1. Even though it is Paul’s shortest and most personal letter with none of the theology or doctrine we have come to expect in his writings it, from my perspective, has more about the personality of Paul concentrated in one place than any of his letters. It is here that we see what a master of persuasion he is without being a manipulator. He clearly knows those to whom he writes and their love for each other.

Like his letter to the church at Philippi he is loving and grateful for their love and support for him.

Like his challenge to the Christians at Rome he talks straight about what they owe and not what they are volunteering to do.

Like his letter to the church at Corinth he makes sure they are not going to be embarrassed by another church in the level at which they give to the saints in Jerusalem.

Like his letter to that same church he is transparent – both boasting and being embarrassed by the necessity of doing it.

Like his letters to other churches he is not above using a little guilt by telling them he is coming to see them and he does not want to be ashamed of them when he comes.

He is not the least bit reluctant to use his status as a senior and a prisoner for Christ. It’s important to note that he is not claiming he is old and infirm or feeble. That’s a different kind of “old”. That’s “geron” and he is using the word “presbyteros” which means one who has earned authority and respect with age. He is not asking for pity but claiming the respect of his age and seniority.

Yes, Paul is a real and complex person. In some ways, our one dimensional picture of him has been shaped by the images and icons we have seen as well as teaching that overspiritualizes him at the expense of his humanity. He is often contrary, short-tempered, hard to get along with, demanding and jealous – just like the rest of us.

2. How does he start? With relationships and the language of relationships. Look at how many words he uses that show how deep and varied those relationships are: colleague, dear friend, fellow worker, fellow prisoner, sister, brother, father, son, congregation, partner, child, fellow soldier.

This is not a loose network of acquaintances or an association or denomination. This is a small community of believers dependent on each other in a hostile world. But they share two things that are repeated over and over in the New Testament: suffering and joy. They are two sides of the same coin.

This week some of us visited with Dr. Robert Putnam, the author of “Bowling Alone”, where he is a professor at Harvard University. As you know, the whole point of the book is we are losing what he calls “social capital” by the decrease in the numbers of voluntary organizations – like Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions – as well as the drop in church attendance by younger people. What we used to do in groups we are now doing alone. As a result, we are losing the experience of working with each other and the trust that grows (social capital) from doing that over a long period of time in a community. In the book he writes about two kinds of social capital: bonding capital which is what we build when we spend more time with people we know – like Sunday School this morning – and bridging capital where we spend time with new people and communities. It’s too easy and attractive to build bonding capital, isn’t it? It’s harder, especially with age, to continue to push out and make new relationships.

Paul could do both. He could go deep with those he knew but he never stopped reaching out for new relationships. The letter to the Romans was written to people he had yet to meet. The sermon on Mars Hill was delivered to secular Greeks. Time and again Paul builds both bonding and bridging capital in his work.

3. Philemon must have been quite a man in his community. He is generous and hospitable. He is faithful and one who refreshes the saints. In other words, his faith is expressed and not just believed. It is not a matter of passing out tracts at work but of sharing his life with others. I like the way William Barclay puts it in his commentary: “It is my prayer that your way of generously sharing and giving away all that you have will lead you more and more deeply into the knowledge of the good things which lead to Christ.” He goes on to say, “And now Paul is going to ask the generous man to be still more generous yet. There is a great thought here, if this interpretation is correct. It means that we learn about Christ by giving to others. It means that we receive from Christ by sharing with others. It means that by emptying ourselves we are filled with Christ. It means that the poorer we make ourselves in giving, the richer we are in the gifts of Christ. It means that to be open-handed and generous-hearted is the surest way to learn more and more of the wealth of Christ. The man who knows most of Christ is not the intellectual scholar, not even the saint who shuts himself up and spends his days in prayer, but the man who moves in loving generosity amongst his fellow-men.”

4. Even though Christians have been at the start and forefront of every social movement and reform you can name in the last 2,000 years, Paul is not concerned here with the institution of slavery. This is not a rant or a position paper or a way to use Onesimus and Philemon to address a larger issue. For Paul there is no larger issue than the redemption of one man and the restoration of his relationship with his master. He is focused completely on this.

So, while his focus is not fixing the world in this letter I have no doubt that it is the redeemed who have done the most and are most likely to do that. Can you point to works of service and sacrifice done on the same scale by Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, or Hindus? I think not. The seeds of justice are in redemption – not force or legislation. But, it is redemption expressed through a generous and committed life and not hoarded and polished for personal enrichment.

“A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in:” aim at earth and you will get neither.” C.S. Lewis

5. Paul is sending him back to live up to his name because Onesimus means “productive” and he has been until now unproductive. But he is not insisting on his being made a free man. In essence, Paul is referring Onesimus to Philemon and saying that the decision is solely that of Philemon. Paul is not insisting – but he is not exactly objective about it, is he? There is a certain amount of pressure on Philemon to “do the right thing” and, some people think, that is exactly what Philemon did. They think out of his love and respect for Paul he sent Onesimus back to serve Paul and be one of his disciples and fellow workers.

Freedom did not mean the same to Paul as it does to us. For us, it is a non-negotiable and a right. For Paul, it was something he was free to surrender in order to be a slave and a prisoner to Christ. We find those terms offensive but they were marks of honor for Paul. He was not a prince of the church or an autonomous individual. He was a willing bond servant of Jesus.

I believe Jesus and Paul both were more concerned about people who desire to be great than they were about the institutions of injustice in this world.

Luke 22:24: “A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

Philippians 2: “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus..”

Both are focused on changed and reconciled relationships – not revolution. Leaven and not leverage. Salt and light.

6. I wish I had a snapshot of that dark prison cell and the men there together – because so much of the future of the church was concentrated there in that room. Have you heard the term “genius cluster”? It is those periodic times when a few men and women of extraordinary talent come together at the same time and place. Think of the Renaissance or the Founding Fathers or the past several years in Silicon Valley. Those “clusters” are rare but they change the world. That prison was such a cluster.

Paul – the Apostle
Luke – the author of Luke and Acts
Mark – once the spoiled child and coward who was disqualified by Paul but kept by Barnabas and later Peter. Here he is years later as a companion of Paul. We know what happens to him. He is the author of the very first gospel, the founder of the Coptic Church in Egypt, a martyr and the patron saint of Venice.
Finally, Onesimus. What happens to Onesimus? It’s church tradition that he became the Bishop of Ephesus.

“Ignatius, one of the great Christian martyrs, is being taken to be executed from Antioch, his Church, to Rome. As he goes, he writes letters – which still survive – to the Churches of Asia Minor. He stops at Smyrna, and he writes to the Church at Ephesus, and in the first chapter of that letter he has much to say about their wonderful Bishop. And what is the Bishop’s name. It is Onesimus…It may well be that Onesimus, the runaway slave, had become with the passing of the years none other than Onesimus, the great Bishop of Ephesus. And, if all this is so, we have still another explanation. Why did this little slip of a letter, this single papyrus sheet, survive? It is practically certain that the first collection of Paul’s letters were made at Ephesus. There, maybe about the turn of the century, these letters were collected, edited and published. It was just at that time that Onesimus was bishop of Ephesus. And it may well be that it was Onesimus who insisted that this letter must be included in the collection, little and short and personal as it was, in order that all men might know what the grace of God had done for him. Through it the great Bishop tells the world that he was once a runaway slave and thief, and that he owed his life to Paul and to Jesus Christ.”

It is easy to be discouraged by what is going on right now in the institutions of the world – political, economic, and religious. But, it may well be that there is just such a cluster of men and women in a dark cell hidden in obscurity and invisible to us who are going to end up being yet another one of God’s surprises in history. We know very little of those who were wealthy, powerful and in control of the world in those early days. But, it was that tiny circle of a slave, a coward, a doctor and a feisty Jew who began something that has never stopped growing. It is darker on the outside of that cell than the inside and there is no way to know what God is preparing through the redemption of just one individual or small band of those who are bound by suffering and joy. Take heart. Be hopeful. God still redeems.