A BETTER LETTER
Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:233
Human slavery was taken for granted in the ancient world. Captives of war could be
made slaves; foreigners could be trafficked as slaves; children could be sold into slavery in times
of economic stress and war; people could sell themselves into slavery to satisfy hunger or repay
otherwise unpayable debts. Legally the slave was chattel, which is to say that slaves could be
sold, bought, leased, exchanged, or inherited. The slave had no name but was rather a piece of
property and often branded as a means of identification. Ownership of a female slave meant
not only that she was employed in the master’s household but was also subject to sexual
exploitation for the master’s pleasure or for breeding slave children. Harboring fugitive slaves
was like possession of stolen goods. Though treated as chattel, slaves were recognized by law
and society as human, though human without rights and hence, in fact, a thing. Jewish law
permitted the mistreatment of slaves but only up to a limit. Slaves could be freed, and Jewish
law lists five means for the freeing of slaves. Slavery was not limited to Old Testament times
but persisted into the New Testament period and was extended in many ways by the Roman
Empire. Whereas there was an attempt to regulate slavery in the Old Testament, the New
Testament accepts slavery as a fact of life entrenched in the culture with hardly a reservation,
let alone a protest about it.
It cannot be denied that the New Testament’s silence on the matter of slavery was
taken as permission for if not endorsement of slavery as practiced in Europe and in the New
World. The roots of the Southern Baptist Church, the largest Protestant denomination in the
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United States, were in the defense of the right of masters to own slaves, a defense that was
actually advanced on biblical grounds. And this, despite the fact that accounts of the so-called
“middle passage” on the ships that brought slaves from Africa to the Americas are horrific
beyond belief. Slavery in the New World grew as the plantation system grew, and it is widely
acknowledged that American prosperity would not have been possible without slave labor.
Religion, and Christianity in particular, was one of the ways that slave owners controlled the
growing slave population, with the Christian message interpreted and taught in such a way as
to make slaves more docile and accepting of their servitude. But, of course, Christians who
read the same gospel as slave owners were also among the most vocal Americans in the cause
of abolition and the end of slavery.
In the brief Letter to Philemon, Paul is writing from prison, where it seems he enjoys the
services of the slave Onesimus, who, it is suggested, may be a runaway slave. Paul’s
imprisonment might be in Rome, though this is not known for certain, and he could have been
held in Ephesus. It is interesting that a prisoner would have a slave at his disposal to serve his
needs during his imprisonment, but this was apparently common practice for citizens of Rome,
who had the means to do so, and Paul was a Roman citizen.
The owner of Onesimus is Philemon, a Christian who presides over a house church
known to Paul. After a bit of schmoozing in his letter, Paul gets down to business. He’d like to
hang on to Onesimus for his own benefit, but if this is going to be the case, he wants Philemon
to offer to turn Onesimus over to Paul of his own accord. At the end of the letter there is some
more schmoozing by Paul, but in between he indicates that whatever happens, he would
appreciate it if Philemon would recognize Onesimus as a beloved brother and no longer as a
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slave. This is not exactly John Brown or Abraham Lincoln, but it does at least put Paul on the
right side of the slavery question as far as this one slave, Onesimus, is concerned. He might
have done better.
I think of another letter from a Christian who is in jail and writing to other Christians.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963) to his Christians critics
while serving a sentence for participating in civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham,
Alabama. Specifically the letter is addressed to eight prominent “liberal” clergymen who had
published an open letter to urge King to end his civil disobedience for fear it would incite more
violence. King writes:
“We know through powerful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a
direct action movement that was ‘well-timed,’ according to the timetable of those who have
not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word
‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. That ‘Wait’ has almost
always meant ‘Never’…. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of
segregation to say ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and
fathers at will and drown your sisters and brother at whim; when you have seen hate-filled
policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity;
when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight
cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;… When you are harried by day and haunted
by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance never quite knowing
what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are
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forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness;’ then you will understand why we find it
difficult to wait…. I hope sirs you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience….
(pp. 87ff.) Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute
misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than
outright rejection…. (p. 91) In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church.
But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment
where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church; I love her sacred walls…. Yes, I see the
church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through
social neglect and fear of being nonconformists.” (p. 97. Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream,
James Washington, ed.)
A letter from jail written nearly 1900 years after Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Different
time, different place, different circumstances. But in so many respects King’s letter is the letter
Paul should have written, decrying not segregation but the institution of slavery out of which
which the evil of segregation was born. St. Paul was certainly no coward—he suffered much
and died for his faith in Christ, as did King. But he and much of the church that followed him
and his example were all too willing to wait in the face of the manifest injustice of slavery, as
well as the subordination of women, and the oppression of homosexual people, dreams
deferred in anticipation of a rescue from on high with the return of Jesus.
As if Jesus had not already done enough to show us that it can never be right to tolerate
injustice. What, after all, did the church think he was talking about when he said “Whoever
does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Christian discipleship has a cost
that is more than showing patience and saying our prayers, especially when such waiting is at
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someone else’s expense. We must recognize our privileges and do what we can to look and see
beyond them. And having seen, we must do as we can and should for the love of Christ that
the way of justice be advanced. We have King’s words and witness to show us what this is like
in our time. Amen.
16th Sunday after Pentecost, September 8, 2013
Emanuel Lutheran Church
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