🦁 Epiphany 3-6
Reflection
Good morning and welcome to the we're going to call it the third Tuesday after Lent. This is brother Logan Isaac Broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. Our readings come to us today from Psalm 46, Genesis 12 and First Corinthians seven. But before I talk about the Corinthians reading in particular, I want to mention the the numbering of the days. The as listeners know. Sundays are the crown of liturgical week. Thursday, Friday, Saturday lead up to the Sunday and then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, reflect back on and decline kind of out of the sun. Now the way that we schedule our weeks, they might begin on a Sunday or Monday. And so saying something the first or the second of a season like Epiphany Tide or the season after Pentecost, there's there's bound to be a couple of days before the first Sunday. And so what I'll do and what I have done in the past, and I think I'm going to try and formalize any days before the first Sunday of a season. I'll just call, say, Friday after Pentecost or Friday after Epiphany. Then once a Sunday rolls around, because those are titled first, second, third, Sunday after blah, blah, blah. Those weekdays I will name I'll follow that. So today becomes the third Monday after epiphany. Even though there might have been a monday that fell before Sunday. Anyway, getting to the readings, you'll notice in the genesis reading it mentions people that they had acquired in Herron. They might have purchased them. They might have been in battle, say a The Battle of Sodom comes up in Genesis 14. But clearly Abraham is able to train up men, so maybe he's been in battle before. I mention that because battle is one of the most common ways to acquire slaves. If you were born into slavery or slave, I almost had slave hood. But if you're born into slavery, you might be able to buy your way out. Born servant in English is sometimes suggests that in under Moses, when the Israelites were when Israelites fell into debt, they could become servants and work that debt off. So it was a finite slavery or servitude in Rome and in different cultures that Israel encountered. You know, things change. Generally speaking, one of the most common ways to acquire slaves is in battle. The people or the culture, the group, the nation that you defeat. Then you take their men as slaves and then women as slaves and concubines. And that's usually how it happens. Not always, but usually, as I said, it's also debt slavery, which is addressed in Torah, and they're supposed to be released after seven years, etc., etc.. And then in the Corinthians reading, Saul is familiar with slavery. He was born in the Roman city of Tarsus, trained in Jerusalem, calls himself a Hebrew of Hebrew as a Benjamin eight shares a name with the first king of the United Kingdom, Saul of X. I don't know where all this from, but Saul, the king was also a Benjamin Knight. And in his letter, he says, essentially, look, if you're a slave, be a slave and be in Christ. If you're a freed person, stay a free person.
And in Philemon, his letter to Philemon about omniscience, Saul is very careful not to say outright slaveholding is wrong under Christ. Don't do it. I believe and I'll I explain elsewhere how why I believe it. But I believe Saul is anti-slavery. But he's also very careful to remain within the culture he finds himself in. And Rome, finally, immense culture, who was probably a soldier or a veteran who acquired an Islamist through battle because his family has Greek and Roman sounding names. He's probably not. As you know, debt slavery was much more common in Israel than it was in Rome. But anyway, he essentially says in Corinthians, he takes a soft tone here. He says, if you're a slave, stay a slave and now you're a Christian slave and do things, you know, as a Christian would. And that is where God encounters you and you encounter God and don't focus on trying to get out of slavery. That is definitely not what modern Ears like to hear. Modern ears like to hear. Slavery is bad, you know. They like it. Real simple, straightforward. Slavery is bad. And slave holders slave owners are also bad. Saul may actually believe this, but he doesn't say it. And there's a reason that he doesn't say it. If it is true, which I believe it is, that he believes slavery is against God and against Christian values.
And it's I don't know. I'm not even sure the saying when in Rome and it goes on, do as Romans do is very much Saul kind of prerogative. There are some things that are important if you are to be a Christian, if you are to whether that is that you are coming out of the Israelite culture or the Roman culture, there are certain things that are important, right? But some of them are less important. And the way he orders those values, those priorities are very much different from how modern readers would. But I'll say again, I think in Philemon it's much clearer what Saul's beliefs or desires or expectations are around slavery and I don't believe he's excusing slavery in Corinthians. I think he is trying to thread a very fine line between, you know, the restrictive faith that he finds himself coming out of an incredibly inclusive faith, that he finds himself explaining and putting structure to. And so, I mean, I don't give you as much tools to hear, but I would encourage you to to read between the lines, to understand the context and not, you know, don't there's good reasons to dismiss Paul and be upset at him. He's not a very good people person. Like, he doesn't get along well with others. He has all these companions who kind of come and go and those who stay like Timothy and Titus, who get letters like they're younger than him and they're probably impressionable. Like there's good reasons to not like Paul, but his theology and his cultural acumen are not one of them. If we as far as I'll just say progressives, which I think he'd you know, I tend toward at least politically, there are things that we won't like that he says and doesn't say. But he is bound to his own time and context and to interpret him through our context ignores a lot of the rationale that he probably has going on in his head. So Corinthians is not it is soft pedaling on slavery, but it is not license to slavery any more than Romans 13 is license to, you know, blind obedience to the state. He does say, you know, meet God where God meets you, just as he did on the road to Damascus. He's very much deferential to God. And that's like the soul thing. Like, why should you care that you're in slavery? You can still be a Christian and be a slave. You can have agency and be a slave. I think if there were a synthesis between our context and his, it might go something like this. You know, if you're a slave and you're really wrapped up in getting out of slavery because that's the right, you know, system in the world that God created. And let's say you lead a rebellion. Well, how many people are you going to lead to freedom? You might get your freedom, but that's a very limited effect. And I think that might be one way to think of it. Saul is very anti like selfish desires, individuality, and so it might make sense to think of it in that way. Philemon has a lot of power. And Saul knows this and he wants to stay in fairly good graces. If he can convince Philemon just gently nudging him in a direction he might effect a wider kind of trickled down effect. If he can convince those with power like Philemon to reinvent their assumptions around the cultural context they find themselves in. And so he's much more clear and concise with someone who has power than he is with a large group that is maybe heavily Helena ized and very much ingratiated to the system, the Roman system of the day. And so don't take Saul, you know, we don't live when Saul lived. Don't believe that he's talking directly to you or to anybody without any kind of, you know, effect on time or anything like that. So slavery is bad. And I think Saul sees slavery as bad, but he's also a pragmatist. He doesn't want to lose a you know, he doesn't want to win a battle just to go on and lose the war. He's got the the broader picture always in mind. And I think that makes him a really skilled strategist, even if we might not like him as a person or necessarily as an orator.
