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July 15, 2007
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Relationship
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Philemon: The problem of Evil"
Philemon 1-15
When I was a child vacations were either backpacking trips into the high sierras or trips to the beach and a stay in my grandparent's cabin. Both were adventures of the grandest sort. At the cabin there was no running "hot" water, so the shower - a makeshift affair, kind of outdoors- was freezing. If the days were incredibly hot which many were in the Santa Cruz mountains it still was a shock to take a shower.
But my favorites even though I gripped and complained some, were the backpacking adventures into the high sierras. I remember one two-week trip to 10 lakes far off in the backcountry. It involved miles of hiking, carrying all our gear, and included every member of my family.
My favorite moments were when the camp was set up in the new location, my brothers would race to the lake and I would go racing behind them. I was always behind them. And the idea would be to "get into" the water first. Of course Roger seemed to be the leader of the pack, built of iron nerve he would run and jump unbidden, without a care into that literally ice cold stuff of which the lake was made. I would race as if full of intent to follow suit but then would chicken out just about the time I reached the water's edge. My toes would get in and I knew, that I knew, if I did not go quickly I would not go at all.
A couple lakes I managed to wait so long the sun hid behind the next ridge and my brothers had finished swimming before I took the next step-to get out again. But other times I succeeded - summoning all my courage, and racing with all my might, and closing my mind to every imagined terror of that freezing cold water. I would race- I would not stop, but would go splashing headlong in. And then hoot and holler as was the only appropriate response to the shock.
With Scripture I want to use the second approach. I don't want to just get my toes wet, I want to dive into the Word, swim in the thoughts God has for me, and experience the embrace of the love of God through what I encounter. That is what I want. But sometimes when I open the Word and arrive from the busy-ness of life to a devotional time, I find that my mind is cluttered with the events of the day, and my heart is burdened with too many thoughts, and I stand at the water's edge getting my toes wet but not my heart.
In those moments I find that honesty is the best policy - to share my heart with God, the clutter of my thoughts poured out on paper and then listen and allow the God of all comfort to come and meet me - perhaps a wave from the lake will splash upon my heart.
So for us as we have wandered the shoreline of this book, Philemon, we have gotten our feet wet in the grace and love of God, in the call for relationship with God and with others. We have gotten wet in the opening prayer reminding us and Philemon that Paul's point in this book is for Philemon to choose to share his faith, in other words enjoy the fellowship of faith with others who are believers so that through that sharing he might discover the good gifts God has given him in his life and heart.
But now it is time to plunge into the depths of something perplexing and so important. In fact I see evidences all around me and even within me that I have not really allowed this subject to get me as wet as I ought to have so that my heart has not been soundly converted in this regard.
So as we dive in, backtrack with me to the story …
Once there was a reasonably wealthy man named Philemon, who had converted to faith in Christ under Paul's ministry at some point, perhaps when Paul was preaching for those years in Ephesus. Philemon was Paul's friend and a leader in the church that met it seems in his home. It seems also he may have lived in or near Colossae - for later on after the best results possible occur through this letter, Onesimus was one of the two sent to deliver the letter to the church in Colossae, and by then, if this is the same man, Archippus mentioned at the start of this letter, was in prison with Paul and mentioned as one known to the church in Colossae in that letter.
I say that this Philemon was probably wealthy for a church met in his home, and he owned at least one slave, whose name was Onesimus. Now it is interesting to note that the name Onesimus means "useful", because the one so named proved otherwise: he ran away.
Philemon was a Christian, and I don't expect that he treated Onesimus particularly badly, as slave treatment in the Roman empire went; but there is nothing particularly pleasant about being a slave and Onesimus had had enough, so left! .
At this time, Paul was in prison. This was most likely the Roman imprisonment which began at the end of The Acts of the Apostles and resulted in Paul appearing before Caesar Nero and eventually dying for the faith. This is not why Paul refers to himself as a "prisoner of Christ Jesus" but it seems Paul does so as a demonstration of the opportunity in Christ to become a prisoner, a slave of the Lord rather than being a slave of the culture around us. For in this book Paul will be asking Philemon to likewise demonstrate how he himself is a slave of the Lord Jesus.
Now, suppose you were Onesimus and wanted to disappear, would you run to some nearby city or go as far afield as you dared? Well I know that if it were me, I would be a Jonah and jump the next ship to some far off port. So Onesimus chose the largest metropolitan area he could think of in order to disappear. But in Rome instead of disappearing, he ran into Paul, whom he knew and who was under house arrest and permitted to have visitors. Through Paul, Onesimus again heard the Good News and this time repented and turned to Christ.
Now all of that was great news, a cause for rejoicing.
But a cloud hung over the joy. Onesimus was not just anybody, but he was a runaway slave. Death was the normal punishment, so much so that for Philemon to beat his slave to within inches of death would have been regarded a merciful punishment! It appears from this letter that Onesimus, now converted, sees that he must return to Philemon. Repentance means change, a change of thinking which results in a change of action. Although Philemon might kill him, would certainly hurt him, still he must go back.
So Paul writes to Philemon in essence calling him to "share his faith" even with this slave, who is now his brother. Paul employs a play on words with Onesimus' name saying that as a slave he was "useless" to you, (for he ran away) but has now become useful both to you and to me. Onesimus is useful to Philemon, for if Philemon chooses love over the expected cultural response, he will come to experience more of the good things God has placed within him through his sharing of life with Onesimus. And useful to Paul, for Paul writes that he would have liked it best if Onesimus could have stayed on as his assistant (v. 11).
So Paul's purpose in writing is that Philemon would choose to not act according to the culture but according to the Gospel by receiving back this former slave as a dear brother in the Lord and as a friend in Christ.
That does not sound like such a tough situation - but in fact it was very complex.
If Paul demanded that Philemon respond as Paul knew he ought to respond in Christ, what would be the result?
Certainly Philemon may have forgiven Onesimus and freed him. But this would not have been as an expression of his own free will, but in response to Paul's command. So, although Onesimus would have been freed, Philemon would have become a slave of Paul's in the bargain. A new evil would have come about instead of the previous one.
Paul did not want this to happen. Again he wants that Philemon may grow to see the good things Jesus has placed into his own soul by this opportunity to share his faith, to "live out his faith" with this man who was not previously a brother but who now has become a brother.
Paul wants Philemon to be motivated by love not by coercion. So Paul says, "yet I appeal to you on the basis of love." Not as an apostle, not as a great mighty leader in the church, but as "an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus".
In this book Paul demonstrates that the social problem of slavery cannot be solved by force or coercion, for if thus solved greater problems will result. Paul would participate in evil by exerting power and control over Philemon, instead Paul sought to motivate Philemon in love to freely choose to do what was right.
How tough was that!
Paul knew what Philemon ought to do as a brother in Christ, but shows that to posit control over him would be wrong. It would have been to become a pawn to evil in this situation.
The great Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who survived years of enslavement under the Soviet regime discovered during his years of imprisonment as told in his story The Gulag Archipelago: "The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man, and none of us is immune from crossing that line."
*Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Parts I and II, translated from the Russian by Thomas P. Whitney (New York: Harper & Row, 1973-1974, $12.50, paperback $1.95), xii and 660 pages.
All of us encounter that line in our lives day by day. And Jesus taught us that we would when he told us that uncleanness does not come from outside ourselves, but from within the human heart. Jesus knew "what was in a man" (John 2).
So Paul writes this incredible appeal - know that to send this man to you I am sending my very heart, he has become a son to me, he was not useful to you but now he is both useful to you and to me, so, he goes on to say, "welcome him as you would welcome me."
We will come back to this whole issue of slavery when we return to this book, but today dip into this idea of how we respond, or how we seek to even obtain the response we want from those around us.
Do we seek to control others?
Do we manipulate with words?
Do we coerce them to come to our way?
If so we have chosen not the Way of Jesus but the way of our sinful hearts. We have not chosen to honor the God to whom we are bound, we have not allowed the members of our body to be enslaved to God, instead we have sought to force what we believe is right through our own evil scheming.
This is not an easy reality. How often does it happen to you?
I was on the phone the other night with United Airlines. They had made a mistake in Karen's reservation as she was already flying to Santa Barbara. The situation was that she had been ticketed for a 6 pm departure, but when she arrived at the airport was told flights were delayed into her connecting city of San Francisco. The gate agent waitlisted her on an earlier departure which had not yet left. She made her way to the gate and was eventually confirmed onto that earlier flight.
In the meantime, United had received word that the original flight was delayed, knew she would then miss her connection in San Francisco so called the house to say that she had been rebooked on an early morning connecting flight from San Francisco on Friday morning even though she would be arriving there Thursday night.
I knew Karen was in the air en route for San Francisco when I received this message and I knew if United had cancelled her original flight, then, she would be left stranded overnight in San Francisco for no reason.
In self righteous pride I phoned United. When Nicholas the agent answered I asked politely enough, I think, but probably a bit intensely about Karen's reservation. He said, "She will miss the connection sir, for her plane has not departed from Portland at this point."
I told him she had already been placed on an earlier departure and apparently their computers had not caught up to that fact. He said, "Hold for a minute and let me check."
As I waited, God took me to Paul and Philemon. I realized that I could be all haughty, "know it all", angry, self righteous with this man, but he was not the one who caused the problem, he just worked for the company. And what right do I have to be angry at this man who is trying to help me? And then I saw, here is where the line of evil is crossed in my life. Not in the life and death matters, but in the little things. Nicholas left me on hold for 10 minutes and when he came back on lo and behold, Karen was rebooked on that evening departure. I thanked him profusely
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Seeking to control others so they obey our expectations is not an expression of the good gifts of God in our lives. Rather, we are to be sharing the fellowship of knowing the Lord together in the body and thus will be discovering all the good things God had placed within us.
What a contrast. If I am controlling, self righteously trying to make others adopt my desires, I will discover the evil that lies in my heart. Rather, if I seek to share the faith with those around me, share in the faith we share, then I will be discovering rather the good things placed within me.
The line between good and evil runs through every human heart and by the Holy Spirit we with Paul can choose to love rather than control, rather than use power to manipulate and get our own selfish way.
I think my tendency is to go the way of evil when I have not been plunging into the Word. Stress makes me wild eyed and hard nosed. I react to people around me. I become controlling, and self righteous and bigoted. Only my toes are wet and everyone around me gets wet in my own wickedness.
But when I have really plunged into the Word, when I have swum in the excellence of God's love for me, well, then I am more ready to give the benefit of the doubt, to allow bygones to be bygones, to forgive, to release from my harsh judgment and to love rather than control.
Come one, dive in!
Resources:
http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/philemon/phlm02.html
http://www.mjyoung.net/bible/philem.htm
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