Sunday, September 25, 2016

Loving What God Loves


Text: Psalms 146
Focus: God Loves Justice
Function: to help people partner with God in doing justice
Form: Bible Study

Intro:
The Key verse from today’s text is verse 7-8: Let me re-read them: 7God judges in favor of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free 8and gives sight to the blind. He lifts those who have fallen; he loves his righteous ones.
(repeat) God lifts up those who have fallen; God loves God’s people who do justice.
Given the nature of God’s grace, given the fact that God and Love are synonymous, given the fact that the greatest commandment to US is to love others, we can rest assured that God loves the world entire.
Why does the Psalmist say that those who do justice, the righteous in the King James translation, are the ones loved by God?
Well, we know that he does not say that they are the only ones loved by God.
It isn’t exclusionary. What we do see in this passage is the special relationship that God has with those who take the time to continue to do God’s work in this world.
But look again at that statement in verse 7, God judges in favor of the poor.
Again, this does not say that God unfairly judges on behalf of the poor. God’s law is clear that the judges are to show no partiality either on the side of the poor, or of the side of the powerful.
But the author is reminding us that when the poor are unfairly treated, God is always on their side and God will plead their case. It is a warning that God cares about what happens to the poor, even when others do not.
I want to emphasize this. There is no partiality with God, God loves everyone, but God does listen to prayers. This Psalm reminds me of the personal and individual care that God has for people.
For me, it begins to address the difference between what it means to be a partner with God in healing the world, or a person whose life is spent serving one’s own self without regard to how that affects others, or how we can continue to love others as much as we love ourselves.
I knew a young man studying business at the University of Illinois. He, his girlfriend and I shared a common interest in photography. I had had some successes with my photography during my formative years and I had a passion about sharing my hobby with anyone who would listen. I was a photography evangelist.
His name was Dave and we had talked a lot about our philosophies of life. He knew I was, or had been, a wayward preachers kid who was not sure what parts or any of it, I could come back to. I wasn’t sure about all the rules. They seemed to me to be an excuse for other things. I heard men curse people simply because of the color of their skin and all the while prove to everyone else that they were good Christians because they never drank any alcohol.
The words “it felt hypocritical” aren’t really accurate. It just didn’t feel authentic.
I was disenchanted with the Church, but Jesus was calling me back to Himself and there were many things about the Christian faith from my childhood that I missed. I was longing for the community of faith.
And this time with Dave and his girlfriend was near the end of that time of rebellion when I was figuring out where I was going. I was back to being a Christian, but I was not back to surrendering to the calling God had in my life. I wanted to make money and was doing pretty well in my sales career.
One day the three of us were out on a Photo shoot when we came across a beggar. His girlfriend and I both gave the person some change. He was lividly angry with her and he said something that I will never forget.
He yelled at her: “Only the rich can afford to be generous.”
I understood exactly what he was saying. He was a Social Darwinian, even when it applied to economics. And that means if the poor do not have enough food to survive, then let them die, it is good for evolution. His genotype was practically a perfect Aryan. It was almost scary.
The sad thing about that philosophy is that it does not take into account bad luck, good luck, privilege, opportunity and all the other factors that go into generational poverty. This man actually believed that the poor deserved their plight, even if it killed them.
I woke up some more that day as I pondered exactly what he was saying.
Let me re-read that statement in verse 8: The Lord loves the righteous, those who do justice.
Why? Why does God love them?
They are living in partnership with God.
The Lord loves the righteous. Not because they are saved and going to heaven and believe and have said the words of salvation in some form or another. The righteous have indeed done all of that. But the Lord loves the righteous because they are doing God’s work here on earth.
Yesterday we spent a little bit of time talking about what it means to be here at Hope Church and what we have to offer the community that is already here, and the community of people who are still to come through our doors and join us in our journey.
And besides how welcoming we are, the one thing that impresses the members and participants of this church is this church’s commitment to service.
The next verse in our text is a good testimony to this: God protects the strangers here in our land.
We know that one of the ways God does this is through the ministry of Bethany Christian services and churches like ours who have partnered with them to give strangers a safe welcome to this land. It is like the Pope when he says: “Pray for the poor, and then feed them.”
Service toward others is in our DNA as a Church and we can allow ourselves to be happy about it. And, we know it won’t stop with the last project, there is always something more to be done and I am confident that we will continue to let God lead us into new and varied areas for us to show God’s love toward others.
God lifts people up, that is the theme. And God’s plan to lift people up is through us.
And that segues us into the the other text from the lectionary this morning, the story of the Good Samaritan. Luke 10: 25-37
You know the story. A man is mugged and beaten by robbers and left to suffer, maybe die, on the side of the road.
The Highest kind of religious official walks along the road, sees the man, deliberately crosses to the other side to avoid the man and his problems. The second tier of religious official passes by and does the same thing. And the Samaritan, you know, is a racial half-breed, the kind that was despised by the religious officials, and even the victim of the beating.
And yet the man least likely, the man who many would consider to be his enemy is the one who sacrificially saves his life.
It is a great lesson. And of course, Jesus gives it as indictment of any kind of religion that ever justifies turning ones head from someone else’s suffering pretending that we didn’t see or that we are too busy to care.
But what most often gets excluded from the story is the context in which it is told. Let me read
Luke 10: 25A teacher of the Law came up and tried to trap Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to receive eternal life?”
26Jesus answered him, “What do the Scriptures say? How do you interpret them?”
27The man answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”
28“You are right,” Jesus replied; “do this and you will live.”
We all got that. We all get that. And the next verse is the most telling verse in the whole story: Verse 29:
29But the teacher of the Law wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
He asked Jesus for a way out of his responsibility. My friend Dave had the mistaken belief that he was an island only responsible for the welfare of himself and had no moral obligation to care for anyone else.
Jesus’ answer to that idea is that even your enemy is your neighbor.
And I submit that God loves it when we, instead of asking the question “who is my neighbor?” just automatically assume that everyone is our neighbor.
Every sinner. Every miracle worker. Every scoundrel, every saint. Every weak willed person, every one who has always been lucky and strong willed, the clean, the dirty, the black, the white, the police officer, the thug, the enemy, the friend, and the alien.
We can not possibly list everyone, but when we go back to our primary text this morning, Psalm 146, we do see how God is especially listening and looking for those who partner with God in making sure that whatever neighbor” God places in our path is not considered by us to be someone that God does not care for.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Been Praying Long?


Focus: Prayer
Function: to focus on Jesus instead of politics
Form: storytelling

Intro: Monday night, Michele, Dan and I went to hear Jim Wallis speak at Calvin College.
He was promoting his new book: America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. I got a signed copy!
With words like: “America’s original sin...” and “White Privilege...” it has a provocative title.
I love the way Jim Wallis framed the conversation in light of the Church and the Church’s responsibility to continue Jesus’ work of reconciling the world to God and each other.
I loved it because he framed what had become a political discussion without using any politics. He placed the onus for change back where it belongs: The Church.
Brother Wallis describes himself as an Evangelical with a passion for Social Justice. And because he was speaking at Calvin College, he continually reminded them that he Spiritually IS one of them.
I appreciated that because although spiritually he is one of them, the same could not be said FOR SURE that they have similar political views.
And he did not offend. His heart for justice came through. I wish I could do that better.
Let me get a little bit personal in my own life to help us see the importance of this scripture.
I have to tell you why Jim Wallis and Tony Compolo resonate with me so much. When God called me to ministry, I overwhelmingly heard a separate voice, I don’t know if it was out loud, or just in my mind, but it happened while I was praying. It was May 30, 1978, around 1:30 in the afternoon and I was with my family at Oubache State park near Bluffton Indiana, for a family Memorial day picnic.
I was off by myself, with my bible under my arm (show bible -worn to much to use anymore) and I heard this simple phrase: “Luke 4:18.
I had no idea at all what that verse was. I was new to Bible Study. I had read the gospels several times, but at the time, the only book I had studied thoroughly was Matthew. This verse does not appear in Matthew.
But the verse turned out to be the foundation of my call into the ministry. Here it is:
18The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because She anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
She has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,”
I heard that verse right about that time that Jim Wallis began a provocative ministry of social justice among evangelical Christians. I was excited to be proclaiming the good news as both salvation from sin, and a calling to change the structures of the world.
Either the culture wasn’t so politically charged as it is now, or I was ignorant of the Politics involved, but it seemed that talking about ministry to the poor and marginalized was easier among the cross section of Christianity then as it is now.
It was easier, a lot easier, actually. But there was still opposition. There was still opposition to doing justice ministries. And the fact that any opposition existed at all surprised me. It surprised me because it resonated so well with my own calling and I guess I am just human and I expect everyone else to see things the way I see them.
As I have followed these men’s ministries over the years. I have grown with them. One of the harder lessons I have learned is that not everyone is called to care for the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed in the society. I have had to forgive others for not sharing the degree of passion I have for it.
I felt like Jim Wallis was well received last Monday night and his good reception brings me a lot of hope for the future of the world.
Brother Wallis absolutely refused to let the discussion get political. And, that has cost him.
I had a brief moment to share with him his memories of my niece. She worked for him as a development coordinator for many years until she began directing a woman’s shelter in Washington D.C.
And she tells me of how God refocused his ministry in a painful way in 2010. The story might explain how he learned to keep things out of the political arena. I think he learned the hard way.
Jim Wallis was on platform at the Inauguration of our President in 2008. He offered one of the prayers. He was recommended because of his successful work at reconciliation after 9/11 as he worked with both Imams, Rabbis and Pastors in the New York City area. He consulted first with President Bush, and then President Obama.
He was an up and coming spiritual/political figure until he told the current President that he could not claim to be a Christian leader and continue the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
His logic was simple. He asked this question: How can a Christian give the order to use a drone when so many innocents are killed in collateral damage? That was his question.
And, because of those tough questions, Brother Wallis lost a lot of favor. He was no longer invited to the White House, the organization suffered, layoffs happened and praise God, she was able to continue ministry in another setting.
So, I was impressed with how well brother Wallis kept the conversation out of politics and how he kept it spiritual. There was no anger represented by him about all that on Monday night. He just keeps on with his message to whomever will listen.
But, it leads us back to our scripture for this morning: Look again at verse 1 and the beginning of 2: First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 2for kings and all who are in high positions.
This is a biblical command to pray for our leaders.
One may not need an whole sermon to get the idea across, but when I think of who Paul is talking about, I am amazed.
Paul is telling the people to pray for Nero.
If history is to believed, and for the most part it is, Nero was crazy. We have a logical fallacy in our current culture called “Ad Hitlerum. What it means is this: “you can’t go around comparing everyone to Hitler, there was only one Hitler.”
Nero was so bad, the same thing could have been said about him.
He hated people. He hated his people. He hated the Jews and he really hated Christians. He literally soaked them in rags covered in oil to use as torches at his orgies.
And God says this: “pray for him.”
Now, there are specific things to pray for: That we might have peace to do our Christian duty to a world that is hurting.
Christianity spread like wildfire in its first 3 centuries.
It was a counter culture religion. It was revolutionary. It upset the status quo of society.
Christianity spread quickly because the church took on the responsibility of caring for the poor wherever it went. There was no difference between the teachings of Jesus and the lives of the believers. This was huge because they focused on the equality of every single person. Everyone.
Jim Wallis pointed out that Galatians 3:28: 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus, was part of the baptism vows of new believers.
They interpreted it this way: In Roman culture, men have power of women, no more. In Roman Culture, slave lives didn’t matter. Instead of Black Lives Matter, the church was living out a counter principle: “Slave Lives Matter.” And there is no difference between the races.
So, when one was baptized into the body of Christ, it was with the explicit statement that there is no longer class, gender or racial privilege.
The Church lived out this principle in its life and the Emperor Nero hated it. He probably hated it the most because Christians would no longer declare the emperor as a God.
But understand this, those kinds of pogroms, were hundreds, thousands or even millions are killed happen because those in power have their power threatened.
So, when Nero was full force in his oppression of both the Jews and Christians, Paul’s response to the Church is this; “FIRST!!!!! Pray!!!”
Pray for peace. Pray that we might live in peace and be able to continue doing our work.
His command to pray really has nothing to do with nation building, national security, national economies, or the defeating of national enemies. His prayer is simple, pray that God opens a door for us to share good news and continue Jesus’ work.
I sensed that my niece was a little bit bitter about the loss of her job and the problems that brother Wallis’ organization was having for taking a stand for peace.
During that time, She asked me this question: “How can we bless a man who has the responsibility for continuing an unjust war?”
My only answer was that although I respected him, it wasn’t my fault that he was the Commander in Chief of the greatest military the world has ever known. He is doing what he thinks we want him to do.
She got me to thinking about this scripture, the prayer for Nero and an entire political system that was designed to keep some people in their places so that others can benefit from their misery.
So, I love the way verse 5 puts this into perspective. It seems to be the perspective from which Brother Wallis shared Monday night.
Verse 5: “there is one mediator between God and humankind… ...Christ Jesus”
This is a song that the early Church sang. Through the music, he is redirected to the hope we have. God changes hearts.
Now more than ever, we need to keep on praying in hope. God is able.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

David Vs. Saul (Mercy)


Focus: mercy
Function: to help people believe in mercy
Form: Story Telling

Intro:
Today is 9/11. Today is a day of forgiveness and mercy.
People react to mercy in different ways. I lived right on the exit of Interstate 69 and Indiana 13. I literally mowed up to the exit ramp.
The scene was obvious to everyone. Right off the interstate was this beautiful small country church. From the highway it was first the parsonage, a small orchard and the church, all within a single fence as connected property.
It afforded great opportunities for ministry and our congregation was faithful to its highway location by happily providing succor and respite for travelers whose resources were limited.
One day, in front of my house was a pickup truck spewing white steam and an industrious young man working on repairs. I stopped before heading into my driveway and offered assistance to which the young man politely refused and said he was sufficient to solve his problems.
Not seeing any anti-freeze or containers for transporting water, I casually pointed to the hose fixed to the front of my house, informed him that I was indeed the occupant of said house and explained that he was welcome to whatever water, or jug in the garage, he needed to complete his repairs.
While talking, I was slowly walking over toward his truck to eye his progress. When I got within about 20 feet of him he jumped off the bumper of his truck, grabbed a large wrench and threatened me with violence if I did not leave him alone.
Shocked, I backed away and let him walk across the highway the 500 yards to the Truck Stop. And I still do not know how to react to that person.
The focus of the message this morning is mercy, specifically the phrase, “God’s Great Mercy.”
I wondered if that independent young man had never ever received mercy for him to have such a hard attitude about letting someone else show him mercy.
I was talking with a United Methodist pastor friend of mine yesterday and he reminded me this: “God knows how to reach the heart of people.”
This Psalm is the great Psalm of confession.
This Psalm is the humble contrition of the King as the king recognizes the importance of relationship with God.
The story contains a profound contrast in what repentance looks like when it one compares King David’s remorse for his sin and King Saul’s seemingly insincere repentance.
Let me paint the picture of David’s sin and his mentor, King Saul, the predecessor who had David sitting at his table and sharing in the rule of Jerusalem with him.
David was called out by the Prophet Nathan because he committed both murder and adultery. He let his power get the best of him, he seduced the beautiful wife of his military commanders and when she was pregnant with David’s child and there was no way to save her life for committing adultery with David, the king had her husband murdered in battle, married her and counted on the fact that the baby born 6 months instead of 9 after the wedding looked small enough to be considered premature. I guess.
And I will qualify this statement later, but the worse thing could have happened to David, he got away with it.
Saul’s sin was different. Some say it was not as bad as it didn’t include murder and adultery, only fear.
The Israelites were attacked when fleeing from the Egyptians and they believed that God wanted them to punish this tribe for their ruthlessness.
And, as kings did in those days, they camped across from each other until someone decided to start the battle. Oftentimes, this waiting could last for hours or even days.
But the threat of attack, during the waiting period was always there. During that waiting time, it was customary for the different tribes to call upon their own Gods for help.
The soldiers needed to see that their God was on their side. And the Prophet Samuel (don’t get the two prophets confused, Nathan was about 30 years later than Samuel) told Saul to wait for him to come to offer the sacrifice.
And just as we all feel when we are asking God for help, we want God’s help and we want it now.
Saul’s army was getting tired of waiting, some were going home. Others were getting afraid, and Saul got tired of waiting so he offered the sacrifice himself.
This upset the prophet. Also, the Samuel gave explicit instructions to Saul that they were not to take any spoils of war. They were not to profit from the God’s punishment of this tribe.
But Saul, and his officers, decided to keep the best of the loot for themselves. And apparently the king of this tribe was to be killed.
Now, generally, when one king conquered the other king, they would lock them in prison to gloat over them. Saul was not allowed to do that.
So, Samuel shows up, after the battle, sees the spoils of war, sees the conquered king in chains and tells Saul that he sinned by disobeying and not following the instructions to the letter and dictate of the instructions.
At the end of Saul’s “sin,” the enemy has still been conquered, the living hostage can still be killed and everything can still be put to right.
But not so for David. A man is dead, a child is coming and nothing is going to change that.
Saul disobeyed by not doing everything, David committed murder and adultery.
And yet, when Samuel confronts Saul, there is a completely different reaction that what we read about here in Psalm 51.
Essentially, Saul tells Samuel, “Yeah, yeah, I sinned, but I did most of it, so what?” And then he makes a request of him: “to go up and worship with him before the people” apparently with the idea that he still wanted Samuel to make him look good before the people.
The Prophet’s confrontation with David is different.
David is sitting in his throne room and as I mentioned he has gotten away with it. Well, at least no one can officially accuse him.
I believe that a good person is not going to be feeling very well about himself at this point.
Nathan boldly walks into the throne room, risks his life, after setting David up with a story where David pronounces the death penalty against a wealthy man who stole his neighbor, a poor man’s, sheep; a sheep that was the family pet.
Nathan points his finger at him and shouts out: You are the man, the killer!
In the throne room of the king, that is a good way to lose one’s life and up till this point again, David has gotten away with it.
And this Psalm records David’s heart and reaction to his own sin.
It is much different than Saul.
Without getting into a discussion over which sins are worse than others, or if any are, theologians argue that point, it seems to me that murder and adultery were much worse than not letting good spoils go to waste.
And yet God’s mercy goes much farther to David than it did Saul.
And the difference, I believe, is recorded here in this Psalm.
Saul first blamed Samuel for not coming in time. Then he blamed his generals for talking him into keeping the spoils.
David falls on his face and humbles himself. (read verse 3)
The penalty for adultery and murder is death.
And yet, God forgives him.
Why? (read verse 1) Because of God’s great mercy.
David was not a better man than Saul. Saul tried hard, he was just to proud to trust God.
But David confesses his sin and throws himself at God’s mercy.
He believes in God’s great mercy.
It is God’s desire to restore us to God.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

This Changes Everything


Focus: The Cost of Discipleship
Function: to help people see and abandon privilege.
Form: Story telling.

Intro:
I suppose that if we could gather Alexander Mack, John Kline, Sarah Major, all early Brethren leaders, and if we could compare their answer to a question I will pose in a second, we would probably get the same answer from this next group of people. That group would be leaders who started this congregation, who started this district, and the leaders who started the churches and districts that many came from across the country as we have moved here, we would also get the same answer to the question.
The question is not so profound, or probably not worth the hype I have already put into it, but here it comes: and I will ask you the same question: What is the most commonly used Brethren cliché when we discuss baptism?
All the Lectionary text for today, and indeed, the back of the bulletin deal with the subject of the cost of discipleship.
The highlighted verse is Luke 14:27: Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
But there are three other texts used to make todays lesson and I want to very briefly look at the other two besides the Philemon passage.
In a passage with the title added: “The Two Ways” the author of the Psalm contrasts a wicked, or evil person, with a just, or righteous person. The classic verse “Like a Tree planted by the water… ” is in that Psalm.
So, in a lesson about the cost of discipleship, the Lectionary adds a contrast between people who do acts of evil toward others, and the people who live by the principle that good people make sure that everyone gets justice.
The other text is Deuteronomy 30:15-20.
I love the imagery of this passage and I refer to it often. I guess it is because I can picture it and it must have been a sight.
Moses is getting ready to leave the Israelites for good and he is giving them their final lesson. He stands at the base of a valley and divides the congregation in half. One half on one mountainside and the other on the other one.
Then he reads off the blessings if they obey and one side agrees. Then he reads off the punishments if they willfully disobey and the other side consents to the punishments.
And then he asks them all to make their own personal choice. He asks them to choose between being decent, loving, helpful, community minded people who live not only for their own good, but who also believe that they should love their neighbor as much as they love themselves.
It is like his final lesson is him asking them what kind of people they will choose to be.
He emphasizes their choice.
The highlighted verse, take up the cross, the Brethren mantra “Count Well the cost!” all come from these verses asking us to consider beforehand what kind of people we want to be.
And that leads us to the fourth scripture, the story we read, the story of Philemon and Onesimus. The story of power and subjugation. The story of the privileged and powerless and how both of them came to be confronted with the demands of counting the cost. We will look at the cost of discipleship for Onesimus, Paul and Philemon.
The cost for Onesimus: He risks his own life by returning. This is a slave driven economy. His escape threatens the peace in that household. His escape has for punishment at the most the possibility as the law required, his death. In order for him to go home, he has to trust that Philemon is actually a Christian and will actually forgive him.
Now, he has one guarantee, most specifically, verse 22, “by the way, I am coming to check up on you.” The text says he says, “get a room ready for my soon coming visit.” But I think the idea is implied.
That was briefly the cost for Onesimus, and his problem was fear of death or severe punishment. His choice to obey was the step in faith to trust in the power of God’s love moving in the heart of his master.
Now look at the cost for Paul.
It isn’t near as much as Onesimus, or Philemon, but there is quite a bit of risk here. If Paul knew that Philemon was the kind of man who would do the right thing, he would not have had to send a letter. Perhaps Onesimus saw his master do cruel punishment against slaves. He may have had good reason to fear his master, almost every slave did and had related that to Paul.
But Paul first risks his friendship with Philemon. He is asking Philemon for a lot, we will see that in a minute. Philemon may be offended at the request, so Paul reminds him that Jesus is now Lord of his life and that means something in the way he treats everyone, even slaves. Because He is a Christian, it means that God is there to help him react lovingly to everyone.
Second, Paul risks the influence and power that Philemon can give him. He depends on Philemon. Obviously, Philemon is a man of privilege and power. He needs a roof over his head when he is doing his ministry in his town.
In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11, the NT says that the class distinctions between religions and races, listed as “Jew or Greek” and between the classes of humans “slave or free” have been destroyed in the new Heavenly kingdom that transcends the ways that men have learned to oppress others.
And what blesses me about Paul is the way that Paul uses his own privilege, he was born into the ruling class, to give power to the slave to be equal with the man who wields privilege.
The cost of discipleship for Paul, in this story, is to use his privilege to work for the powerless.
It is like the King of Denmark wearing the Star of David during the Nazi occupation. It was like the story of Corrie Ten Boom whose family hid Jews during the Nazi occupation.
I relate to Paul in this story because we are not the uber wealthy, like Philemon, nor are we slaves, but we are people with power just by nature of where we were born.
In a day where more and more people are being marginalized, how do we, with certain privilege give away our power to the powerless? Could we go to France and don a Burka? We did, already, when we did it for the Muhammuds.
And finally, the cost for Philemon.
Although this is about privilege and power, I think the real story here, in the cost of discipleship, is how, in faithfulness to Christ’s teachings, does Philemon follow Christ?
We do not know what Philemon does. I guess when we get to heaven, we can find out. We don;t know if Paul and Onesimus’ bold step in faith worked out well for Onesimus.
I trust that Philemon did the right thing and really have no other way to talk about the cost to him without what the cost of doing it right would have been.
He is not alone in the need to discipline his slave. My understanding of current Roman law at the time was that any escaped slave that was caught was already liable to the death sentence. Anyone could have killed Onesimus already. Many people from the privileged class would gladly administer the punishment because if all the slave owners exercise lethal power over all slaves, then it makes the likelihood of every slave thinking twice before escaping. There is simply no safe place to go.
Of course, Brethren and Mennonites gladly risked everything during the underground railroad because of their Christian convictions. And those people were criticized, jailed and even killed by other Christians who wanted to keep the slavery system in place.
For Philemon to treat Onesimus like a brother in Christ after he escaped would have placed Philemon in a bad place with every other slave owner he knew.
He is at risk of his own privilege. Not only from his colleagues, but also, how will he keep the rest of his slaves in line?
And of course, we ask, well, the fact that he owned slaves as a Christian is a problem and to bad for him.
And because of Christianity’s influence, especially in the political arena, we can now say that.
And I condemn slavery in every form I can imagine. Praise God that God has changed the status quo of the world through the church, even though slavery exists, it is still illegal worldwide.
I say that to qualify the statement that it wasn’t so easy for Philemon. It was a slave economy.
To overcome this barrier, Philemon has to trust that God will provide for his household, his slaves who will now, or could possibly become, his employees. His economic future is at state. The business that he has still needs to succeed against those odds.
And sadly, to many have maintained the status quo rather than ensure that justice happens for everyone.
The cost of discipleship, in this case, was obviously levied the heaviest against Onesimus whose life was at risk. But Philemon has to buck every other system as a Christian.
The cost of discipleship was the loss of his privilege. For him, this changes everything. And so, Jesus’ words, If any person come after me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.
I love the chance and the hope that this letter worked, that Philemon did the Christian thing, even though it was culturally unacceptable and forced him to choose Christ over his own money.
I love these examples, because they inspire us to continue to count well the cost.