all the younger kids get in and out during the day, whatever. And they instituted the first ever, they were going to give a responsibility award to the students who are the most responsible. And I don’t know where I’m going with this so you can help me, but I feel like I was supposed to share. And he came home one day and was like, which he did receive one of the responsibility awards and we kept it on our fridge so that we can remind him that he can’t get away with saying he just doesn’t, not good at taking care of things or whatever because he won the responsibility award. But he was going to try to help a person, like a gym coach who was carrying a bunch of things trying to get into the school, and he ran to open the door, which obviously in our messed up world today, kids aren’t supposed to open the doors to anyone at a school, even if it’s their teacher. And he got in big trouble. But we were like, well, why did you run? Because he was like, well, because I’m trying to show that I’m responsible. So it just was making me think about it in some of our innocence. I guess I was just going back to he wanted to be seen and known as someone who cared. And yes, it was a little bit of a competition, but I think the deeper thing was his heart was just like, do you see me? And that’s very true of him. Do you see me? Will you name these qualities in me that are good? And that’s something I think we have when we’re younger that not many of us get to keep that for a long time, right? Because we learn that’s not safe or that’s going to just lead to more harm. But that’s just that image of him running to the door and getting in trouble so he could win the responsibility award was…

Dan: So sweet. And again, as you put it so innocent in that there is and should be an ambition to actually be humble. And in that part of, let’s just say the loss of innocence is the reality of that discrepancy that I want to be noticed for being a servant, which in and of itself sounds like the very thing that should cause me not to receive. But I hope people can get a little better sense of, without that sense of discrepancy, there will be an indulgence or a kind of, yeah, I am humble and yeah, I am gifted and I deserve this honor. So entitlement, so indulgence or entitlement with regard to honor virtually always causes it to have lost that very core innocence. But I think there is an innocence for us as adults to know that it’s such a core level, oh, I don’t deserve any honor and yet to receive honor. I do deserve it. Now how can you possibly say you don’t deserve it? I do deserve it. That’s trying to hold what you brought brilliantly at the very beginning of our time, holding the already and not yet, are you an image bearer and do you hold the crown of honor and glory? You do. And has that crown been tarnished and soiled countless times, maybe within a matter of minutes? Of course. Now, how do we live then with both being true other than with a humility not only to know that we don’t deserve, but we do deserve. And what we do deserve and what we don’t deserve are playing together, playing together constantly. And there’s the humility, the humility to know I want it, I want it, and yet I don’t deserve it, and yet I do long for it. Can I hold all that and then receive when honor does come and can I bear the reality of my loss of desire when it doesn’t come? Both sides I think are so crucial to hold, to be able to live well with this core hunger that I believe is in every heart. So when you think about all this with regard to your marriage, where does it take you?

Rachael: With regard to my marriage?

Dan: Yeah, toward that particular man that you live with.

Rachael: Well, I mean, I’ll be honest, it’s actually, it’s not hard for me. Maybe it is, maybe I don’t see myself well, but it doesn’t, I actually deeply delight in bringing honor to Michael, and I also know enough of his story. I have the privilege of holding pieces and parts of his story where he has known a lot of dishonor. And so the privilege to get to be someone who can, I’m not saying I always do, but who can participate in bringing restoration there, or at least offering kindness. I think where it’s harder for me is to receive honor. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And again, when we talk about honor, I think about, yeah, if kindness is the foundation of honor when someone is offering us their kindness and their hospitality, this is why I think cultures that have a high value of hospitality know a lot more intuitively and understand a lot more about honor. Cultures that have a deep value for children and elders, the most vulnerable, understand something about honor at a more intuitive level. And so yeah, I think my husband is an incredibly kind man and kind, not nice. He’s not nice. I mean, he is nice, but it’s like the kindness isn’t like a warm fuzzy, it’s that kind of, yeah, heap heavy burning coals in a good way. I’m trying to think of an example. I think I’ve given some on the podcast before, moments when I want him to join me in contempt and judgment because that is safer. He offers a lot of mercy, and I kind of fight him, and it’s really hard to receive because it feels very threatening to me. What’s going to be the cost of this kindness? Or if I need kindness, when will I become a burden to you? I mean, it’s, there’s a lot of in-storied things for me. I’ve been in a season where I have received some levels, not so much. I mean, yes, in marriage, but in the larger context of the world. I received an incredible honor of being named by Sojourners as one of nine Christian women shaping the church in 2024 for International Women’s Month. And I was so humbled by that. Something in me was I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked. I didn’t even, in my mind, I’m like, how do you even know who I am or the work that I’m doing? And I also had to deal with this feeling of like, oh, it felt so exposing. Instead of it just getting to feel honoring, it felt like what’s going to be required of me? Or who’s going to need to be disappointed that I was honored for whatever reason? What kind of scrutiny will I be under in a way that will actually feel scary? And I think I just kind of being a little more hidden and a little bit more quiet. And so that did bring up a lot of stories. And so of course, on a smaller scale that plays out in my world. And that’s why I was making the joke earlier that I guess I can’t retire. There was something really powerful. I mean, speaking of your alma mater, I have deep desire, the places I’ve invested in and that have invested in me to see the work I’m doing as valuable and meaningful and to name me as someone worth celebrating. But I guess if there was going to be a community that Sojourners is a community that I feel a lot of kindred with, and that to me was probably the most powerful, just that a group of people I really value the work they’re doing in the world and the ways they do justice and love mercy. That was really powerful to me. And it was really scary.

Dan: I loved it. We shouldn’t be working out personal issues on a podcast, but I had to find out from somebody else, not you. So right there is again, the cost. And for me, envy is a reality that every human being who therefore as a human being, you bear glory and honor. And I think we have attempted to address this many times, but people are absolutely stultified when asked, how do people envy you? Because we just don’t think people envy us. Yet, the reality is they do. And the signature, so often a mockery is dismissiveness. Oh wow, that must be nice to get a award like that or outright mockery. Well, what did you do? Who’d you have to pay? And in that, so-called playfulness. I was just joking why you can’t take a joke. So we’re often demeaned, and then in addressing something of the debris of that, then we’re accused of one sort or another. But that’s how much war there is with regard to honor. But asking about your marriage, I asked Becky that question and she said, oh, I feel like you honor me well until you don’t. And it was one of those I want to know anymore. Thank you. And again, back to the question of when do you feel dishonored? And she said, when I’m trying something new, that requires your patience to show me slowly how to do something. And there’s not a lot that I know that she doesn’t know. So it’s not like we’re looking at a vast array of, but in terms of working on a computer, dealing with an app that’s not working, and I do, I can feel the impatience even as we talk. So where she feels my judgment, that’s where she said, I want the honor of taking the risk to learn something, especially with you, not just to learn, but to learn with you as I’m growing in an ability to do something. So that experience of every couple, every friend, there will be an interplay of honor and dishonor. Where does dishonor come in a marriage becomes a really important category, especially knowing your relationship with Michael. And I hope you would know my relationship with Becky. There’s this deep, rich river of honor that we wish to bestow. And yeah, the struggle is still there to receive. But also there are times where in any friendship, there will be some place where honor will not be bestowed in a way in which you are meant to. So I think that’s part of the war here is get an award like you received, like I received. And again, this is where we can argue yours feels so much more legitimate than the award for my school. Nonetheless, the award bears honor. And though I will not be able to attend the ceremony, I do give a one minute taped reply. And in anticipation of that, I spend a lot of time in my world speaking. I’m finding it really hard to put a minute together to respond to that honor. We’re right back to the bestowing, giving, the receiving, having been the presence of someone else’s desire to bring goodness and honor. These are just not easy topics, but it’s also one where I would say fun to bring this into the conversation of your marriage. Where do you know honor? Where do you long for more honor? Where do you know some experience of dishonor from your spouse or towards your spouse? And how well is it received? And that would be one of the core questions that again, Psalm 8 brings me back to again and again, do I receive the crown of my creation in a way in which I’m living that out through kindness, through wisdom, and many ways by the honoring of righteousness? So where does this take you before we end?

Rachael: Well, where it takes me is I want to make sure I say loud and clear, though, I love bringing honor to Michael and I love bringing honor to the people in my world that I love. Certainly I have places that I bring dishonor because Im human and I think about contempt and I think about my neuroses and that sometimes I have very particular ways I think things should be done. And that’s probably where I bring the most dishonor, is not allowing people to have their own process or their own way of doing something and not managing my anxiety well enough to make more space for flourishing at the grocery store. I want to load the bag a very particular way. And it doesn’t feel good. When someone is micromanaging you or telling you, you’re like, well, in Philadelphia you have to load your own groceries at a lot grocery stores. So it’s like, that’s where Michael and I will, I’ll be like, let me do it. But that’s just a small example of the places that I will always be growing. And I think this is true, and you put words to this in our friendships. I know the example you gave of your friend at church. I have been that person in seasons where I’ve been in a lot of suffering, and you’ve been in a season of sabbatical and rest where I could not bless that that’s where you were. And I could not honor you. And I remember one time you being like, I am sorry that for whatever reason this particular season. So we all have those places where it’s tangled up together. And I do think honor again is meant to grow love. It’s meant to grow kindness. It’s meant to grow our sense of calling, our sense of wisdom, our capacity to stay in the stream of faith, hope and love. And again, where we naturally go in our celebrity culture is to a war. We brought up stories for ourselves because there’s public exposure. And I think Dan, I do want to name for you, I want to go back to the story you brought at the beginning. Of course, it’s hard for you to find words even in a minute for this award in a context that literally told you your entire calling to write and to speak is something you should never do. And so I will just be very mindful of you, not only in just the baseline war with honor, but what it is to find words in a context that you’ve also known a lot of dishonor.

Dan: Thank you. And I think part of the sweetness, even in your blessing is that the blessing itself bears honor. And that is you don’t ignore or fail to see the irony that for somebody who has been told not to do something, there’s nothing probably more true of me than a defiance, not conscious. I will speak, I write, but I don’t think there’s any question somewhere deep down in me was I’ll prove you wrong. On the other hand, I think it’s a beautiful irony that in some sense the assault, or again, not, I don’t think either professor were cruel, but what in the unseen world was an assault? Somehow reversal is the playground for great honor that the small deeds that we just don’t even see ourselves doing on behalf of others to actually be able to hear from Jesus. That is good, that is faithful. Every one of us, I think at some core level is waiting for that day. When we hear those words, welcome. I mean just the word welcome, welcome my good and faithful servant. I mean, I trust that whatever shall we say, awards come or don’t come, that day will come. And it is worth picking up small pieces of trash, even if nobody notices, because like your son, we get to run to the door and let the king enter. And yet in that moment, there is something of the honor, the king bestows that we were meant to receive. So may honor and glory be your crown in this day.

Rachael: You as well, my friend.