Re-formed

Philemon 1-21   Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.

For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is 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—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

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Sometimes a theme surprises you.  Just recently two new novels have been published – one called Underground Railroad and the other called Underground Airlines.  Both of these stories address the heritage of slavery in our country by re-imagining the underground railroad, the road to freedom for slaves.  Underground Airlines tells a story in which slavery still exists in America in the present time.  Underground Railroad follows a runaway slave as she travels through one state after another, in which she encounters a variety of different ways in which white people relate to black people. 

Both stories are more than just a historical note.  Both stories have something timeless to say about how it is when we regard some people as less than human, as chattel.  And I imagine both authors would say that there are vestiges of this systemic problem affecting our culture today.  It is extremely hard work to change such deeply ingrained beliefs.

Paul’s letter to Philemon is a very short one – short for Paul, anyway.  It is unusual for Paul because it is not written to a church but rather to a person – Philemon.  And it is written for only one purpose.  Paul wants Philemon to grant freedom to his slave Onesimus. 

Slavery was a part of the culture in which Paul was living. It was part of the culture in which Jesus lived, it was a part of all of the cultures in which all of the books of the Bible were written.  In the ancient world, slavery was normal.  It was not restricted to the people of one particular race or tribe.  Slavery was what the powerful people did to people who were powerless. 

We know that the people of Israel were enslaved by the Egyptians for hundreds of years before they were led out of slavery by Moses.  And we know that the people of Israel, once they were established in their own land, also practiced slavery.  We know this because the law of Israel addressed it – not the question of “if” it was acceptable, but the questions of “how” it was acceptable. 

We know that in the Roman Empire slavery was normal.  Some of the stories in the book of Acts tell about slaves, such as the woman who had a spirit of divination and was used by her owners quite profitably.  Some of the epistles have instructions pertaining to how slaves should behave, and from this we see that at least some Christian households owned slaves.  All of this seems far away and strange to us.  And that is why it seems odd to us that Paul treads so delicately around the question.

The fact is this: there was no conventional wisdom at the time in which the enslavement of human beings was considered to be unethical or unchristian.  That is hard for us to get our heads around, and I am glad that it is.  But it’s worth remembering that it is hard to get our heads around only because there were individuals who suggested, sometimes gently and sometimes boldly, that this is not the way things ought to be.

That is just what Paul was doing in this letter to Philemon.  Look at the way he does it and admire.

He is artful in his choice of words.  He is complimentary, he is encouraging, and at the same time he is threatening.  Paul is definitely using whatever he has at his disposal to bring about the result he wants.  This is clearly a reform that is important to him. 

Onesimus has come to be with Paul, who is in prison. But we don’t know under what conditions he arrived there.  He might have been sent there by his master, to be of some service to Paul.  But it is also quite possible that Onesimus ran away from his master and now finds himself in a particularly difficult position.  But he has found an advocate in Paul, who regards Onesimus now as a son.  “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me,” he writes to Philemon.  Useless, perhaps, because he has run away from his master; useful now because as he appeals for forgiveness and liberation, he offers both Paul and Philemon a chance to practice extravagant love.

Paul wrote the words, “for freedom Christ has set us free,” and, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” 

If Paul has discerned these truths through Jesus Christ, then it is fitting for Paul to be the one who says to Philemon that Jesus Christ brings this transformation to our world, that no longer should we accept or participate in the enslavement of our fellow human beings.  It is time to face this truth – although it would take many hundreds of years, nearly two thousand years, for the church to fully embrace that.

Being reformed takes time.  But the scriptures we hear today tell us it is God’s work. 

We see it in the story from Jeremiah.  “Go down to the potter’s house and I will let you hear my word,” the Lord says to Jeremiah.  And there he sees the potter working at his wheel.  The potter’s work was important to a community.  He created pots and bowls and cups – vessels of all sorts for everyday use.  For carrying water, for cooking and eating, these craftsmen were an essential part of a community. 

Jeremiah watches the potter working a lump of clay into a vessel.  The vessel, once formed, will be fired, hardened and ready to use.  But the clay becomes ruined in the potter’s hands.  It became misshapen or torn, somehow not salvageable, the potter knows.  And so he picks up the clay and begins the process again.  A shapeless lump will be formed into a useful vessel.

“Can I not do with you just what this potter has done with the clay?”  says the Lord to Jeremiah.  The people of Israel, though created good, have become misshapen, useless to God, ruined.  Too many times they had turned away from God’s desire for them to be a just and loving community.  Too many times they had failed to care for the poor, the weak, and the alien in their midst.  They had ignored God’s commands for the sake of their own gain, power and riches. 

They are no longer a people who are useful to God.  But there is hope.  God had not finished with them yet.  As the potter picks up the clay from the wheel and begins again, reforming it into a good and useful vessel, so may God do with Israel.  What God has created good, God can reform into goodness once again.

Being reformed is God’s work.  And it is, therefore, our work as well.

Our Presbyterian heritage has a motto:  that we are reformed and always being reformed.  The work of reformation, re-formation, is never finished, because God’s work is not finished.

How will God reform us?  Where are the blind spots, the flaws which make us less than useful?  Each one of us may answer that for him or herself; each of us may offer our personal prayer to God, to reshape us closer to God’s image, closer to God’s original intent for humankind.  But let us pray also, for the church, that God will reform us into the church that Christ desires: a place where sinners may come just as they are to be healed, a place where the saints are sanctified, a place where all may give and receive God’s love and forgiveness. 

May you be blessed with the love of God in this place. 

May you bless others in the sharing and the caring of Christian community. 

And may you seek to be ever useful to the Lord our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Can I Get Some Help

Luke 13:10-17      Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

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Years ago I was drinking coffee with my friend Deborah and we came up with a youth ministry idea that we thought would be great.  It would use music as the means of gathering kids together, targeted at the many kids we knew who played in a band, or wished they played in a band.  Neither of us was a musician but we just wanted to give them a safe place to gather and the freedom to play and learn from each other.  And we put the proposal out to the church where Deborah worked and I worshiped, just to see if we would get a reaction.  We got a reaction.  The church music director sent out emails letting us all know how upset she was that we had done this without ever consulting her.  She was, after all, the church music director; this was her domain.  She believed that what we had done was completely out of order.

A meeting was called, Deborah and I apologized profusely.  The music director wanted to handle the new program, she had several ideas about how it should be run.  We said, please do, we want to do things the right way, in an orderly fashion.  We never meant to break the rules.  We would be grateful if you would take this on. 

And that was the last we ever heard of it.  Nothing. Ever. Happened.  But at least we can say that nothing was done out of order, right?

“There are six days on which this type of work can be done,” said the leader of the synagogue.  There are six right ways to do this, and some people insist on choosing the wrong one. 

The leader of the synagogue directs his disapproval to the crowds, in case any of them came expecting Jesus to heal them on this day when healing is, evidently, prohibited. 

There are a lot of things we don’t know about this incident.  We don’t know if this bent over woman was a regular at the synagogue – if she came every day or if she just happened to come this day.  We don’t know if there was a crowd of people who were there specifically for the intent of asking Jesus to touch them and heal them of their sickness and brokenness.  We don’t know what town they are in or how long Jesus and his disciples have been there.  All we know is they are in a synagogue, it is the Sabbath, and there is a woman there in need of healing. 

They are in God’s house, there is a clear need, and there is the ability to help.  What is to stop him from this act of mercy?  The rules.

Now, we had some discussion at the roundtable this week about the laws of Israel.  The basis of this rule is the 4^th commandment, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.  But the interpretation of the commandment was built on layer upon layer of secondary law, spelling out every one of the possible activities that might be classified as work and therefore prohibited on the Sabbath.

To be fair, it is important to realize that this was not a life or death emergency.  This woman had borne her affliction for 18 years; she would still have the affliction the day after the Sabbath and she could be healed then.  If she had tolerated this for 18 years she could certainly tolerate it one day longer.  Why not just honor the rules and wait one more day?  This may be the reasonable question to ask.

The gospel tells us that she was afflicted with an evil spirit that kept her bent over.  What could that possibly mean?  It might have been arthritis; someone who suffers from arthritis might agree that the term “evil spirit” is a fair description of it.  Her affliction might have been osteoporosis; it might have been the result of a bad accident years ago that never healed properly.  It could have been many things.  But no matter what the precise diagnosis, one things we can be sure about: she was suffering, and had been suffering for 18 long years. 

There are times, we all agreed at the roundtable this week, when we stop seeing the suffering around us because it has been there for so long.  There are times we become so used to someone else’s suffering that it begins to seem normal. 

Sometimes a need is so chronic, so long-lasting, that we stop seeing it.  The need, itself, becomes normal. 

It might be that this bent-over woman had been seen in and around the synagogue for so long, she was an institution!  And if not her, others like her, because there is no shortage of suffering people in the world.  Maybe the sight of her bent over body was a part of the landscape everyone expected to see, with never a thought to how it felt for her to be a bent over institution.

We can grow accustomed to a lot of things that aren’t good for us.  For example, we can grow accustomed to the youth being alienated from the life of the church, so that the rules become more important than finding a new way of inviting them in.

I feel compelled to say now that I am not a rule-breaker.  I actually like rules.  It’s just that I am concerned that we sometimes use them to put up a barrier between ourselves and the needs surrounding us, because the need is intractable and it overwhelms us.

This past week there was a photograph of a child in Aleppo that shook us up like very few photos do.  Omran is a five-year-old boy who was dug out of the rubble of a bombed building.  He was covered in dust and blood.  Physically, he appeared to be fine.  But watching him sit in this ambulance seat looking toward the camera with a thousand yard stare was unnerving.  It showed us the real effects of this war in Syria.  The photographer said he was surprised about the reaction to this picture.  Because he takes photos like this one every single day. 

Every single day.

We can’t react to every single photo of every single shell-shocked or dying child every single day.  The sheer magnitude of the need would overwhelm us. 

Suffering has a way of doing that to us.  We simply stop seeing it.  And when the suffering stand before us saying, “can I get some help,” we might avert our eyes and reply, “well, I’ll have to check the rules first.” 

You see, on his own, the leader of the synagogue couldn’t have done anything to relieve the suffering of the bent over woman, nor could any one of the other regulars at the synagogue.  But the point is this: they were at the synagogue.  They were in the house of God, in the presence of God – where suffering goes to be relieved, where brokenness goes to be healed, where need goes to be met.

That is exactly what Jesus was demonstrating when he touched this woman and healed her, when he spoke to her and relieved her lonely suffering.  And although Jesus’ opponents were put to shame, the entire crowd rejoiced.  Why would they not rejoice?  For this is the good news we all are waiting for.  We all, every one of us, need some help.  And we all, every one of us, can offer it with the help of God. 

We don’t have to put up obstacles to doing the right thing.

I was reminded this week of a story I read several years ago[1].  Sometime in the 1980’s a woman was walking down a street in Manhattan heading to an appointment.  She misread the address she was looking for and accidently walked in the wrong door, and she found herself looking at a mass of people, children and adults, knocking on a door, begging for something to eat or drink.  She estimated there were about 75 families in there.  The place stank.

This woman immediately made three phone calls.  First she called the Red Cross disaster relief; second, she called to the mayor’s office to request an emergency food delivery; and third, she called the New York Times to get a photographer out there.  Then she did one more thing: she went to the nearest market and bought bread and peanut butter and orange juice, and she went back to feed them. 

When we see suffering, we are hearing someone ask, “Can I get some help?”  The gospel shows us that Jesus will provide the help needed.  And the expectation is that we will provide the help, too, as followers of Jesus.

And before we say, “Ah, Lord God, I can’t.  For I am too young or too old or too small or too poor, too powerless or too busy” let us remember how God equips those whom God appoints and anoints.  As God equipped Jeremiah, as Jesus equipped his disciples, so are we.

We all need some help.  Let us open our eyes and see one another in truth.  Let us respond to the need that we see there, with the help of God.

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[1] From God’s Troublemakers: How Women of Faith Are Changing the World, by Katherine Rhodes Henderson.

Stress Fractures

Luke 12:49-56         “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

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When this text comes up in the lectionary it is tempting to start looking around for other options.  It is not a pretty passage.  Dare I say, this is not the Jesus we know and love.  He is irritable, frightening; and he makes us uncomfortable.  I think I can speak for most preachers, who are at heart people-pleasers, when I say that we struggle with the desire to take the easy road and preach on something lighter – like the binding of Isaac, for example. 

What can you say about a text like this one?

To my surprise, when I sat down with the text I found an abundance of things worth saying – more things than I have time to say, actually.  I told someone this week that I was in the process of writing three distinct sermons on this text.  He said, “please – choose just one.” 

So I choose to talk with you about the unpleasant topic of conflict and division.  Jesus says quite plainly that he will bring division within households – father against son, mother against daughter, and so on.  We know about conflict amongst our loved ones.  Mothers who won’t speak to their daughters because of some argument from years ago.  No one quite remembers what it was about or why it was so important yet, nonetheless, the anger and hurt are as fresh as ever.  Sons who cut off contact with their fathers for reasons that remain unspoken and, therefore, unable to be reconciled.  Brothers who divide over business disputes and only speak to one another through their lawyers.  We know about conflict amongst loved ones.  But how it hurts to hear Jesus say that this conflict comes from him, and that he meant to inflict it.

It is a dangerous thing for him to say.

We dislike conflict in the most intense way.  Yet, oddly enough, we often have it in our lives – even over the most unimportant things.  At the roundtable we talked about a conflict that once arose in the congregation over the matter of carpeting the sanctuary.  This is actually a classic church conflict.  Many congregations have come to the brink of civil war over the matter of flooring.  Changing the color of the carpet, going from one type of surface to another – things that seem small.  It is surprising when they turn out to be big. 

The story of Fiddler on the Roof is a good example of conflict and division in family.  The main character Tevye, father to five daughters, bless his soul.  Three of the girls are approaching the age of marriage and so this is a time of great stress for Tevye and his wife Golde. 

It is also a time of great change in the world in which they are living; Russia in 1905 was experiencing tremendous unrest, and it impacted the Jews in particularly hard ways. In their little village they held to tradition.  But tradition was being challenged.  

The first daughter wants to arrange her own marriage – forego the services of the village matchmaker.  This was not the way things were done!  Choosing for yourself who you will marry – can such a thing even work out?  The younger generation is pushing the envelope on this – choosing to marry for love. “It’s the new style!” Tevye says to Golde.  Well, their love for their daughter is what enables them to work through this conflict, and it turns out to be relatively easy to resolve.  Because it turns out the first conflict was only the sign of bigger things to come.

The second daughter wanted to marry a man from outside the village – a revolutionary Jew, one who really pushes against the old traditional values, who brings so many new ways into the village.  This time they did not even ask for the parents’ permission.  They did not believe they needed their parents’ permission.  Really.  But, again, love carried the day.  This conflict also was resolved, although with more difficulty and pain than the first.  At this point it was no longer possible to assume that things would go back to the way they had always been.

The third daughter married a man who was not a Jew – a Russian who shared none of their beliefs, customs, values.  The only thing they shared was the love of this daughter, and it was not enough.  This conflict would not be resolved.  This time, their love would not heal over the wound.  It was a conflict too great to bear and it led to a divide in the family.  To Tevye, this daughter was dead.

There are conflicts that can be smoothed over with ease, no lingering effects. And there are conflicts that can’t be smoothed over, but demand that we all change in some way.  Then there are conflicts that are just too hard to tolerate and there is nothing to do but split.  Divide. Fracture the body.

This stuff happens, we know.  But how can we see this as something that God intends?  Where do we look to understand this immensely troublesome notion?

Perhaps we need to look at the cross.  That seems to be what Jesus was looking at.

The stress of this burden on him is evident in the first sentences, as he speaks of fire and baptism – the fire of judgment and the baptism of his death on the cross.   “What stress I am under until it is completed!”

In the words of Luke, Jesus has turned his face toward Jerusalem, and we know what that means to him:  confrontation with the priests at the temple, clashes with religious and civil authorities, tensions among his followers, betrayal, denial, arrest, torture, rebuke by his own people, and finally death on a cross.

Conflict of the most intense and painful and powerful kind.  And would we dare suggest that this is not necessary?

We want peace.  We, like those first disciples, believe he has come to bring peace to the world.  But how do we think we get to peace? 

William Penn, good Quaker, founding father of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and champion of freedom, is known to have said, “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”  He wrote these words while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London because of his religious convictions.  I remember these words every single Holy Week; words that speak to the truth that there is no peace without conflict; no salvation without rejection; no glory without struggle. 

Crisis is indeed a part of God’s plan.  The word comes from the word crux, a word we use to talk about the essence of something, a nub of truth.  When we refer to the crux of the matter, we are saying here is the glimmer of truth in this particular problem.  Crux is also the Latin word for cross, from which we might understand that the cross is not just an unfortunate thing that happened – it is the essence of God’s plan of salvation. 

Conflict cannot be swept under a rug and forgotten.  Brokenness cannot be patched up with duct tape and ignored.  True reconciliation with God requires a willingness to face the brokenness in ourselves and others, to confess and to forgive, to speak our truth and listen to another’s truth.  None of these are easy.  It is sorely tempting to opt for the easier path, but the easier path will not take us where we want to go.

To be the church of Jesus Christ demands that we follow his path and that means we will walk into conflict at times.  That we will be confronted with changes that are not to our liking. 

We will probably look for the easy way.  We will try to use some of the old familiar responses to problems: resist; get angry; find multiple things to get upset about and pick fights with one another; or walk away.  But these responses will not be helpful.

So what can we do?  What should we do?

First, be aware. Life is change, and change inevitably brings conflict.  Quite often, the presence of conflict is the sign that change is happening.  Simply understanding this is helpful. 

Second, be encouraged. In some families, some communities, where things have been pretty stable for a good while, they are ripe for change.  There are bound to be negative responses to change.  However, change is necessary for life to exist, so take it as a good sign if people are unhappy.

Third, be kind.  We know there will be disputes.  We know there will be divisions.  We know that when there are changes there will be the possibility of some people being traumatized by it.  But we can make a choice to respond with love to whatever is thrown our way.

Whatever God asks us to do, God provides what we need to do it.  When Jesus calls us hypocrites, that’s just to goad us into action.  We know how to read the signs, he is telling us.  And with God’s help, we will.