What is Honor?
Last week’s reflection on fear was the reset I needed to start writing again, and I’m happy to say I wrote at least a thousand words over several days that I was fairly happy with. The only snag was I left town for Labor Day weekend and left my iPad at home with all my writing on it (sigh). So this weekend I took a different tack and decided to write an essay about honor.
So far I’ve shared stories and poems, or what I would loosely classify as creative writing. I’ve avoided essay writing for two reasons: (1) It’s hard; (2) In the effort to get it done, it usually veers off in a direction I don’t want it to go or says something I don’t intend to say. Essays require critical thinking and usually several revisions. I prefer the stream-of-consciousness approach that creative writing affords, or better still, sharing something I’ve already written. But I realized I was sort of hiding behind that fact and holding myself back from saying things I want to say in a more left-bring, analytical way.
The fact is, essays are supposed to be hard. The word essay is itself derived from an old French word essai meaning “trial”. And that’s exactly what an essay is, a trial, not just for the writer but for the ideas he is putting into the world. But trials, rightly understood, are a virtue when they lead to refinement, maturity, and fruitfulness. As the Psalmist wrote, “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.” I’m not saying that what follows is silver-level – bronze at best – but if it holds up to the rigors of your testing, gentle reader, then some good may good come of it.
What is honor? The dictionary definition sprawls out in every direction:
Good name or public esteem.
A showing of usually merited respect.
A person of superior standing.
One whose worth brings respect or fame.
The center point of the upper half of an armorial escutcheon.
An evidence or symbol of distinction, such as an exalted title or rank.
An award in a contest or field of competition.
A gesture of deference.
An academic distinction conferred on a superior student.
A course of study for superior students supplementing or replacing a regular course.
A keen sense of ethical conduct.
Social courtesies or civilities extended by a host.
An ace, king, queen, jack, or ten especially of the trump suit in bridge.
The privilege of playing first from the tee in golf.
Or, if you go with the first thing that comes up on Google, Honor is a leading global provider of smart devices.
We are inundated with ideas and depictions of honor, but it’s an elusive concept. So we go searching around for our own references to get our bearings on this idea. For me, the first thing that comes to mind is the United States Marine Corps, which has made the word synonymous with being a marine, as much through advertising as action.
An immaculately dressed officer pulls a sword from its scabbard with a metallic ring, with twenty-four riflemen standing at attention beside a light house. Then suddenly the platoon is performing the Silent Drill at Times Square, Liberty Hall, factory towns, national monuments, white-washed barns, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam.
“There are those who dedicate themselves to a sense of honor,” the narrator intones. His voice is rich, deep, profound. “To a life of courage, commitment, and something greater than themselves. They have always defended this nation and each other. They still do. The few, the proud, the Marines.” The music swells and climaxes as the advertisement ends on the USMC logo.
It’s marketing, sure, but it works. The Marine Corps remains one of the strongest and most tradition-soaked military units in history, and honor lingers around it like sacred incense.
We understand words by association. My association with Marine Corps ads makes honor look like discipline, courage, and self-sacrifice. I have been raised to believe that these things are worthy of honor, so the ads resonate. It would be different for someone else with different experiences. Some may have no associations with honor, and may not even believe it exists.
Whether one believes in it or not, honor exists every time one person or group of people confers honor on another person or group of people. A graduation ceremony, a marriage, a funeral - these are all rich in honor. Real honor is not something you can just hand out like so many ten-cent ribbons at a talent show; it is earned by one and given by another.
I think the best definition of honor comes from the Greek verb timao which means to estimate, to fix the value. To honor is to place value and worth on something or someone. To be honored is to be worthy of honor, and the one who is honored upholds the value of the ones giving honor.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Chariots of Fire, and one of my favorite scenes comes just before the final 400-meter race. It’s the 1924 Olympics and the Scottish champion, Eric Liddell, has refused to run on Sunday because he believes it would dishonor God (“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”). In so doing, he has forgone his chance of bringing home the big prize, a gold metal in the 100-meter sprint in which he was the favorite.
Now he is warming up minutes before the starting gun as he prepares to run the gut-wrenching “quarter”. I know how he feels. I ran the 400 in high school and would spend a full twenty-four hours before the race in nervous anticipation of the raw pain that would course through my body when the gun went off. It’s over in less than a minute, but that sixty seconds is torture, and it takes every ounce of willpower to keep going.
He may not have been the favorite in the 400, but Eric Liddell had something that the other runners didn’t: an unshakeable belief that God had made him to run, and when he ran, no matter how painful it was, the experience of God’s pleasure was even greater. So he was prepared to give it everything he had and then some.
Just as the race is about to begin, an American competitor Jackson Scholz jogs over, presses a piece of paper into Eric’s hand, and says with a smile, “Just to see you run.”
On the paper is written a verse from the Old Testament: “He who honors me, I will honor.”
Then the race begins, the Chariots of Fire theme soars, and the “Flying Scotsman” wins the 400 meter to the cheers and tears of his countrymen. But I think had the movie stopped right there, just before the starting gun went off, it would have been complete because the spiritual race was already won.
Honor is not taken, it is given. Eric Liddell honored God by keeping the Sabbath holy, not because he expected to earn anything from God, but simply because God was worthy. Likewise, Jackson Scholz honored Eric Liddell by giving him the note before the race, not because he expected to earn anything from Eric, but simply because Eric was worthy.
It’s easy to be cynical about the idea of honor when it’s cheapened by marketing or applied to people or groups of people who have broken trust and shown that underneath the shell of honor is brokenness and sin. But deep down, I think we still want to believe there is a place for it. That’s why movies like Chariots of Fire still work; or for that matter, Harry Potter, The Avengers, and Star Wars. We want characters who prove their worth through courage and self-sacrifice, characters we can honor as heroes, and more than that, saviors.
The best definition of honor, or course, is Christ himself. J.R.R. Tolkien was right when he said that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the “true myth” where honor and heroism find their origin. So whether it’s a marine who lays down his life for his comrade, or a runner who runs for the glory of the God he serves, these examples simply point back to the one who laid down his life for all of us and for the glory of God.