A New Identity

(Scriptures: Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Psalm 139
Philemon 1:1-25 Luke 14:25-33)

Today’s service is built partially on a theme of the Labor Day weekend. The focus text is Paul’s letter to Philemon, one of those small epistles tucked away in the back of the New Testament, that we normally don’t think about a whole lot. It’s a short letter, all of one chapter long. Unlike most of Paul’s letters, it’s written not to a church or group of churches, but to an individual – though since the church is mentioned, it’s sort of Paul’s equivalent of sending an email to Philemon, with a copy going to Philemon’s church. And from your experience, you usually do that in order to enlist the cc’d people to strongly encourage or even embarrass the primary recipient into doing what you ask.

Although Philemon is a short letter, it’s created a great deal of controversy through the centuries. The occasion for the letter is that a runaway slave, Onesimus, came to Paul, was converted to the way of Jesus, and asked Paul’s help in dealing with his master. Unlike many of Paul’s letters, which can be as subtle as a brick bat, this letter overflows with diplomacy, tact, artful persuasion rather than straightforward command. In secular terms, Philemon holds a much more exalted and prominent position in society than Paul does. However, Paul is Philemon’s mentor in the faith – in a sense, Paul is Philemon’s spiritual father. Paul sends the runaway slave, Onesimus, back to his master, Philemon, with this artfully composed letter which does not command, but strongly suggests, that Paul would like Philemon to liberate Onesimus and send him back to assist Paul in his work. Here are some of the persuasive devices Paul uses: Paul reminds Philemon that Paul was his mentor and father in the faith, that Philemon owes his salvation to Paul’s ministry. Paul refers to himself as being “now an old man” – as in “have mercy on an old man and do what he asks”. There are a number of puns and plays on words, which get lost in translation into English: the slave’s name, Onesimus, was a common slave name meaning “Useful”. At one point, Paul says that the slave named Onesimus, or Useful, was formerly Useless to Philemon – because he ran away – but now as a follower of Christ he was useful to both Philemon and to Paul. The word Paul used for “useless” was “achrestos”, and another synonym Paul used for “useful” was “euchrestos”. And both words sound a lot like Christos – the Greek word for Christ – so following the way of Christos helped Onesimus move from being “achrestos” – useless - to being “euchrestos” - useful.

A key to understanding this letter is that, as a Christian, Onesimus’ status with respect to Philemon had changed. Slavery among Jews and Greeks had both similarities and differences from slavery in the American South. Roman slaves were used for anything from backbreaking manual labor to being household servant who handled their masters’ affairs. Some slaves could manage property on behalf of the master, or even own property themselves, and it might be possible for a slave to purchase his or her freedom. Despite all this, a slave was basically seen as, to use a phrase from Aristotle, a “living tool” – hence the slave’s name, Onesimus, or “Useful”. You would say that a tool or machine is useful, but you would rarely use that word to describe a person, unless that person were being manipulated and used as a tool – for example, sometimes political commentators deem those with whom they disagree as “useful idiots” being duped by demagogues. For their part, Jews were milder in their approach to slavery. They would take foreigners, non-Jews, as slaves. But given their historical memory of themselves being slaves in Egypt, Jews were not to take other Jews as slaves on a permanent basis, but were to release them on the 7th year of their servitude.

But now that Onesimus is a new believer, Philemon must relate to him, not as a living tool, but as a brother in Christ. Onesimus is to be seen, not as a thing, but as a human being, on the same level with Philemon. There’s a reality of equality in Christ that supercedes the social institutions of the day.

The letter generates controversy because of its treatment of the institution of slavery. In two letters, Galatians and Colossians, Paul declares that there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free – that all are one in Christ, with no divisions. So why did Paul not just make a straightforward demand, as Philemon’s spiritual advisor, that Philemon liberate Onesimus, now brother in Christ to both Philemon and to Paul? In part, it seems to have been a concession to the reality that slavery was an entrenched institution, which most people, Jew and Gentile alike, assumed was entirely acceptable. All cultures and societies have their blind spots, and acceptance of slavery was a blind spot in this society. In addition, it’s likely that Paul thought that Jesus was going to return very soon, and so he did not see a need to militate against the institution of slavery.

Indeed, the fact that Paul hints and recommends and persuades, but does not demand, that Philemon release his slave, was used for many years as a proof text that slavery was acceptable in God’s eyes. There are accounts from the mid 19th century, before, during, and shortly after the civil war, recounting instances when white pastors would occasionally, in a gesture of goodwill, lead services for slaves. Inevitably the white pastors chose the book of Philemon as their text, and the interpretation was that runaway slaves should be returned to their masters, as Onesimus was sent back to his master by Paul. It is a bitter irony – and a testament that human sinfulness can twist even Scripture itself for evil purposes - that Paul’s letter, written in an attempt to liberate his friend and coworker Onesimus, was used to uphold bondage and forced servitude, so much so that many black preachers for decades after liberation from slavery would never go anywhere near the book of Philemon. For slaves and recently freed blacks, the book of Philemon became a text of terror. What was written by Paul in an attempt to liberate a new convert to the way of Jesus and to share the Good News of Christ, became, through human sinfulness, bad, bad, Bad News for slaves in the American south and elsewhere.

On this Labor Day weekend, while we can be grateful that slavery is no longer accepted in this country or in most countries, underground forms of slavery still exist – among the most extreme and the most despicable is the trafficking of women and even children for sexual gratification. Beyond that, there are many places in the world, including this country, where men, women, and children work in conditions of near-slavery, where migrant workers – documented and otherwise - do backbreaking work harvesting fruit and vegetables, where people work to produce cheap clothing in sweatshop conditions. If you look at the labels for your clothing, you’ll find some of them may have been made in Bengladesh, or the Marianas Islands – and they were likely made in what we would term sweatshops. Those low, low clothing prices at the local Big Box store may have a very high price indeed to the people making them. So in a way, through our decisions regarding what we buy or don’t buy, we all participate to a greater or lesser extent in keeping the system of exploitation going. As an alternative, some churches have made a decision to buy what is called “fair trade” coffee – it’s a bit more expensive, but it ensures that the workers who picked the coffee beans were paid a living wage. It may seem like only a small gesture, but it’s something, a way of saying that we support a living wage for coffee field workers. Even in this country, in the current bad economy, workers face ever-more exploitative conditions, as employers avoid pay raises, cut benefits, and cut corners on health and safety laws. Why do they do it? In today’s lousy economy, well, they do it because they can. After all, if someone complains, there are lots of other folks perfectly willing to take the same job and allow themselves to be exploited, without complaint. All of this points toward the mindset that undergirded slavery in ancient times, the mindset of seeing those who serve us – the maid at the hotel, the waiter or waitress at the restaurant, the bank teller – as “living tools,” interacting with them not as human beings, but as annoyances we have to put up with in order to have our own needs met. The 20th century German Jewish philosopher Martin Buber characterized our ways of interacting with others as a choice between what he called “Ich und Du” - “I and You” relationships, versus “Ich Es” or “I-It” relationships. And we make this choice many times every day.

The church has a thing or two to say about this mindset. Paul implored his wealthy friend Philemon to relate to Onesimus, not as a living tool, but as a fellow human being, as a brother in Christ. In the same way, God calls the church to remind employers and customers to remember the humanity of the people with whom we interact. God calls us to work to overcome conditions of exploitation. In a small example, within the past few years, a coalition of churches worked to organize the Allied Barton security guards who work at Penn, Temple, and many other universities and at many Philadelphia museums. Many of these guards were given virtually nothing in the way of benefits, vacation, sick time. Due to the efforts of these churches, some of these guards for the first time received perhaps 3, 4, 5 days sick leave per year. It’s not an enormous first step forward, but it’s something. And in our own personal lives, we can support continued exploitation of vulnerable workers, or we can support improvement in their conditions, just by the choices we make concerning where we shop, what brands we buy, the hotel chains at which we stay. As the old saying goes, we can make the choice of supporting the union label, of buying union-label goods and patronizing unionized establishments – or not. And this choice has not only financial and social, but theological implications.

So what ever happened to Onesimus? Here's where I give you what radio commentator Paul Harvey used to call, "the rest of the story," at least as understood by many Bible scholars. We don't know for sure if it's the same person, but a person named Onesimus is mentioned in Colossians 4:9 - he's referred to as "the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you". There is, in fact, a strong tradition that Onesimus, the freed slave, is the same Onesimus who was later consecrated as Bishop of Byzantium, and martyred during one of the persecutions of Christians in Rome. He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, among others. All this from Philemon’s act of freeing the slave Onesimus. It's amazing how powerful can be the simple act of treating our fellow human beings as beloved of God.

Paul writes: “Perhaps this is the reason Onesimus was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother.” May we treat our co-workers, our employees, if we have them, those who serve us at restaurants and stores, those who produce our food and clothing, not as slaves, not as living tools, but as our brothers and sisters in Christ. May God’s love be manifest here in the sanctuary of Emanuel church, and as we go forth from this place into our daily lives. Amen.
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Please join us for worship at 10 am at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org