Freedom from Possessing People: A Sermon for the 13th Sunday After Pentecost

How fun to have Philemon appear in the lectionary! While I do reference a sentence from the Gospel lesson, I enjoyed tackling something other than the Gospel to talk about in a sermon.  

Text: Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33

+++

There’s a story that my mom and dad used to tell about my maternal grandmother.

It seems that whenever my parents were with her at her apartment, my Nana would inevitably have something that she would want my father do to for her. And she would always preface the request with, “Bud, if you would be a nice boy…” and then the ask… get something down from a top shelf, carry something from one room to the next.

And, of course, my dad would be “a nice boy” and do whatever it was that she wanted.

In a way, this letter from Paul to the wealthy, Hellenistic Christian named Philemon has a little bit of that, “if you would be a nice boy” tone to it.

I can hear in this letter…”Philemon, if you would be a nice boy, you’d release Onesimus… and allow the young man to live into his namesake… which means ‘useful’.”

There are some scholars who speculate that Paul is fawning over this slave owner, suggesting that he’s not “commanding” him to do the right thing, but rather “appealing to him in love.” I suppose fawning is one way to look at this letter, but I think Paul really is making a more sincere argument to this powerful and influential member of the Colossae (koh-LOSS-ee) society.

Let’s step back a second here and give some background on this letter.

First of all… fun fact: this is Paul’s shortest letter included in the Bible…roughly 335 words in Greek. We heard almost all of it this morning. The lectionary left off the last three verses where Paul asks Philemon to prepare a room for him upon his release… though it’s doubtful Paul ever made it to Philemon’s house.

And scholars believe Paul DID write this one.  

(Really… he wrote it, not a scribe.)

Other things that we DO know:

Paul is in prison… again… although it’s not clear which one.

The letter is addressed primarily to Philemon… and a couple of others. It appears that Philemon’s house was large enough to be one of the churches in Colossae, which was a city in what is today modern Turkey. So he was probably writing  to Philemon and the leaders of Philemon’s church.

And we know Philemon owned a slave named Onesimus (oh-NEE-see-mus).

It appears Onesimus has run away and taken some of Philemon’s property with him.

Somehow, Onesimus has ended up with Paul in whatever prison he's in… and Paul has converted him to Christianity.

Now the apostle is appealing to Philemon on Onesimus’ account.

This letter is by far… the most personal and heartfelt of all of Paul’s writings.

He’s attempting to broker a reconciliation and relationship between these two men…and he’s doing it as he himself sits in a prison cell.

Paul recognizes the delicate nature of this relationship… and he knows there is a high cost involved.

In the world of the First Century, for a man of such wealth and privilege as Philemon to grant freedom to a run away slave and forgive Onesimus the debt he owed his master would bring ridicule and shame on Philemon in his social circles. Forgiveness to such a bad actor?

Unthinkable!

Heck, even in our own society of the here and now… we argue over whether it’s right to forgive people their debts!

Onesimus also faces a cost.

There’s a risk in going back to Philemon…even with this letter from Paul in his hand.

Will Philemon listen to the appeal and see Onesimus not as a slave, but as a beloved brother in Christ… an actual kinfolk and not a stranger?

Will Philemon trust that Onesimus’ conversion to Christianity is real?

I can almost see these two being like the person in the Gospel story… weighing out the cost of their decisions the same way the builder of a tower does the calculations of the cost before starting construction.

That thought of “What do I have to gain or lose in this transaction?” weighs heavily on both of them, but most especially on Philemon.

If there’s going to be a peaceable resolution to their conflict, he’s the one who must give up the privilege and the need to possess Onesimus…and suffer whatever economic loss and social humiliation that might come his way.

And what I hear Paul saying to Philemon … in the most pastoral way possible is…

Yes…there’s a cost. That’s what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

And yet whatever price you think you’re paying among your friend circle, Philemon,  there’s a greater gain: a freedom and a liberty that is like nothing one can get from family or “things.”

It’s interesting that this letter…which seldom ever shows up in the lectionary… was one that got used by both sides during the heated debates over slavery in this country in the 19^th century. Slave owners seemed to stay fixated on the idea that Paul never condemned the institution of slavery. And he did encourage Onesimus to return to his master Philemon.

What the slave owners failed to see was Paul’s emphasis on treating Onesimus as a beloved brother… a point not lost on abolitionists and freedom fighters.

So while Paul doesn’t outright slam the institution of slavery… I think we can see in this letter that he does have an unexpressed opinion when he talks so sweetly and kindly of Onesimus as a “brother” and that this brother represents “my own heart.”

This is a window into Paul’s ethics that are the same Jesus’ view on possessions.

When Jesus says at the end of our Gospel lesson, “None of you can be my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions,” (14:33) he’s not strictly speaking of your clothes or your books. He’s talking about those other possessions, those things we cling to in order to justify ourselves: our jealousies, our need to measure ourselves against another person, or put other people beneath us in order to feel important.

He’s talking about our ego.

The ego… that small self… which worries about the cost of losing privilege and status.

Maybe it’s because Paul is sitting in a prison cell and has lost his privilege that he’s now seeing a crack in a system where one person gets to possess another human being.

Maybe he’s spent some time listening to Onesimus’ story… and has come to recognize him as a brother and an equal in Christ… and wants Philemon to see that, too.

Paul challenges Philemon to see the light shining through that crack… trust the Holy Spirit… even if it means he loses face in the respectable society of Colossae.

That would seem to be the lesson we can take away from this for our own times.

To live out our lives as followers of Jesus means looking for those cracks in the systems in our society that create inequities…levels heavy debt and burdens.. and turn people into possessions.

Our job is to call attention to those things… and like Paul… encourage forgiveness and a remedy to the situation.

We are doing such good works when we address the needs of the hungry.

At the same time… we should step back… and ask ourselves what is keeping people in that place of need?

Are there food deserts in our city?

What are the obstacles that get in the way of people having enough food?

These are the questions that get back to what I said last week about “What is breaking God’s heart in our area and what can we do about it?”

Sometimes… it takes the willingness to accept the costs of the cross that comes with speaking up to those in places of power and privilege… and asking those questions.

Be bold enough to appeal to a leader’s duty to serve all people… and not just the people who can repay them with the nicest seat at the banquet table.

Encourage them to see the light shining through the cracks in the systems as a chance to make a change that lifts all people up.

To truly live into the prayer,“Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is heaven” may not make us popular and it does come with a cost. But it’s well worth the effort if it means we can all live free.

In the name of God… F/S/HS.