Sermon preached at 6:30 service on Sunday 01 Feb 2009 in St Bartholomew's, Stranmillis
Let us Pray
Heavenly Father,
We pray that as we open your word this evening, you would speak into our hearts and minds and bring us closer to you – In Jesus’ name we pray – Amen
On a personal note, before I begin could I thank Beatitudes choir for their wonderful gift of music. I look forward to meeting them again across the river in the “other diocese”! thanks to ron janice church wardens …
Over the course of this week I have been reflecting upon how messy our Christian lives can be, and how completely messy some of the things we have to deal with can be.
A couple of weeks ago down at college in Dublin , in one of classes one of my fellow students did a session on creativity and spirituality – she brought in large sheets of paper and lots of poster paints, crayons, felt tips, thick and thin paint brushes and asked us to start painting – anything we wanted. I hate painting, it always brings me back to my high school days when we had art homework!
It always ended up a mess – colours run into one another, I use broad brush strokes when I need to use fine lines, I make the wrong tone of colour – Lots of things which could go wrong went wrong when I picked up a paint brush in school. It ended in a mess!
We live in a messy world – colours are running into each other all over the place – ethical decisions, our own personal our family lives things can get quite messy. Why the mess?
Society is made up of people and People are messy full stop!
Christians then as people and members of society are not immune to this messy ness – and that is OK.
As we look at the reading this evening we see messy-ness in a difficult situation
In this letter we see Paul is writing to Philemon (who is a slave owner)
About his slave oniesimus.
It is a messy situation as it brings together all the problems associated with
• Human Relationships
• Societal Norms
• Christian Discipleship
From the outset it is quite difficult for us to know what is going on. We have only this one small window of 25 verses. We do not really know much about Philemon, or Oniesimus. We do not know why oniesimus absconded from his household, we do not know if Philemon welcomed him back.
What we can deduce from this letter is that
• Paul knows Philemon well
• Paul is currently in prision and has met onesimus
• All three characters are Christians
Philemon is in a messy situation
• He knows Paul is someone who has authority in the Christian church and needs to balance his commitment of faith
• He has a place in the society of the day – What would the other slave owners think if he lets a prisoner dictate what he should do with the slave that ran away. It would be a bad example.
• He needs to uphold justice – Justice needed to be done!
• A decision had to be made swiftly.
• Like the rest of us I am sure Philemon had other influeneces upon his life
Philemon the slave owner
Onesimus the Slave was also in a messy situation
• What would he get if he goes back – Punishment?
• Should he even try …
• What if Philemon goes mad and kills me
• Blaming himself
Then there is the third party – Paul
• He is no doubt struggling to think what should he do
• What should he be advising Onesimus to do
• What if Philemon doesn’t listen to his appeal
• Why should he be getting involved at all?
This is a very complex situation – But Paul does put pen to paper and writes a wonderful letter – great use of language to try and Iron out the situation.
Take a look at the text – in verse 4 he Thanks God for Philemon, and tells him of the reports about his love which he has heard
Paul then goes on to appeal to Philemon on the basis of Love. A couple of quite comical things here:
Take a look at verse 10 & 11
10I appeal to you for my son Onesimus,[a] who became my son while I was in chains. 11Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
A great play on words here – Onesimus means Useful.
Then if we were to read on – in verse 22 – Paul is on his way.
A messy situation but things can indeed be resolved through love, through truthful words spoken in love.
When we look at this situation the common ground for all three parties is Christ. I wonder in our dealings, in our conflicts, in our messy lives do we when we are dealing with other’s generally seek reconciliation, seek to sort out the situations.
Paul does have a desire for reconciliation- he could have very easily have to onesimus to get lost!, Paul had problems of his own, this situation was not his problem. His deep love for both parties put him in an awkward position but he was prepared to stick it out and do something. He made himself vulnerable. He was between a rock and a hard place.
Lives are messy, situations which we encounter on a daily basis are messy. The God we worship here tonight is a God of transformation and reconciliation.
We all know that there are relationships which are destructive, which need to be severed. But there are also those relationships which need to be worked at, where reconciliation is possible. In practical terms, for Christians, Philemon throws up huge challenges.
For those who like Onesimus are seeking reconciliation, are seeking something to change they may need to honestly speak to someone they trust to get advice, someone they can see who has deeper insight into the situation.
For those who like Paul are in a situation where people are confiding in them, they need to be wise in their counsel and choose their words carefully so that the person may be built up and the situation resolved.
For those who are like Philemon – they need to be ready and open to accept that mistakes have been made, most likely on both parties. They need to open dialogue and be ready to draw a line under the entire situation.
Conflict is inevitable in life, in church, in society, in families however we need to identify it and learn some lessons. Wise counsel is often useful to gain another perspective on the situations we find ourselves having to deal with. Wether that be from a close friend, a member of the clergy, a professional counselor, a doctor … whoever
To return to where I started – Life is messy, paint does run but what can result can be an creative, constructive situation which can relieve so much pressure on all sides.
Wise counsel, Prayer and Listening to God need to be thrown into the mix when dealing with messy stuff to do with relationships.
In Conclusion,
I suppose what I am saying, in the messiness of life, in the complex situations we find ourselves acting out on a daily basis, wherever we find ourselves we need to find those people we can confide in, those Christians whom we respect and trust to speak truthfully into our situations.
The God we worship wants to be close to us and to be involved in our lives seeking reconciliation and peace. Creating order out of chaos.
Let us pray.
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