A Gospel of Honor: What Ministry in Sri Lanka Teaches Us About Salvation

The grinning twelve-year-old girl at our door was a new face. She and her family had recently moved next door. Her mother, dressed in a flowing, brightly colored Indian-style sari, stood in her front garden (yard), watching her daughter, her eyes brimming with pride. The girl offered us a container, saying cheerfully, “Hindu Pongal holiday gift for you and ma’am!” We made a show of appreciation, lifted the lid, and inhaled deeply, exclaiming how wonderful it smelled. The mother beamed as we bowed our thanks.

The gift was given on the second day of the Thai Pongal harvest and prosperity celebration for Hindus. At the heart of the celebration is Sakkarai Pongal, the signature dish that gives the festival its name. The dish is made with freshly harvested rice, jaggery (palm sugar), coconut milk, cashews, raisins, and aromatic spices. On the second morning of the festival, the dish is offered to the sun god, Surya, and afterward shared with neighbors and friends.

As the sweet child offered us the dish, we recognized the honor being bestowed on us. Our sensitivity to honor-shame nuances is hard-won, the result of many cultural missteps and increased sensitivity developed over our 11 years in Sri Lanka. As a result, we have come to accept that as Christians, one of the most significant gifts we can give in this culture is honor, whether to our Hindu neighbors next door, to our Buddhist neighbors on the other side of us, or to the Maldivian Muslim family down the street.

Before arriving in Sri Lanka, our Western theology had taught us the importance of demonstrating God’s love and forgiveness of sin in this country, where Christianity accounts for only one percent of the population. We did so wherever and whenever we could. But the more we learned about and understood this culture, which sees the world through the lens of honor and shame, the more we realized how important it was for us to demonstrate the honor God gives us in our ministry and marketplace relationships.

Adam and Eve’s first reaction to their sin was shame (Gn 3:7). The honor humanity lost in the fall is restored through Christ as we are adopted into God’s family (Ep 3:6). God cares deeply about restoring our honor so much that Christ willingly bore the ultimate shame of the cross. The majority of the world sees life through the lens of honor and shame, and we began to realize that it was missiologically insufficient for us to preach, teach, and live a salvation based solely on the forgiveness of sin. We needed a theology that embraced a gospel of honor—the good news that not only are our sins forgiven, but that through Christ we receive the ultimate, eternal honor of being in God’s family.

This is not an easy shift in thinking or in ministry. Western theology too often reduces salvation to the forgiveness of sin, with little consideration of the restoration of honor as an integral part of Scripture and our salvation. The removal of our guilt is ingrained in us, and the dismissal of the honor-shame component has left a gaping hole in our Western theology. Not only does the Christian West export an “honor”-less salvation, but it also suffers from a gospel that lacks the restoration of honor. In the East, the restoration of honor is paramount, and salvation without it is empty.

When Jesus gave his life on the cross, it was as if he wrote two checks: one for the forgiveness of sin and the other for the restoration of honor. Endorsed by God through Jesus’ resurrection, both checks are for all cultures—not one for the East and another for the West. This is the good news! To our detriment, we have cashed only the forgiveness-of-sin check because it is written in the language of individualism and guilt and innocence. As a result, many Christians exult in the forgiveness of their sin yet continue to suffer in the isolation of their shame.The Sakkarai Pongal rice smelled delicious. As the smiling girl looked up at us, offering her gift of friendship, our response was sincere honor-giving gratitude and appreciation—a demonstration of the true honor available only through salvation, an honor we too have received as God’s adopted children. Here is a gospel in which our membership in God’s family is more than the forgiveness of sin; it is the ultimate spiritual honor, one we have learned to share with grace and love.