Text: Philemon 1-21
My friend, John, works as aide and chauffeur for a wealthy couple in their 90s. John has been doing this for 4 or 5 years now – much longer than he originally expected. He took the position as both an adventure and a service at a time when he needed the work. He did not expect to make a career of it.
Initially the job was interesting and fulfilling. The couple is not only wealthy but they are interesting, creative people, great philanthropists and devoted Christians – Baptists, in fact. John enjoyed working for them in the beginning, but John is a bright, creative man in his own right, a seminary graduate, who has spent time studying and working in the Middle East. He now finds himself chafing under the reins that hold him to this position. What started as an adventure in service now feels like a burden of servitude. As his employers grow older and less independent, their demands are greater and John feels he has little time and energy left for his own life.
I tell this story because it is fresh in my mind and because it is the closest I could come to a contemporary illustration of some dimension of what slavery might be like. Now mind you, I don’t mean to imply that John’s position comes anywhere near what living in slavery must really be like, but it does say something about how any of us might react to being caught up in a state of servitude, even when that state is ostensibly chosen. There comes this longing for freedom, this desire to have some time for one self, this craving for control of one’s own life. Maybe Onesimus was feeling something like this when fled Philemon’s house. We’ll probably never know and so we are left to speculate.
We do know that at the time this letter was written the socioeconomic structure of the Roman Empire was dependent on the institution of slavery and that at its height there were more than 60 million slaves throughout the empire. A runaway slave could be severely punished, even summarily executed, as he or she was purely the master’s property. William Barclay offers these dramatic descriptions of slavery in that time: “A slave was not a person; he was a living tool. Any master had the right of life and death over his slaves…‘He [could] box their ears or condemn them to hard labour – making them…work in chains upon his lands in the country, or in a sort of prison-factory. Or, he [might] punish them with blows of the rod, the lash or the knot; he [could] brand them upon the forehead, if they [were] thieves or runaways, or, in the end, if they [proved] irreclaimable, he [could] crucify them’” (William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, The Daily Study Bible, p. 310.)
One strand of speculation has held that Onesimus was both a thief and runaway, who fled to the anonymity of Rome where, in prison, he had a chance meeting with the Apostle Paul that led to his conversion. If so, both Paul and he knew that he was risking punishment, if not execution, in returning to his master Philemon in Colossae.
However, there is another theory, less dramatic and colorful, which holds that there was some sort of dispute between Onesimus and Philemon. In such a circumstance, Roman law had a provision wherein the slave could appeal to one of the master’s friends or associates, ideally, one of higher social rank to adjudicate the conflict. This way, if the adjudicator found in favor of the slave, the master did not lose face. If this was the case with Onesimus, it is particularly interesting since Paul probably was not Philemon’s social equal or superior. However, Paul was Philemon’s mentor in the faith, which gave him religious or spiritual authority over the slave owner.
We know that when a Roman paterfamilias converted to Christianity, the entire household converted, if only nominally. So, Philemon’s slave, Onesimus must have been some sort of Christian when he turned to Paul and he must have understood the power and authority Paul held over Philemon and the church that met in Philemon’s home. Onesimus was no fool. It seems then that what occurred was that spending time in Paul’s presence had a profound effect on the young slave. Perhaps Paul recognized immediately the gifts, the usefulness of the younger man and so he took him under his wing and taught him. Onesimus must have been a quick and eager learner, for Paul became very attached to him.
However, the time came when both Paul and Onesimus recognized that it was important to Onesimus’s growth, as well as to that of Philemon and the church that met in his house, for Onesimus to return to face the consequences of his leaving the master’s house. Even if Onesimus was growing daily in freedom in Christ, he would never be completely free as long as the business with Philemon, whatever it was, was left unresolved, unhealed. Going home to face Philemon must have been a frightening prospect for the young slave. Yet his teacher urged him to go.
But Paul was no fool either and he was not about to let Onesimus go without a letter of reference. What a remarkably fine and clever letter he writes! Gary Peluso-Verdend calls it a “wonderful example of moral suasion” and a “rhetorical jewel” (Gary E. Peluso-Verdend, New Proclamation, Easter through Christ the King, 2007, p. 190.) It is the only personal letter of Paul’s to make it into the Bible. Yet, we can hardly call it a private letter, for by all appearances, though Paul addresses it primarily to Philemon, he also manages to draw in the entire church in Philemon’s house in such a way that Philemon could not have simply read the letter and dealt with it in private. He would have had to have read it before the whole group, who would be watching to see if he did the right thing with Onesimus. Clever old Paul! A private letter for public consumption.
But the wily old apostle isn’t finished with his patron student. First, he flatters Philemon to loosen him up a little. “When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus.” Paul appeals to Philemon’s generosity and compassion. Then he ups the ante. “I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good we may do for Christ.” “Not only have you done well, think of all the good you yet may do if you continue on the same generous, compassionate path.” “Yes, ‘I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.” “In laying such a fine foundation for the future of Christ’s work, you have made your old teacher glad and proud.’”
Having softened him, he now springs his trap. “Given your good work and your bright future, I’ve got something to tell you. I could command you but I’d prefer to appeal to your higher self, in hope and loving expectation that you will do the right thing. Even though I’m just a poor old man in prison, ‘I’m appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment…I am sending him, that is, my own heart back to you.’” Well, you get the gist of it. How is poor Philemon going to be able to resist such a well-formulated letter of reference, such a carefully sprung trap? How can he not agree to Paul’s appeal? Julie Galambush says, “Paul has ever so deferentially browbeaten Philemon to the point he must accede to Paul’s request or dishonor himself before his own church by disobeying the venerable old apostle, abandoning their spiritual father in his prison cell” (Julie Galambush, The Reluctant Parting, p. 167.)
Now some of you may be wondering why we would spend a whole Sunday on Philemon. It is a tiny letter, on a single subject, that contains no great theological profundity. You might even wonder at its inclusion in the Bible. Any number of scholars has shared that wonderment. And many folk have found it entirely unsatisfactory in the way it is does and does not deal with slavery, particularly the institution of slavery. In fact, there was a time when it was one of the texts used for the biblical support of slavery. “See Paul sent the slave back to his master and told him to be a good slave.”
The arguments that get made on Paul’s behalf are that slavery was so embedded in the culture that he may not have even had any vision of a world without slaves. There are real questions about how 60 million freed slaves would have supported themselves or even survived in that cultural setting. No one knows for certain why Paul did not take on the institution of slavery. But we can see in retrospect that at least the seeds for dismantling slavery are laid in this text, along with other of Paul’s writings.
Yes, Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon. And, by the way, it is not at all clear as to whether or not Paul was sending Onesimus back to Philemon just to clear Onesimus’s name so that Philemon could send Onesimus back to work with and care for Paul. Regardless, he sends Onesimus back with these words for his master, “Perhaps this was the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother…” Paul has already named the slave as his son, as a representation of his own heart, now he is urging his master to embrace that same slave as a beloved brother. Even if the serving role of Onesimus does not change substantially, the interpersonal relationships are thoroughly and eternally transformed. No longer can any of God’s children be seen and treated as less than human, no more is a person to be seen as a living tool, subhuman, mere property to be bought and sold and abused at will. This text can be linked directly to Paul’s affirmation that “There is no longer Jew or Greek…slave or free…male and female; for [we] are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28.) We are all brothers and sisters in the family God, regardless of whatever thing – class, race, social standing, gender, color, social orientation, ability, role – we think might divide us.
We know slavery didn’t fall that day. We know it didn’t disappear with the Emancipation Proclamation, no matter how we may wish it so. Bruce Wollenberg reminds us that “Slavery is appallingly not anachronistic even 20 centuries out. Fair-trade advocates lament that it is almost impossible to purchase chocolate that is untainted by forced labor. Women lured by the promise of good jobs wind up indentured to the global sex trade. Boys and young men slave away in diamond mines and carpet factories. It’s enough to make God weep” (Bruce Wollenberg, “Summoned,” The Christian Century, August 24, 2004, p.17.)
Perhaps, through the
tears, there is a glimmer of hope in the faith of this old man who saw
deeply into the soul of someone labeled slave and
saw his own heart reflected back, who saw the son he had never had, who
saw a child of God, and who encouraged the rest of the family of faith
to embrace him as a beloved brother. It was not enough to change the whole
world on the spot but it was such a life changing step that the world will
ever be the same again. It reveals the fatal flaw in all the separates
us into human and un-human categories and crumbles the walls in ways that
they can never finally be rebuilt. It is a vision that reveals that, indeed, “the
world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything
but love” (William Sloane Coffin.)