Practicing Community

 “Practicing Community” // Text: Philemon 1:10-24

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sun, May 24, 2020

Hello friends, my name is Brad and I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge.  I want to welcome you into this online space.  As we begin our teaching and application time together today continuing our discussion on the topic of forgiveness.   

In 1948, a program of institutionalized racial segregation was started by the government of South Africa.  It came to be known as apartheid and it was predicated on the notion that white citizen’s had the highest stature.  A young man was born to the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at two universities before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. His passion for justice led him to increasingly defy the ruling party and in 1961 he and others led a sabotage campaign against the government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state.

He spent over 27 years in prison and so in the mid-90s when he walked out of the door, you might expect to find him embittered, filled with hatred and every further entrenched in divisions of class or race.  But Nelson Mandela was anything but bitter.  He once famously said “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

We’ve been looking into the New Testament book of Philemon in a short series here at Jericho entitled Clean Break.  We’re looking at the topic of relationships and particularly how forgiveness works in our own lives and in the lives of a community like a church. 

Just to recap, Philemon along with his wife Apphia was the leader of a house church in the first century city of Colossae.  But Philemon had a problem: one of his servants has defrauded him. Wronged him in some way. And had run away. And now the servant is coming home and Philemon is put in the challenging place of determining if & how to offer forgiveness to the person who wronged him. 

The Apostle Paul, one of the leaders of the early Christian movement writes a letter to Philemon and makes an appeal to him to receive his former named Onesimus slave back.  But we’re going to see today how hard Paul’s ask really is.  Because like the story of Nelson Mandela, it is predicated on something shocking radical:

In Mandela’s case, the shockingly radical truth was that a person who was discriminated against and imprisoned for almost 3 decades could walk away from anger, bitterness, resentment and eventually because of his work at reconciliation, he could liberate not only himself from his criminal past, but eventually, become the president of the country. 

In the case of Philemon, the shocking radical ask is that a disobedient slave be welcomed back into the home and treated as an equal and his past transgressions be wiped clean.  Let’s look together at why Paul even thinks this is a good idea.  Because if I’m Philemon, and my former slave who defrauded me comes up the driveway with a letter in hand my first though isn’t “welcome home”. My first thought is “why are you here?” and then I read this letter and I’m wondering of Paul “why are you sending Onesimus back to me?”  I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation.

“I appeal to you to show kindness to my child, Onesimus. I became his father in the faith while here in prison. 11 Onesimus[c] hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us. 12 I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart. 13 I wanted to keep him here with me while I am in these chains for preaching the Good News, and he would have helped me on your behalf. 14 But I didn’t want to do anything without your consent. I wanted you to help because you were willing, not because you were forced.

15 It seems you lost Onesimus for a little while so that you could have him back forever. 16 He is no longer like a slave to you. He is more than a slave, for he is a beloved brother, especially to me. Now he will mean much more to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord. 17 So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge it to me. 19 I, PAUL, WRITE THIS WITH MY OWN HAND: I WILL REPAY IT. AND I WON’T MENTION THAT YOU OWE ME YOUR VERY SOUL!

20 Yes, my brother, please do me this favor[d] for the Lord’s sake. Give me this encouragement in Christ. 21 I am confident as I write this letter that you will do what I ask and even more! 22 One more thing—please prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that God will answer your prayers and let me return to you soon. Paul’s Final Greetings

23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. 24 So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my co-workers. 25 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit”

Here’s Paul’s basic augment.  Yes, Onesimus was once totally not useful to you BUT now that he has come into the family of God, now that he has experienced the same grace that Paul experienced and that Philemon has experienced, a radical transformation has taken place.  And this transformation didn’t just impact Philemon or Onesimus heart or spiritual life.  Paul is saying, in essence, now that Onesimus is a Christian, and now that we all share the same Father in heaven, we are all brothers in Christ.  So it is no longer possible for Philemon to regard Onesimus as a slave.  To treat him as property and beat him within an inch of his life Monday to Saturday but then turn around and invite him to worship together in church with the family on Sundays. 

Here’s why Christianity was regarded with such suspicion and sneer in the first century.  Because it upset the delicate social balance because of the radical claims that there were certain truths that were self evident: that all men and all women were created equal in the eyes of God and therefore they ought to be treated as such by their fellow human beings.  

We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking about Christianity as a strictly spiritual or interior thing.  That you get Jesus in your heart and you go to heaven when you die. But for Paul, for the early church,

• Saving Faith is PERSONAL but not PRIVATE

When our relationship with God experiences reconciliation, we come to revaluate our human relationships through a new lens.  The lens of love.  Because the Christian message is one of reconciliation, when we come to understand that the love of God is poured out on all, our Christological realities begin to re-shape and re-define our sociological realities.

Embracing Christianity is not It’s not just a change in attitude;       but how community is lived out.  The values of justice, equality and love begin to take root in ways that are not just personal, but they impact the very foundations of culture and how we treat each other in society.

This is why powerful movements throughout history that transformed whole cultures for good find their roots in Christian teaching.  In the 19^th century like the woman’s suffrage movement which gave women the right to vote or the abolitionist movement that sought to outlaw slavery or in the 20^th century, the human rights movements (UTSS) or nelson Mandela’s believe in the equality of persons who were black were all founded on the principles of equality and compassion that are at their roots, espoused in the Bible in places like the book of Philemon. I suspect that’s one reason by this letter is included in the New Testament. It’s a concrete example of what it means to follow Jesus. We begin to treat other people differently. 

This about, for example, the social pyramid in the ancient world.  Slaves are at the very, very bottom.  And Paul is saying to Philemon, maybe they are in the world’s eyes or in the world’s economy, but in God’s eyes, they have the same worth and value as an Artisan, noble, governor, king or emperor.  And so Paul says to Philemon, I want you to welcome back Onesimus and treat him as if that were true.  Woah – how radical is that??

So let’s get practical for a minute… Think about the social pyramid in our world today.  We all live within one.  It might be define by economics or position or accomplishments or what family you born into.  If you are in High School, its defined by who or what is Cool, vs. pretty cool vs losers.   Paul is writing to Philemon, who is at the top of his pyramid and saying to him “I need you to treat the people at the “bottom” as if they are your equal.  You might think of

Onesimus: SLAVE -> PARTNER  (I’m asking you to treat him as a)

Philemon: MASTER -> BROTHER  (I’m asking you to behave like a)

Why in the world would Philemon even agree to something so radical?  Paul reminds him that in Christian community, those with power give it up and lay it down in order to serve those who are “weaker”.  Think of Philippians 2 where Paul says “Jesus gave up the privileges of heaven and made himself nothing.  He descended.  He lowered himself.” For what purpose? For you and for me.  He gave up His rights for your freedom. 

Paul has already asked Philemon to welcome Onesimus as an equal partner, now he is saying “I also need you to erase any outstanding debts”. If he hurt you, if he owes you anything, put it on my account.  I will pay it. 

Again, can you see what Pau is doing here? He is appeal to Philemon to act congruent with how Christ acted.  Christ says “Oh, there’s a debt against Brad.  He has wronged others and his account is in arrears and a negative balance.  Well, charge that to my account.  I will absorb the debt that is. On his account. I will pay it.”  Friends, that is what makes the good news such amazing good news!  That there is now n longer any condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus because the debts have been paid.  Paul says into another place “if you are going to owe anyone anything, it should be a debt to love one another”.

Doing this in community, practice community is HARD WORK.  Canadian. Author Karen Stiller writes “We are all messy and miraculous.. Church does scrape us up against each other. It skins our knees, wounds and then heals. We are supposed to love each other all the time, and I don’t think it ever stops being hard. We are people with ragged edges. We are frayed. But because we are in community with each other, pointed in the same general direction toward God – gathering, worshiping, praying and we help each other grow.

I confess. It would be better for me personally if growing in love and grace occurred while curled up in an armchair with a cup of tea (and a jelly doughnut) reading a book. But that is rare. We more often grow through failure and mishap, through shattered windows and things we should not have said. We stumble upon new levels of love because we have mucked things up or been mucked with by someone else, someone who acted wrongly or just annoyingly.”  We grow because we get to practice living in community.  That’s what makes the church, even when we are scattered, the light of the world and a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. 

 Here’s the absolute kicker…. We don’t actually know if Philemon forgave and welcomed Onesimus back into his home.  But one thing we do know for certain – that God, who is full of mercy and compassion, will welcome you and  me with loving and open arms. 

We are going to move into a time of responding together in communion.  So if you need to pause the live stream now and go and get the elements, I invite you to do so.  If you need to pause for a minute and ask God “is there anyone in my life that I need to practice radical forgiveness toward?”.  Maybe you are new and you are wondering “Could this be true? Could God really forgive me?” I want you to raise your hand in thee chat or email us and we would love to respond to you.   

May the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, friends.