Practicing Forgiveness

 “Practicing Forgiveness” // Text: Philemon 1:1-11

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sun, May 17, 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, I want you to think of an experience in your life when someone stole something from you that belonged to you.  Maybe you own a business and an employee stole money from you. Maybe a friendship was taken from you by betrayal. Maybe you are a student and you felt you earned a spot on a team or club and someone else who had put in less work than you was given that spot.  Maybe you went to court and didn’t get justice for something you were owed. Or maybe you are a kid and a sibling stole a favorite toy & broke it. 

When something is taken from us, when we are defrauded by someone, the natural result is a breakdown in that relationship.  And when relationships experience a clean break, we get to choose whether we want to put them back together again through the process of forgiveness. So that’s what we’ll be talking about for the next two weeks in this series

The Scriptures have a lot to say about forgiveness – what it is and isn’t. How to go about it and what it takes to live together in a community that practices forgives when others wrong us.  And friends this is hard work! 

Noted 20^th century novelist and author C.S. Lewis, once said that “We all agree forgiveness is a beautiful idea. Until we have to practice it!”

This is not a new phenomenon, of course.  In the first century world into which the Bible was written, we have the story of a business person, a respected Roman citizen in the ancient city of Colossae.  His name was Philemon. Philemon along with his wife Apphia was the leader of a house church.  It’s perhaps appropriately ironic to remind ourselves that the earliest Christians met in living rooms and not auditoriums.  So we’re kickin’ it old school. 

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. 

Turn with me in your Bibles or on your devices to the New Testament book of Philemon.  It’s the shortest letter in the Bible, written by the Paul who was an Apostle and a significant leader in the early Christian movement.  Paul writes the following to Philemon (I’m reading New Living Translation).

“This letter is from Paul, a prisoner for preaching the Good News about Christ Jesus, & from our brother Timothy. I am writing to Philemon, our beloved co-worker, & to our sister Apphia, and to our fellow soldier Archippus, & to the church that meets in your house.” 

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.” Very typical salutation for a new testament letter.  Paul continues in v 4:

I always thank my God when I pray for you, Philemon, 5 because I keep hearing about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all of God’s people. 6 And I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ.

7 Your love has given me much joy and comfort, my brother, for your kindness has often refreshed the hearts of God’s people.” 

There’s a very warm, very personal almost intimate nature to this letter.  Paul doesn’t pull out his Apostolic authority; he isn’t writing to correct bad theology of behaviour.  He has a genuine relationship with these people and he sees genuinely good fruit like love and faith and kindness on display in their lives.  And in verse 6 here, he begins to make his request and the reason for writing this letter know.  Let’s keep reading in 1:8

That is why I am boldly asking a favor of you. I could demand it in the name of Christ because it is the right thing for you to do. 9 But because of our love, I prefer simply to ask you. Consider this as a request from me—Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus.[b]

10 I appeal to you to show kindness to my child, Onesimus. I became his father in the faith while here in prison. 11 Onesimus hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us. I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart.

Here’s the backstory to this book.  Onesimus, when he was a servant, defrauded his master, Philemon, in some unknown but significant way. It is significant enough that Onesimus runs away.  While on the run, he comes into contact with the Apostle Paul, perhaps in prison himself, and Paul shares with Onesimus the message about Jesus, about the Kingdom of God and the reconciling work of the Spirit and Onesimus responds to God’s grace and becomes a believer, a Christian.  Onesimus, whose name means “useful” becomes a useful helper to Paul.  They experience unity in Christ, because they are part of the same spiritual family.  Old divisions of race or class or hierarchy of men over women or social structure between slave or free person are now erased by the reconciling work of the cross and all who are in Christ are one family through the work of Christ. This is what Paul means when he uses the phrase in verse 1 “Good News” and we talked extensively about this in our series in Galatians last year.  Author Brennan Manning expressed it this way” The Good News of the Gospel of grace cries out: we are all, equally, privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God’s mercy”

This is all fine a good, but Paul is now in a delicate position.  Onesimus is one in Christ with Paul, but Onesimus has still wronged and defrauded Philemon.  So there is still a broken relationship that exists.  So Paul at some point says to Onesimus “you’ve got to go back and make this right.” 

In the book of Colossians 4:9 Paul writes “I am sending Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, one of your own people.  He will tell you everything that’s happening here.” So Paul is writing from prison and he writes both a letter to the church in Colossae but also a very personal letter to his friend Philemon.  And he asks Onesimus to deliver both letters. 

Can you imagine Philemon looking out of his window one day and seeing his former slave Onesimus walking up to the house & knock on the door.  If I am Philemon, my first response would be something like “you have some nerve showing your face around here again after what you did!  You come in here and I’ll give you a piece of my mind and/or the beating of your life!”

Remember: in the first century world, the social structure was such that slaves were considered nothing more than property. They were the lowest rung on the social ladder and Roman law dictated that because Onesimus was a slave and had defrauded his master, Philemon had a legal responsibility to punish Onesimus severely so that other slaves would get the message that their masters were not to be trifled with.   Yet here comes Onesimus bearing this letter from Philemon’s friend Paul asking that Philemon receive Onesimus back into his home & show kindness to him.  This is a BIG ASK that Paul is making here.  So let’s break down two of the principles that we see in the opening section of the letter than can help us better understand the why & the how of practicing forgiveness.

The first thing to note is that genuine forgiveness is never coercive, it is collaborative.  Notice what Paul does not do.  Paul does not pull out his Apostolic authority and say to his friend: Philemon, I insist that you forgive Onesimus.”  (Why?) “because I’m your spiritual father and I say so, that’s why!” (You can’t make me!)   

I can remember times growing up when my brother or I had done something mean to our sister.  And my parents would march us out and make us apologize to each other.  Pretty often it was aa case of “I’m saying ‘I’m sorry’ with my mouth because you are making me do this, but you and I and she all know that in my heart I’m saying “sorry not sorry!” 

You can’t correrse genuine reconciliation. If you have to force someone to say they are sorry, that’s not genuine repentance and therefore we’re not talking about genuine forgivness.

Paul does have an apostolic right to demand that Philemon forgive Onesimus, but he chooses not to exercise that right.  Each of them in this relationship OWES the other something.  Philemon owes Paul a deep debt for the spiritual input Paul has made into Philemon’s life. Onesimus owes Philemon restitution or the wrong done.  Philemon owes Onesimus harsh punishment.  Paul goes first and lays down his rights and he invites Philemon to lay down his right to punish Onesimus.  The author of the Theology of Work commentary on this passage notes that  “Each of them has a claim over the others. Paul seeks to have all the debts and claims relinquished in favor of a mutual respect and service.” 

And here’s the important forgivness caveat.  Because some of you are thining of times or situations you have been wronged.  People who have wounded you – [physically, emitonaally, financially – and you’re asking “so, are you sahying I just roll over and say “no biggie – I forgive you!”  I want you to hear clearlt that is not what this text is asking of you.  This passage presumes that there is a mutuality, a genuine willingness on their part to come to you and make real & genuine reconciliation for real wrongs done. 

I was approached recently by a person who emailed me and said “will you forgive me for all the wrong stuff I may have said or done ever against you”.  And I have to admit, I really wrestle and still wrestle with this one.  They are not quite willing to name the real hurt that happened and this felt a bit like a request for a cavalier blanket “I forgive you” and I wasn’t ready for that.  So I emailed back and said “I’m thinking…” and I still am working this one out.   There doesn’t exist between us a sense of mutual respect and a desire to move forward in healthy relationship  In order for it to be genuine, interpersonal forgiveness has to be mutual and collaborative. 

The second thing we see in Paul’s writing is that Genuine forgiveness is any act of compassion, not an act of pity. 

The phrase of verse 7 is the same word picture the Luke uses in his gospel to describe the heart of the Father toward the prodigal son.  Or the way in which the Good Samaritan was moved with loving compassion to meet the needs of the man who was robbed.  Forgiveness is act of the will, yes, but it is the will being drawn towards something or someone. 

Paul says in verse 6 that Philemon knowns what is like to be forgiven because he has experienced the magnitude of being forgiven by God. Philemon has come to experience all of the grace and good things that have come from him being in right relationship with God in Christ.  And Philemon has begun to live out of that place and that transformed way of thinking.  He has become a generous person. He has become kind. He has not only had an intellectual experience (an understanding of Christ) he has also had an experience of lived compassion.  He has become a person whose kindness refreshes others. 

You see, for Paul and the writers of the New Testament, a compassionate heart is the mark of transformed life.  The essential fruit of saving faith is transformed relationships.  Not only a transformed vertical relationship with God, but also with others.  So while on the surface, the presenting question of the book is “will Philemon forgive Onesimus” (stay tuned for next week), the real question is actually Philemon’s standing before Christ, not Onesimus’ standing before Philemon.  Did you catch that?  Paul sees this moment when Onesimus delivers the letter as a litmus test of Philemon’s faith.  Will Philemon put into practice all that stuff he professes to believe about love and kindness or will that remain as simply theory or nice theology? 

Paul is making his appeal based on love.  And the appeal to love (agape) as the principal motive and norm of Christian conduct.  Love has a transforming effect, we are going to see next week, not only on persons, but also on communities who live by the law of love.  So I want you to go back again and think again about an area where you have been wronged.  Maybe it’s been little wrong that has been done to you.  You were slighted by a spouse in some way this week.  You feel you were owed more help with childcare or household tasks. Maybe you feel you were owed an in person connection point and the other person didn’t feel that way.  It can be so easy for us to harbor resentment and let that build over time.  So as we wrap this time up, I want you to picture that hurt.  Hold it in your hand.  I want you to release that hurt, hang up to Jesus.  Think of how you might bless that person.  Let pride and prejudice go. Ask “how can I be an instrument of peace”.