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Philemon 1-21 and Luke 14:25-33
Scholars don’t agree on Paul’s letter to Philemon. It’s a short letter, they at least agree on that, and that it was written from prison, but there are disagreements about the when and where of this letter. The subjects are also pretty vague – we don’t know much about Philemon at all and we have only this little bit of information about Onesimus, Philemon’s slave who is apparently imprisoned with Paul, perhaps because he escaped, perhaps because he was sent to Paul on purpose.
Here’s what we do know. Paul is writing in a time in which slavery is not only accepted, it is the “way of the world”, an understood, unquestioned and largely unchallenged component of the Roman empire, and the Greek world before that. Slaves are sometimes indentured, as a way to pay off insurmountable debt, sometimes conscripted from military conquest, sometimes generational, sometimes…well, you get the picture. They are just another class in the social structure and, like being a land owner or a farmer, there’s many ways to get locked in that class. And Onesimus has fled his master, he has, at least according to the laws of his time, deprived him of property, yes, but more importantly he has shamed him. And the standard rebuttal for that is death. This is serious stuff that Paul is diving into.
Notice Paul does not put forth a position on the morality of slavery, no matter how much we might want him to. He is neutral. If the hairs are standing up on the back of your neck a little bit, perhaps it’s because this kind of abuse of other human beings is part of the foundation of our own country, part of what lies behind the story of the stars and stripes. And we hope that our Holy Scriptures would carry the kind of moral weight we would expect them to on this matter, but we need to be clear as we hear and interpret this letter from Paul about the dark legacy of this text’s interpretation in the church. During the time of the Underground Railroad, this letter was exploited by “good Christians” to justify the “Peculiar Institution”, to divinely sanction the continued enslavement of our African-American sisters and brothers. This may seem abhorrent today, but it was reality then…and reality here not so long ago. So before we move too far away from this revelation, we need to think for a moment about the ways that the Bible is still used today to claim superiority of one kind of human being over another…
Meanwhile, we’ve been following Jesus in Luke’s gospel for the past few Sundays, hearing him tell us parables about healing on the sabbath, who sits where at the table and how, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Hard lessons. And now, Jesus is walking with his disciples and he suddenly stops and turns and says, “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple.” Can we imagine that scene for a moment? No intro, no smile, just a quick turn and verbal uppercut. As the disciples stand there with their mouths wide open, Jesus gives them this metaphor of a builder and then just hammers it home with, “Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple.”
I half expect Jesus to then say – “Do you like apples? How do you like them apples?”
But notice the direction of Jesus’ jaw-dropping statement about what is required of his disciples…it is outward. You let go of brother, sister, parents, even self…all of the things that define us as human beings…in order to reach out for something else. Jesus does not pull people into an existing family as much as he changes the definitions, deconstructing the current makeup in favor of something new. So this is not merely switching teams, or swinging the pendulum from one side to the other, this is a transformation, a metamorphosis from one kind of thing to another, completely different kind of thing…a “third way”, if you will.
And it is this “third way” that resonates with me throughout both of these sections of our scriptures. For whether it is Jesus or Paul, the demand of the Gospel is that it comes to steal our identity, to shift our definitions of tribe, family, friendships, even self. And in a day and age in which some of us really have to fight for our identity, this is challenging on many levels. When we fight for an identity as a lesbian or transgendered person, an African or Native American in the US or as a “Christian-but” in the Bible Belt…you know, “I’m a Christian, but…not like those Christians…”
Paul asks Philemon, almost rhetorically coerces him, into getting real about how being “in Christ” must shape his actions and life. You can’t just say I’m “in Christ” and not have that change you. It can’t only mean a fish stuck on the back of your car or a yard sign or t-shirt. The subtext of both Jesus and Paul’s words are that you shouldn’t have to tell me you’re “in Christ”, I should be able to see it all over you. It should mean that you are somehow, at least in some way, different than anyone else in the empire.
Jesus and Paul challenge their cultural systems which held family and social roles as a crucial points of identity. Both claim that such identity must be reshaped in the kin-dom that Jesus announces is right here among us and which Paul calls the good news of Jesus Christ. And this is still where our faith meets us. For whether it is patriotism or philanthropy, consumerism or compromise, jealousy or justice, both of these scriptures lay on our hearts the moral and spiritual imperative that we free ourselves from a “right or wrong”, “black or white” mindset that simply places us on a pendulum and instead seek a third way, a way of transforming our hearts, a way that asks us to give up our old allegiances, our old identity, and to take up our cross, which means that we look now to live a life that bears witness to God’s constant life-affirming action, even in the face of death…an affirmation that reshapes us, that sees our identity transformed by removing the very things that have given us identity, in favor of a third way…a way asserted by Paul in another letter when he boldly states that…
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,
nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28
This identity is not found in just switching the gender roles or reversing the master-slave relationship, but in transforming those boundaries all together. It is a different way of seeing ourselves, and each other and the world. Keep in mind that this is the assertion that made people carry Jesus to a cliff when he announced it in his first sermon, and what made people call the women’s witness of the empty tomb an “idle tale” and label Paul a troublemaker. It is a soul-shaping identity that begins with the radical, faithful vision of each of us as beloved children of God far, far before we get to any of the other labels we like to put front and center.
At this table…at THIS table, we are created in God’s image. Right now. As we are. And that is our identity.
Thanks be to God.