{"id":326,"date":"2019-09-08T15:27:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T15:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=326"},"modified":"2019-09-08T19:29:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-08T19:29:55","slug":"13th-sunday-after-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/09\/08\/13th-sunday-after-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"13th Sunday after Pentecost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Philemon 1-21<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe song \u201cAlice\u2019s Restaurant\u201d sung by Arlo Guthrie, a song about the draft, he\ntells the story of being arrested for dumping a load of trash off the side of\nthe road and then going to his army draft examination where he had to explain\nthe arrest to the sergeant; he reacted to the sergeant\u2019s suggestion that he was\nnot good enough for the military by saying, \u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot of  *** gall! His point was that the army wanted\nhim to go out and shoot and kill other human beings, who were the enemy, and burn\nand destroy their property, so being a litter bug should not be an issue. But\nthe song is not what I want to talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philemon,\na Christian, probably a convert who came to faith after listening to the\nApostle Paul, now a leader of a congregation, was sent a letter, written by\nPaul himself. The letter was not about how to live a right life; it did not\nespouse any theological or doctrinal guidelines, the letter was about a runaway\nslave, owned by Philemon. Paul, while sending the runaway slave back to Philemon\nwas in this letter asking Philemon to, not only release the slave Onesimus and\nforgive him, but also send Onesimus back to Paul, so that Paul may have his\nhelp. We have no factual documentation, to tell us how Philemon responded, but\nI might have if I were him, quoted Arlo Guthrie, \u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot of gall\u201d and\ntold Paul to but out and get his own slave if he wanted one. Remember, at that\ntime slavery was an accepted institution. There were different kinds of slaves,\nsome that only had to work off their debts to be freed, many who were captured\nin war and there were others of the kind we usually think of who were bought\nand sold. A runaway slave had little in the line of rights; the law, both Roman\nand Jewish, was completely behind the slave owner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:\nPaul did not say that slavery was wrong. Paul simply (though there was nothing\nsimple about it) wanted Philemon to give Onesimus (Philemon\u2019s slave) to him, so\nthat Paul would have the help he wanted. If Paul were to have outlined the\nevils of slavery, we might see this differently, but no, Paul simply wanted to\nborrow Philemon\u2019s slave like he might borrow a donkey. Actually, that is not\nexactly true. Paul outlines his love for Onesimus, that he looks at him as a son,\nwho has contributed greatly to Paul\u2019s ministry. The issues for Philemon were\ngreat; I very much doubt that Philemon\u2019s response to Paul was \u201cYou have a lot\nof gall\u201d but it would have been justified. Philemon (though) had to take into\naccount the effects of receiving Onesimus back, now as a Christian brother. Assuming\nhe had other slaves, what might be the effect of such an action, on the other\nslaves? How could he possibly maintain discipline? Why would the other slaves\nbe willing to do their jobs? What was to keep the other slaves from escaping as\nwell and going to Paul? Sadly, it took more than 18 centuries, for humankind,\nfor the most part, to outlaw slavery. That is not to say that everything is\ngood and right even today, but that slavery is no longer an acceptable\ninstitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nfar as the letter to Philemon, Paul no doubt had a lot of gall! Unfortunately,\nwe do not know what Philemon did. If Paul received a letter in return, we do\nnot have it; if Onesimus was sent back to Paul we have nothing that says so; we\ncan do little more than wonder and maybe think about how we ourselves might\nhave responded. There is one interesting piece of history, that may relate to\nPaul\u2019s request and Onesimus \u2019 outcome. History records that there was a Bishop Onesimus of Byzantium<\/strong> from the year 54 to 68. Some believe him to be the same\nOnesimus. If that is the\ncase, Philemon certainly did not, respond to Paul that he had a lot of gall.\nPhilemon likely sent Onesimus back\nto Paul, as Paul with a little arm twisting, had requested. The thing we need to understand is that\nPaul was a man who was listened to. More importantly, Christianity was\nsomething that was accepted as having the authority to direct people\u2019s lives. It\nseems that it turned out to be just as Jesus said in today\u2019s Gospel, that to\nfollow him, you had to be willing to hate, brothers and sisters, mothers and\nfathers. Following Jesus was to be priority-one and so if Philemon did as Paul\nhad asked, he put everything that he had in peril because of what he believed\nwas a higher good. That meant he had to re-evaluate the socially acceptable standards\nof his time and make changes to his life so that he may embrace Onesimus, his\nslave, his runaway slave, as a brother, at least a brother in faith and send\nhim back to Paul. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here, Paul made no ethical justification\nother than he wanted Onesimus sent to him and that Philemon would benefit by\nhaving a new brother in Christ. The early church was much better at living with\ndiversity than we are today. At least within their worshipping community,\nsocio-economic groups sat side by side, slaves next to slaves owners, rich next\nto poor, black next to white, brothers and sisters in faith, all. Maybe it was\njust the reality of there being just a few churches and them far between, but\nwithin the few churches they had, the people of faith mixed. Did you know that\nthe Lutheran church has been described as the whitest Christian denomination in\nAmerica? A lot of people felt that the person who wrote this had a lot of gall\nwriting it, but it seems to be true. Without a doubt people choose to go where\nthey want to go, and that is as it should be, but we need to ask the question,\nas we look around at all the white faces sitting here, are we doing something\nwrong or are we simply failing to reach out to those of other ethnic and racial\npopulations or are we systematically steering those who are different from us\naway? I do not believe that we are intentionally steering people away, but we\nwill be wise to evaluate our church, to be sure that we are not in some way\nkeeping people away who are different from us. We look at our church building\nas God\u2019s house; we say that we are a part of the Body of Christ; God\u2019s house is\nopen to all and the Body of Christ is strengthened with each and every\naddition. Let\u2019s make sure that St. Peter\u2019s is a welcoming place for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philemon 1-21 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ In the song \u201cAlice\u2019s Restaurant\u201d sung by Arlo Guthrie, a song about the draft, he tells the story of being arrested for dumping a load of trash off the side of the road and Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}