Philemon
1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,
To Philemon our dear
friend and co-worker, 2 to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our
fellow soldier, and to the church in your house:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.
4 When I remember you] in my prayers, I always thank
my God 5 because
I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord
Jesus. 6 I
pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all
the good that we] may do for Christ. 7 I have indeed received much joy and
encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been
refreshed through you, my brother.
8 For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you
to do your duty, 9 yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul,
do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. 10 I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus,
whose father I have become during my imprisonment. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is
indeed useful both to you and to me. 12 I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to
you. 13 I
wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place
during my imprisonment for the gospel; 14 but I preferred to do nothing without your
consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something
forced. 15 Perhaps
this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might
have him back forever, 16 no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a
beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh
and in the Lord.
17 So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would
welcome me. 18 If
he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my
account. 19 I,
Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about
your owing me even your own self. 20 Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you
in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. 21 Confident of your obedience, I am writing to
you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.
22 One thing more—prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping
through your prayers to be restored to you.
23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to
you,[g]24 and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my
fellow workers.
25 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Sermon
In the Same Boat
Maynard Pittendreigh
The Help is a novel that was published a few years ago.
In the book, and also the movie based on the
book, Eugenia, or Skeeter as she is more commonly called, has just returned
home after graduating from the University of Missisippi and wants to become a
writer. For her first major writing
project, she decides to interview some of the residents of the town in order to
tell their stories. The residents she
wants to interview are the African American women who work in various white
households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the early 1960s.
Skeeter slowly builds trust
with these women and begins to listen to their stories of what it is really
like to be an African American maid working for white families in Mississippi
in the early 1960s.
It becomes very clear that the maids are simply not regarded as human
beings; they are “the help.”
One of the stories Skeeter hears is told to her by Abilene. Abilene tells about serving a luncheon for
her employer’s card club. While Abilene
serves the food and fills up the drink glasses, the conversation at the table turns
to a local initiative to have every family construct a second bathroom, outside
if necessary, for the help—the black housekeepers and maids—to prevent them
from using the white family’s bathroom.
In a town and in a time in history in which there where separate public
bathrooms for whites and blacks, in Jackson Mississippi there is a sudden fear
about cleanliness and hygiene those people to use their
bathrooms.
As Abilene serves the women their lunch and iced tea, Abilene
hears it all.
They talk as if she isn’t even there, which in a way she isn’t.
It is easy to look at people and not see them as -- PEOPLE. They are not people – they are the other
race.
How many times do we look at others and fail to understand – that is
a human being, with feelings and pain and desires and hopes and dreams?
No - they not really people – they are just members of the other
political party.
That man is not real people.
That homeless person is just a bum, not a person.
The rich look at the poor, not as people. They are just poor trash.
The common person looks at those who are wealthy and powerful –
they aren’t people. They have no idea
how real people live.
One of the many things the recent “Me, Too” movement can teach is
that there are so many men who look at women as objects. They are not real people, you can do anything
with them and get away with it.
In Mark
Twain's “Huckleberry Finn,” Young Huck
has run away from home to escape his cruel father. Everyone thinks poor Huck
has been murdered, but he is alive and well and adrift on the Mississippi River
in a canoe. He takes refuge one night on
Jackson’s Island. Soon darkness falls
and he is afraid, exhausted and alone.
Long past
midnight, Huck creeps through the dense woods to a clearing where he finds the
remains of a camp fire, and in the flickering of the fire’s light, sees the
figure of a man on the ground. The man
gets up, to the terror of young Huck.
But then he realizes who this man is.
It’s Jim! Miss Watson’s slave
from back home. Jim is an escaped
slave!
It is at
this point that Huck Finn reflects, “'I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn't
lonesome now.''
This
unlikely pair begin their journey together down the Mississippi. Two very different people, both in the same boat.
Huck is, in the beginning
of this journey, conflicted about his travel partner. In particular, he is conflicted about the sin
and crime of supporting a runaway slave.
He wonders if Jim even has a soul.
But being two people in the
same boat, the two talk in depth and they begin to bond. Huck connects
emotionally with Jim. Jim becomes Huck's close friend and guardian.
Being in
the same boat, they begin to see each other differently.
They begin
to see each other as – well, people.
Which
brings us to the book of Philemon.
Philemon. It is not the shortest book in the
Bible. But it comes close. Close enough so that we just read the entire
book of Philemon.
Philemon. I don’t remember anyone every starting a
Bible Study on the book of Philemon.
I don’t
think anyone has ever selected as his or her favorite verse of the Bible one of
the 25 verses of Philemon.
In fact, I
have been preaching for 41 years! This
sermon you are hearing is my 2,749th sermon! You think I’d gotten better at it by now!
But I have
never preached on Philemon. Which is why
I felt moved to preach from Philemon today.
After all,
Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
Which
means that even Philemon, as short as it is has something to say.
And what
Philemon basically teaches is that we are all in the same boat. Just like the Skeeter and Abilene in the
Help,
or like
Huck Finn and Jim in Mark Twain’s novel.
Let me
give you a bit of background.
Paul is
writing to a man named Philemon, which is how this book gets the title,
Philemon. He writes about Onesimus, who
was a slave who, like Huck Finn’s Jim, ran away from his owner. There is even an implication in the book that
Onesimus stole some money from his owner, Philemon.
Sometime after running
away from Philemon, Onesimus encounters Paul.
We don’t know how. It may have
been that he knew Paul, had heard about Paul, or even that for a short period
of time they were cell mates in the local jail.
After all, Paul is writing this letter from prison.
At any rate, Onesimus,
whose name means “useful,” has been very useful to Paul. And an affection and friendship grows between
Onesimus and Paul.
Legally Onesimus should be
sent back to his owner. Paul does not
want to do that, however. But he writes
this letter and he tells Philemon to receive Onesimus – not as a slave – but as
family.
You see, Paul, Onesimus
and Philemon are all in the same boat.
They are all children of
God.
Paul is the greatest
theologian in history, but his is no better at being a Christian than Onesimus
or Philemon. They are all in the same
boat. Just Christians called to love and
respect each other.
Philemon is the legal
owner of Onesimus according to the secular world of that time. And yet Onesimus became the Bishop of the
church in Ephesus. It was one of the radical things that gave the Roman Empire
a struggle – that a slave could be so highly regarded as to become a bishop.
They are indeed all in
the same boat. Before God, all are
equal.
That is a very American
value, that “all men are created equal.”
That phrase is in the preface of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson penned those words, but
where did he get that concept of equality?
Some would say the concept came from John Locke or Voltaire.
Scholar Sarah Ruden, in
her book, Paul Among the People, argues that the concept started here –
right here in the letter to Philemon. It
was here that Paul created the Western concept that the individual human being
is "unconditionally precious to God and therefore entitled to the
consideration of other human beings." Before Paul wrote this little
letter, Ruden argues, a slave was considered subhuman, and entitled to no more
consideration than an animal. (Sarah Ruden, Paul
Among the People (2010), p. xix.)
It
is so easy to look at people as subhuman.
You
see someone and think, “That person doesn’t matter.” Think again.
You are both in the same boat.
This
month the American government shut down.
In
our country, a government shutdown occurs when Congress and the President fail
to pass an appropriations bill to fund government operations. The first time this happened, if my research
is correct, was in 1976, but they have become increasingly more common in
recent years.
We
watch these shutdowns with increasing frustration.
Now,
I am no expert in the economy or the Constitution or politics.
But
I watch the politicians. The Republicans
blame the Democrats, and the Democrats blame the Republicans. They demean and dehumanize each other.
I
think they would get a lot more done if they understood they were all in the
same boat, that boat being Congress. Or
better yet, that boat being America. As
long as one group demeans the other, nothing much gets done.
When you listen to or
read reflections of astronauts who have orbited the earth, this is one of the
concepts they share. We are all in the
same boat. You look down on earth and
you do not see the lines one sees on maps.
There is no line separating Canada, the US, or Mexico. You look at Europe and you cannot tell where
France ends and Spain begins. We are all
in one boat, all citizens of one planet.
But if you walk on the
streets of this planet, you see people with different color skin. You see clothing that suggests wealth or
poverty. You begin to fall into the trap
of thinking – us versus them.
But no
– we are all in the same boat.
In Paul’s day there were
slave and there were free people. Paul
stripped away those differences and wrote about how in Christ we are all in the
same boat, we are all children of God, and there is no north, south, east,
west, no slave or free, no rich or poor.
We are all human. Created by God.
When Paul wrote to
Philemon and asked him to take the runaway slave back, he told him not to
receive him back as a slave, but as family.
Look at the former slave and see him as a human being.
What a difference it
would make the next time we look at others we would see them as human beings. Your boss, your employee, your maid, your
teacher, your student, your next door neighbor, the other drivers on I-4, the
stranger you meet at the store --- each one is a human being.
The man can no longer
look at a woman employee as an object to be used. The wealthy cannot look at the poor as undeserving
of help. We, like Philemon, need to see
beyond the surface to see each one as a person with hurts and pain and feelings
and needs.
Larry Nassar worked for two
decades as a sports physician and as a trainer of some of our nations top Olympic
starts. He was widely respected, but underneath
was a secret.
He had been molesting the
young women under his supervision. In
recent days he was sentenced to serve 175 years in prison. Before being sentenced to prison he had to
sit in a courtroom and listen to one accuser after another. For seven long days he heard one story after
another – 156 women took turns speaking.
How could someone do such
horrible things?
It is easy,
if you look at someone as an object, and not as a human being.
Nancy Ortberg is a Presbyterian minister who serves a church in
California. Prior to becoming a
minister, she was an emergency room nurse.
She tells the story of what happened one night in the hospital at
the end of her shift.
It had been a busy Saturday night and after a rush of seriously injured
patients things were beginning to quiet down.
But the ER was a mess. The ER physician was debriefing a resident about
procedures and protocols, complimenting the young resident on his competence.
And then he put his hand on the resident’s arm and asked, “When
you finished did you notice the young man from housekeeping who came in to
clean the room?”
There was a blank look on the young doctor’s face.
The older doctor said, “His name is Carlos. He’s been here for
three years. He does a fabulous job. When he comes in he gets the room turned
around so fast that you and I can get our next patients in quickly. His wife’s
name is Maria. They have four children.” Then he named each child and their
ages.
“He lives in a rented house three blocks from here. They’ve been
up from Mexico for about five years. His name is Carlos. I want you to speak to
him. More than that, next week I would
like you to tell me something about Carlos that I don’t already know.” (Forbes,
23 April 2007).
We need to look at everyone as human.
And so Paul wrote to Philemon and said to him, “Perhaps this is
the reason Onesimus was separated from you for a while, so that you might have
him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved
brother”—a beloved brother who, like you and me, was created in the image of
God and for whom Jesus Christ lived and died.
And now unto
God the Father,
God the Son,
And God the
Holy Spirit be ascribed all might, power, dominion and glory, today and
forever, Amen.
Copyright 2018.
Dr. W.
Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights
reserved
Ministers may
feel free to use some or all of this sermon in their own ministries as long as
they do not publish in print or on the Internet without ascribing credit to the
author.
