Sunday Readings : Luke 14. 25-33; Psalm 1; Philemon 1-21
Today I am going to preach to you an entire book of the Bible. In fact, we already heard an entire book of the Bible as one of our readings today. Well, almost. We heard 21 out of the 25 verses that make up Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Philemon is one of those little one-chapter books that exist in the Bible.
Now even though Philemon is a very short epistle, there’s a lot here. This letter from Paul tells us a lot about how Christians deal with each other. It tells us about grace, mercy, kindness, and forgiveness. And, so it has so much to speak to us today. There’s a lot here about how ‘The Gospel Transforms Relationships’.
It is the only letter of St. Paul which is purely about one individual – in this case the runaway slave, Onesimus. There’s something quite different about reading this letter compared with all Paul’s other letters. In all the others, even those addressed to individuals, the focus is on the Church where they are ministering. But here there’s a much more personal feel to this piece of correspondence. Paul wrote this letter between 55 and 61 CE. More important than the precise year of composition is the fact that the apostle was in prison at the time of writing. Although he should have been apprehensive about his own well-being, Paul is concerned about this Onesimus, the runaway slave, whose master Philemon he appears to know well. So we have to ask two questions :-
Why was it written ?
Why has God put it in the Bible?
– especially if it is a private letter about one individual.
One might ask why the Holy Spirit allowed this tiny, personal letter to survive the centuries. It deals with no great doctrine. It attacks no sinister heresy. Paul wrote hundreds, thousands of personal letters in his life and yet this is the only one that has survived.
I wonder why? I want to suggest that the book of Philemon is a little book with a big message. The big message is this: The Gospel that we preach has the power to change lives.
1) Why was it written?
The story behind the letter is quite simple, here is a slave who is not very good slave – lazy, resentful, rebellious and eventually he decides to run away. A slave who runs away must go somewhere he can hide, and the obvious place is go to a big city – the bigger the city the better, where he can hide. Runaway teenagers always make for big cities. If you want to hide, you make for the big city. So this slave made his way to Rome.
Now, in those days for a runaway slave the normal punishment was crucifixion. But, if his master was particularly kind he would take a branding red-hot iron and with the letter ‘F’ brand him on the forehead ‘F’ for fugitive. And, he would have to wear that brand ever afterwards which would of course get him into a lot of trouble. That was the kindest – the best you can hope for, and the worst would be crucifixion.
In the great mercy of God in Rome Onesimus met the Apostle Paul (who was a prisoner there) and through Paul Onesimus met Jesus Christ. His life was changed. He was born again, turned around. He was so changed that he was willing to return to his master, a man by the name of Philemon.
This is very interesting as you see many people think when you are converted and become a new person in Christ you can run away from your past. No, you can go and put your past right. When you come to Christ you forget everything in the past but you can’t do that. You are called now to put your past right if you can. That’s a very important point of repentance. Repentance involves restitution – putting the past right.
Zaccheaus… Remember when Zacchaeus repented.. he didn’t say to Christ “Oh Jesus, I am changed man and from now on I won’t defraud anybody I will keep my finances right” But he didn’t say that, What he said was I will pay back everybody I defrauded with interest. And, Jesus said today salvation has come to this house. Zacchaeus didn’t run away from the past; he faced it properly and put it right.
Now, moving forward in the story of Onesimus: it just so happened that Paul knew Philemon. What are the chances of that? Out of the millions of slave owners in the Roman Empire Paul happens to know Onesimus’ master, Philemon.
An amazing coincidence, and I believe God must have His hand on this. The master of Onesimus was a Christian in Colossae and Paul said I will send you back with the letter to him and I will explain everything. And, he writes this beautiful letter. Now there is a pun in the letter. The pun is this – Onesimus – his name, which means useful. Paul says you may have found him useless in the past but I am sending a useful slave to you… a lovely play on his name. Paul says I am sending him back as a brother. He says that the money he stole from you I will repay and I sign it with my own hand. He sends him back.
It is a beautiful letter; we can study it like a social angel in the question of slavery. Paul didn’t try to abolish slavery, but he just broke it up from the inside by changing the relationships and the attitudes. This man is a brother now, and he is not a piece of property any longer. He is a dear brother in the Lord. The New Testament condemns slavery of any kind.
There is spiritual side to this letter which we can look at; why it is in our Bible. It is a perfect picture of our salvation. Because we are that slave, we also run away from God, we we perceived ourselves as no use to God yet somebody came and paid our debts and presented us back to God as a useful servants. And, Jesus did it for us all. In this little epistle we have a perfect picture of our salvation. Jesus changed us and sent us back to God to present us holy to God. As we say during the Eucharist:- he opened wide his arms for us on the cross, he put an end to death by dying for us…so he fulfilled your will and won for you a holy people. Christ sends us back to God.
There is also an ethical aspect to this letter. Paul is simply doing what Jesus had done for him. And, the whole message of the letter is this: what Jesus has done for you, you must now do for others. Jesus paid for us, rescued us, recycled us, if you will, and sent us back to serve the Father. It is our moral duty to do for others what the Lord has done for us. I want you to think about this when today we say the prayer after communion..we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the spirit lights give light to the world. Help people to know their redeemer. We should be willing to pay the price for them, as Christ paid for us.
In our Gospel today Jesus turned to the great multitude and laid out these demands of discipleship. Thus it is possible to follow Christ superficially, and it is to such followers that Jesus lays out the cost of discipleship. Thus, To follow Christ truly, we must consider the cost.
Psalm 1, which we read responsively, presents two ways of life: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. In fact, the entire Bible splits the human race right down the middle and says that there are two sorts of people and the gulf between them is very wide & deep one which can only be crossed by supernatural power.
As we read Psalm 1, in verses 1 to 3, you see God’s definition of the one sort – the saint, the righteous, and on the other hand, in verses 4 to 6, God defines and describes the wicked – the sinner. And that’s God’s way of looking at us either a saint or sinner, there is nothing in between. You are either righteous or wicked in God’s eyes, there is nothing in between. We either belong to the sheep or the goats. We either belong to the wheat or the tares. The wise or foolish virgins. Jesus was constantly dividing people into two groups. Therefore it’s not surprising to learn that there are only two ways to live. There is a narrow way that leads to life, and a broad way that leads to destruction. There is nothing in between. It’s the hard truth that we are either walking one way… or the other.
St. Paul was saying to Philemon indirectly ‘you are a new creation in Christ, therefore act accordingly’. Philemon would have been quite within his rights to have Onesimus punished and maybe even put him to death. But our experience of grace leads us to minister grace to others. Paul’s whole plea to Philemon is to act the way the loving Father acted: to welcome home the beloved son; to restore him to fellowship with the family. There will be, and have been, occasions when we’ll be called to respond to wrongdoers the same way.
When we follow Christ he changes our lives.
Paul was changed. Philemon was changed. Onesimus was changed. This little book shows the power of the Gospel. And the story doesn’t end with this tiny book. William Barclay points out that on reading Church history, 50 years later we discover that the Bishop’s name in Ephesus was Onesimus. It may well be that the one-time runaway thief had become, with the passing of the years and the power of the Gospel, none other than the great Bishop of Ephesus.
Who knows what God can yet do in your life, in your world when we really live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the name of God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
