The following sermon was preached at saint benedict’s table on Sunday, September 8, 2019. You can also listen to the live recording or subscribe to our podcast. Just click here.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our all hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight O God for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Usually when we read scripture together in church, we read a small portion of a larger book. But tonight, we read almost the entire book of Philemon – the lectionary only cuts out the last few verses.
Philemon is a letter. Most likely written by Paul and, you might reasonably assume because of its title, written to a man named Philemon, but there you’d be wrong.
The letter is addressed to, “To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house…” (1-2) This letter was written to a house church, a group of men and women who will gather together in Philemon’s home to hear the letter read aloud and to discuss its contents.
Much of the content is addressed directly to Philemon but the letter is meant to be read by the entire church community.
The letter focusses on the relationship between Paul, Philemon, and a man Philemon has enslaved named Onesimus.
Slavery is abhorrent. It is wrong. But it also has, in many places and at many times throughout history, been normal. So normal that people couldn’t imagine there was any other way to structure a society.
And Paul doesn’t do what I want him to do in this letter. I just want one sentence. Just one that says, “As we all know, slavery is sinful, stop enslaving human beings.” I want him to have written that. It’s one of the three sentences Paul never wrote that I wish he did. Feel free to ask me about the other two after the service.
But Paul didn’t write that sentence. And he doesn’t write on suggesting that
This newly formed Christian community should overthrow the entire political, economic and social system they live under either but I do think that he does clearly say that slavery should not exist in Christian communities. He just does it using a particular rhetorical style that may not be obvious to us on a first reading.
Spoiler alert: This may be the most sarcastic piece of writing in the entire Bible.
In the opening address Philemon is describes as Paul’s “dear friend and co-worker.” (1)
Paul and Philemon are friends, but they are also partners in God’s work. They have a job to do – to spread the gospel and grow the church – and if they are going to be successful, they need to be able to work closely together.
The letter continues with a form common in Paul’s letters, “When I remember you in my prayers…” (4). Whenever you hear those words, look carefully at what Paul says he is praying for, because it usually functions as the thesis statement for the entire letter. In this case, Paul prays that, “the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ.”
Paul is either suggesting that Philemon’s work is not effective, or that it is not as effective as it could be because he is not seeing things as clearly as Paul does.
Paul continues, “For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love…” (8-9)
They are co-workers in this venture, but make no mistake about it, Paul has more power than Philemon. Paul has the power to simply command that Philemon do his duty, but Paul is saying he prefers the “catch more flies with honey” approach. And by honey I mean words that are dripping with sarcasm.
So what is Philemon’s duty? What it is that Paul wants him to do?
Paul writes, “I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.” (9)
A couple of things to note here. Onesimus was a pretty common name to give an enslaved person. It means “useful.”
In saying that Onesimus is his child, Paul is both invoking and subverting the traditional paterfamilias structure that governed households. In this system, one man was the head of the household with complete authority over all the people and possessions of that household. A slave would be a possession, not a person.
Paul is using this imagery to say two things: One, in this Christian family, Paul is paterfamilias, not Philemon. He can simply command that Philemon do his duty.
Two: Paul is saying that for Philemon’s work on behalf of the gospel to be effective, he needs to change the way he thinks about and treats Onesimus.
Paul describes Onesimus as his child, and then later, he says that Philemon should treat him as a brother. Basically, Paul is saying that both Philemon and Onesimus are his children. They are equals, which by extension means that Philemon needs to treat Onesimus as a person, not property.
Paul is writing this letter from prison. Onesimus is with him, although he is not imprisoned. How did he come to be there?
It’s not clear.
As I mentioned last week, people in prison in this time period had to rely on people outside of the prison to provide for their daily needs and its possible that Philemon has sent Onesimus to Paul to make sure he has food and other basic necessities of life.
Onesimus may also have run away. But this was an offence punishable by crucifixion so it seems odd that he’d come out of hiding to help Paul. Although, perhaps he did run away and realized that there was no safe place for an escaped slave to live so he is appealing to Paul to help him smooth over the situation with Philemon so he can return to that household.
It isn’t clear how he came to be with Paul, but it is clear that this letter is intended to repair the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus.
Paul wants Onesimus to return to Philemon’s household, and he wants Philemon to accept him when he does.
Playing with the meaning of Onesimus’ name Paul says that although Philemon thinks Onesimus is useless, he is in fact, useful to both of them.
So useful, in fact, that even though Paul would prefer to have Onesimus stay with him, he is sending him back to Philemon. And listen to the words Paul uses, “ I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me … but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.” (13-14)
When Paul who has already stated he has the power to just command you to do your duty sends a request in a letter that will be read by your entire community recommending you do something voluntarily instead of by force, how much wiggle room do you think you actually have?
And not only does Paul want Philemon to accept Onesimus back into his household, listen to how he expects Onesimus to be treated, “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.” (16)
Onesimus is not property. He is Paul’s own heart. Paul expects Philemon to receive him as his beloved brother.
The letter continues, “So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wrong you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, am writing this in my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self…. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do ever more than I say.” (Emphasis mine)
As if Paul isn’t laying it on thick enough with this choice of words, he employs another one of his favourite rhetorical devices. Although the bulk of this letter has been dictated to a scribe, this section was so important he wrote it in his own hand. Make no mistake, he is saying, I mean what I say.
And that’s where our reading ended. Now if you’ve been wondering why the creators of the lectionary decided to leave out the last few verses, I don’t have an answer, but I can tell you what those verses contain.
The very last few verses are just a list of other people who send greetings. Kind of like a P.S. I’d probably cut those too. But I would have extended the passage we did read by one verse.
That verse reads, “One thing more – prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you.” (22)
Paul is planning to come for a visit and therefore will know if Philemon has done what he is supposed to do.
This seems to me to be the Pauline version of a mic drop.
This is my best effort at providing you with an accurate reading of Philemon, but I do want you to know that it has often been interpreted very differently.
Some commentators don’t see sarcasm in Paul’s words. They see someone writing very carefully so as not to hurt the feelings of a rich and powerful man. Which changes the tone, but not the meaning, of the letter.
This letter has also been used in countries like the United States to justify the forcible return of enslaved people who have run away. That changes the tone and the meaning. I also think it’s a willful misreading of the text.
A couple of years ago I went to Durham, North Carolina for a conference and, as I often do, I added a day to the trip to see the sites.
There was really only one place I wanted to visit: Stagville Plantation has been turned into a historic site that including original buildings where enslaved people once lived.
I wanted to see those buildings for myself. It wasn’t that I doubted that slavery existed but I was also aware that at least in some way, it existed for me as story.
I had a sense that somehow if I could stand in a place where this had actually happened, then the truth of this horrible system would sink more deeply into my consciousness.
But first I had to get there.
The Stagville Plantation was only about 20 kilometers from my hotel but it was outside the city limits so I wanted to make sure that not only would I be able to get a taxi to take me there, that I could also get one to bring me back again.
The nice white girl at the hotel desk was confused by my request. A lifelong resident of Durham, she’d never even heard of Stagville. There was no glossy brochure in the rack behind her desk either.
But she googled it and called a cab company that assured me a round trip.
The taxi driver was African American. He had heard of Stagville but had never been there and couldn’t understand why I’d want to go. Didn’t I want to go to the shopping center or some other more typical tourist spot?
Nope. Take me to the plantation please.
After we’d driven for about 30 minutes I began to wonder if something was wrong. After we’d driven about 45 minutes, I knew something was wrong because my driver was clearly panicking and eventually pulled the car over on the side of the road praying, “Help me Jesus. Help me Jesus,” under his breath.
He’d gotten lost. And he was scared.
And I knew right away that his fear didn’t simply come from having taken a few wrong turns. It came from having made a few wrong turns on deserted country roads with a white lady for a passenger.
We were strangers, but the evil legacy of slavery and racism were impacting our relationship. His fear was reasonable, and routed in experience.
Eventually we were able to sort out the situation. I assured him I had no where important to be and that this was simply an adventure and he figured out the directions. We had another 45 minutes or so to drive.
But now, he relaxed a bit and began to show me around. The little country church where his grandfather had been a preacher, the huge menacing prison where he quipped, clearly more relaxed now, “Are you sure you don’t just want to visit that plantation instead?” and finally Stagville.
As he took me up the long winding driveway, he muttered. “This place feels bad, it’s a bad, bad place.” He refused my offer of a ticket, opting to wait for me in the car.
I bought my ticket and joined a tour that was already in progress.
I’d only been there about 10 minutes when the tour guide started giving us driving directions. It turned out that the slave quarters were a couple miles up the road – which suggests the size of the original plantation and also presented me with a problem.
So I put up my hand and said, “Hi, so I’m from Canada and I took a taxi here and I didn’t know we had to drive to another location and so… would someone mind giving me a ride?”
And you know what happened right? Because of course it did.
This nice older couple said, “We’re from Canada too and not only would we be happy to give you a ride but if you’re willing to visit a few additional tourist sites with us today, we’ll drive you back to town too.”
I thanked them, ran over to pay and thank the taxi driver and release him from the misery of waiting for me at the plantation and then, while offering a silent apology to my parents, accepted a ride from strangers.
There are a lot of things that I could tell you about seeing buildings that enslaved people once lived in, but here are just two.
The first is, that these particular buildings were still standing because they were built in an era where people who enslaved other people began to realize that if they provided slightly better accommodations then their slaves would not get sick so easily and could work harder and produce more. That’s just good economic sense.
And the second is, that I was allowed to touch the fingerprints embedded in the bricks that enslaved people had made to form the chimney, and some of those fingerprints definitely belonged to small children.
Paul was challenging Philemon to think differently about human relationships and reject the dehumanizing institution of slavery.
I think he is challenging us to do the same.
May we listen. May we act.
In the name of the triune God who creates, redeems, and sustains. Amen.