🐮 Proper 18

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33.

To Do:

• Get your #GruntGod Season Pass

• Attend GruntCon on October 25th in Albany, Oregon

Reflection

 Good morning and welcome to proper 18. This is Brother Logan Isaac, broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. This morning's readings come to us from Deuteronomy 30, Psalm one, Philemon, and Luke 14. And it's, uh, it's a lot Philemon. We read all but three verses. Um, there's only 25 verses in the entire book of Philemon.

It's one of. If not the shortest, um, text in the New Testament. Maybe in the old as well, I'm not sure. But there's a reason for that. And the Philemon is the name of a bishop, uh, essentially the leader of a house church in, I want to say Coe or Cossa. And he would've been one of the Colossians that received.

Saul's correspondence in other instances, but I want to go through these names. I wanna set the stage for you because this is an incredibly important letter. Not only is there a, uh, scholarly theory that the writer or the, the, the subject of this letter who we'll get to in a moment, Onesimus could have been somebody that collected as many of Saul's letters as they could get and contributed to the likelihood of their.

Surviving to us to this day, and that's neither here nor there. But Philemon is a, a house church leader. They own a a house and it's where a bunch of Christians meet. And remember, Saul is building what becomes the church. As in Christianity in institutional form, because he is a community organizer. He wants to build structures, he wants to help people understand how systems work and help build a system that could sustain what Christ, uh, began.

Philemon is an interesting case and without knowing anything about it, you might just think it's like any other of his letters and you know, he has all these cool things to say and he gets on them about doing wrong and asks for money. He doesn't do that here. And before I get into the substance of the letter, I want, if you've heard of church orders or later patristic writers talking about soldiers coming to baptism or baptized Christians thinking about joining the military, there's a big no-no against that in the earliest, in some of the early.

Communities of Christians, I want you to think of that in light of Philemon and it'll become clear in a moment, but it's because this letter is a very sharp admonition. It is not like any of his other letters. He writes some pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus. I don't remember where, where Philemon stands in, whether the consensus is that it is authentically Paul or just Paul Line.

But in this letter he writes, I am writing this with my own hand. I, Saul. This is a contract. It's not a contract, but that is its effect. I am Saul. He's claiming that he's not some student of Saul, some disciple. He is Saul and he's writing this individual and the context for those who haven't heard of it before, not only is Philemon.

A wealthy individual who hosts Christians. He also hosts slaves. He has members of his household who are not there by choice. Onesimus, as we gather from the letter, somehow got away and has been living with Saul, wherever Saul is at. I can't remember where he is riding at this time, but. Onesimus whose name is a play on words that means useless.

And he says he addresses this in his letter. Oh, ha ha ha. Useless is very useful to me and I know he's useful to you. That is, it's not sarcasm. That is a sharp, rhetorical move that Saul is making to remind Philemon, a wealthy Christian to do the right thing. And letters are read publicly because not everybody can read a messenger, possibly.

Onesimus themself has come back to their former site of enslavement. A an escaped slave has returned to the plantation. And Saul, an influential but not wealthy Christian says, receive him as a brother, and the verses that we skipped. Are Saul sealing the deal by saying, oh, get a room ready for me because I'm coming by.

If you don't do it, I'll know. And if you think I'm hot, shit, if you think that I have influence and I can influence other people, I'm coming to check on you. Saul is creating a pressure point against Philemon, and Philemon isn't just a wealthy Christian, I believe, and I'm confident that Philemon is a wealthy Christian military veteran.

And that is because two things. Number one, if he has onesimus as a slave, the most widely acknowledged system of enslavement was war. Your defeated foe becomes your slave. If they're women, women, they become. Uh, your, um, concubine if you like, but if you're conquered people, you lose status, you lose rights, you lose dignity, you lose freedom.

Your POTOs, your citizenship, and so it's, it's not unlikely that Philemon is. A retired, like possibly a Centurion or a Tribune, a military veteran who has seen combat and has won in battle and now hosts Christians in his home. The second little clue is when Saul addresses Philemon's wife and kid, Apia, our sister and Archus our fellow soldier, Sue Strat.

I've written elsewhere that Retis means literally battle buddy, but it's a diminutive. In Paul's case, what he's saying is our little gi, your son who is going to inherit your line of work, which is soldiering. And it's, it's not like a wink wink. It's like, it's like the, the families, you know, the military, mostly guys that I knew that had their kids do pushups as punishment, like it's a whole culture like.

Saul is entering into that space and saying, I know how this works, and here's me glad handing you my sister, your spouse, our little battle buddy, your son. And he also again has a slave. Where did he get to slave? Probably through war, meaning he probably was a Roman and if he's, I don't know as much about Coase, but.

As I read this letter, Phil Lehman, I tried to just get the sarcasm and the gravitas just dripping off my lips, but in case I need to do it again, he is. He's as clear as he can be without saying it outright. If you consider me your partner, welcome a slave as you would welcome me. Um. Don't say anything because you know you owe me, owing me even your own self.

So if we all believe this thing, if you believe that I've brought you into life, returning here to Deuteronomy, and what does it mean to choose life? To choose a life to choose behaviors and habits that align with the moral arc of the universe. That is what choosing life means. That is what? Choosing prosperity means live well help others live well.

And so Saul is saying, look, let's pretend you really believe this stuff. Let's pretend that you really do think that Joshua Mary's kid is Kio the Lord, the the highest ranking human ever to step foot on earth, which subordinates, Caesar Philemon's, former commander, he says, let's pretend we believe all this.

And let's pretend that this community that you host in which you're going to get this read to you also believes in this baptism was death. It is you entering new life. You owe me your life. You owe me everything. If you believe that treat this slave no longer as a slave, he is still a part of your household.

I'm sending him back and I'm going to check on him. I'm going to see if you really believe I am going to use my influence for good because that's what it means for influential Christians to choose prosperity, to choose life, to use their privilege, to reinforce the structures of good that we need in this world to defend against the pressures of corruption and entitlement.

Saul is laying the rhetorical symbolism on heavily. If you only read this, literally, you will skip it over without a second thought and then you'll go onto Revelation. And if you're a consistently, if your logic is consistent, you'll then apply a literal lens to Revelation and think, oh, everybody's coming back, you know, from the Dead.

And these Beatles with crowns faces of people like that is. One imaginary or one hermeneutical move. Either we believe this or we don't. And if we believe it, we better really believe it. I, I say that because we have to be able, everybody has to be able to code switch to an extent. And this is where I as a privileged white, hetero male, a evangelical male, um.

I learn from the margins. I have learned from the margins from marginalized communities that you have to code switch to survive. You have to understand both the literal meaning and the symbolic meaning. If you don't understand nuance and complexity and sarcasm, you will not care about this letter. And then you'll, you may care a whole lot about Revelation and if you only can read one side of the.

Line one side of the text. If you're only able to do hyperbole or literalism, then you're gonna have a really crappy Bible. You're gonna have a bunch of ink on paper. But if you can see things parabolically, if you can move, switch from one perspective to another, from entitlement to enlistment, we'll say, because I like my military metaphors, just like Saul did.

If you can, then there's a chance that you can get it. Even if you're rich like Philemon, you can get it. If you're willing to interpret these sayings and his and Christ's life, uh, parabolically from both sides of this perspective, that. But you know, we're stuck in, you know, whether you call that human experience or, or, or time or perspective, like you have to be willing and able to empathize with another perspective that you hadn't thought of.

That is where if Philemon was had a hard heart, Saul will know, and then I'll bet Saul will tell that house in one way or another. And those who. Are able to see and to hear who are able to understand and perceive, they will get it and they will leave. And that's why I don't see the, the exodus of people from the church as a problem.

I see it as a judgment. People are not stupid. If religious leaders of any Abrahamic tradition or sub tradition, if you can only speak out of. Yeah, one side of your mouth and not your whole mouth. If you can only hear with one ear or one eye, you're only getting half the message. And people with two eyes and two ears will see and they will leave.

And so this is Saul's warning to every entitled church, every entitled Christian. If you don't understand this letter, good luck understanding Christ. If you cannot read and understand and interpret parabolically. And Jesus uses a lot of parables. Good luck finding the fullest meaning of this text. It's not impossible, even the rich man can pass through the eye of a needle, but it's gonna be really hard.

And once you accept that, it's hard If you accept that selling all that you own and giving away all the possessions that you think own you have control over. If you can't give up control of them, if you cannot even let go of them to prepare to give them away. Then the road will be long and the gate will be narrow.

But if you have that flexibility, if you can see nuance, complexity, you know, contrasting, but complimentary perspectives like then you'll do okay. And most people, most Christians are doing okay. And I think it's the church, the institutionalization, the industrialization of Christianity that is sending people away because it's not the gospel.