Aug. 10, 2025 | Word Out!
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Sermon – Pastor Dan Peterson
Freedom and Philemon
September 7, 2025
Philemon 1–21
1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,
To our beloved coworker Philemon, 2 to our sister Apphia, to our fellow soldier Archippus, and to the church in your house:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I thank my God always when I mention you in my prayers, 5 because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. 6 I pray that the partnership of your faith may become effective as you comprehend all the good that we share in Christ. 7 I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.
8 For this reason, though I am more than bold enough in Christ to command you to do the right thing, 9 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. 10 I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. 12 I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. 13 I wanted to keep him with me so that he might minister to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel, 14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. 15 Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for the long term, 16 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.
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 that to me. 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. 20 Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. 21 Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.
Luke 14:25–33
25 Now large crowds were traveling with [Jesus], and he turned and said to them, 26 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Grace to you and peace from God, the source of freedom in our lives, and from Jesus, Christ, who is the embodiment of that freedom in the world. Amen. This morning, I’m going to take a different approach in my message. I’m going to share a problem that I see with our Second Reading. I’m going to offer you, next, information about it, and then I’m going to answer that problem, as I see it. But finally, I’m going to invite you, rather than me, to draw your own conclusions. How does that sound? Sound okay? Then let’s proceed. Here’s the problem. How does Philemon, that is, the letter, turn one of the hardest sayings of Jesus, namely, “to become his disciple means selling your possessions” into good news? I’ll say it again. How does the letter to Philemon turn one of the hardest sayings of Jesus, namely, that to become his disciple, you must sell all your possessions, into good news? Well, to answer that question, let’s talk about Philemon. This letter, as you may know is the shortest letter of Paul’s. It clocks in at 335 words. However short, it is also one of the most significant, because of the impact it would have on the topic of slavery, which, during Roman times, was a brutal system of domination. Because you and I are called to freedom in Jesus Christ, this topic demands our attention. One way, then, to approach and make sense of Philemon is to look at it in terms of its three characters, what the text says about each of them, and then what extra-Biblical tradition or contemporary scholarship has to add. So let’s start with Philemon himself. As you know from the Second Reading, he was the leader of a house church in Colossia. He was also, of course, a slave owner, which meant that he was a wealthy Christian. That’s number one. Paul identifies him, as well as a friend, a co-worker in Christ, and a partner, which means that he did not have the authority of an apostle, even though he was a leader of a house church. So we have wealthy Christian, but not an apostle. Tradition tells us that Philemon was martyred during the reign of Nero, and it is also said that he became a bishop. So: Philemon, wealthy Christian, not an apostle, possibly a martyr, possibly a bishop. Next up is Paul. Paul refers to himself, as you heard, as an “old man” in this letter, which may suggest that this is the last of the letters we have that he wrote. Scholars date it somewhere between 57 and 62 of the First Century. This means that Philemon comes after Paul’s letter to the Romans, and after his First and Second Letters to the Corinthians. Paul identifies himself next as a prisoner, which may have been at a prison cell in Ephesus. Paul uses a particular style of getting what he wants by arguing, rather than appealing to his authority. And the reason for this is that he wanted Philemon to free Onesimus, not because he was ordered to do so, but because he willed himself to do so freely, out of Christian love. So Paul uses an argument, and makes it clear that he does not seek Onesimus freedom based on his authority, but rather based upon Philemon’s Christian faith. Paul also sees himself as a mentor to Onesimus. We know that their relationship was probably based upon the fact that Onesimus provided meals to Paul who was in prison. You may know that prisoners during Roman times were typically not provided much, if any, food during their stay in a prison cell. And so it’s very likely that Paul and Onesimus got to know each other through this relationship of service that Onesimus provided. We know, moreover, that Paul had at least some money, because he offers to pay back Philemon any debts that Onesimus may have incurred. And finally, we know that Paul needs assistance from Onesimus in terms of his service, but also that he is still capable of writing. In some cases, Paul dictated his letters; we know from Galatians that he had a problem with vision, and so he dictated some of his letters accordingly. Nevertheless, here, as an old man, Paul writes this letter to Philemon by his own hand. The most interesting character in this letter of 335 words, in my view, is Onesimus, the third and final character. Onesimus was, as you know, a slave. His name in Greek means “useful.” Now this was typical of the time. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we hear of Fortunas, which means “lucky,” which was the name of another slave. This was a way Roman society stripped slaves of their dignity, by not giving them proper names, but instead referring to them as in the case of Onesimus, their function, that is, their usefulness to other members higher up in Roman society. Onesimus was a runaway, as you know from the letter, a fugitive, according to verse 15; he possibly stole money from Philemon, which would explain why Paul offers to pay back any debt that Onesimus has incurred (Verse 18). Tradition makes his character even more interesting: He’s mentioned as “a bishop” by the Bishop Ignatius of Antioch, who died in 107, that is, an overseer of the church. Is this the same Onesimus that Paul freed decades earlier? If so, one theory posits that Onesimus, out of gratitude for what Paul did for him, collected Paul’s letters, which would form the basis of what we now call the New Testament. The theory as well is that, of course, Onesimus was freed; otherwise the letter would not have been preserved. So the letter is significant, because the argument goes, Onesimus actually was freed. Paul’s argument worked. Okay, you’re probably asking, so, if Onesimus was freed, then what’s the problem? In the name of Paul’s Christian faith, and by way of appeal to Philemon’s Christian faith, this slave, this fugitive, this “useful one,” was freed, presumably to become a co-equal or partner with Paul and Philemon in the ministry of Jesus Christ. That, however, is not how anti-abolitionists read this letter in the 19th century. For them, maybe Onesimus wasn’t freed. Maybe, Onesimus’s Christian faith made him a better slave: more resigned, more submissive to his master. Moreover, the argument went, this incident is situational. Paul was not attacking the system of slavery in the Roman Empire, he was simply asking for the freedom of one man. Not only that, anti-abolitionists would argue, Paul himself elsewhere advocates that slaves remain in the position they hold. Listen, for example, to First Corinthians 7: Paul writes, “Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make the most of it. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave belonging to Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of humans.” —This is the key line here—”In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God.” So Paul, it would seem, from First Corinthians, as well as possibly Philemon, is not challenging the institution of slavery. He is condoning it. In fact, not only does Paul condone it, we also see it’s at the first letter of Peter condone it in chapter two. So then the response might be, and I’ve heard this before, ”Okay, but slavery wasn’t all that bad in Roman times. Was it? After all, it wasn’t based on race or ethnicity, like it was in America. Well, for a counterpoint, consider James Noel, a professor of African American Studies and theology at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, he writes, “From 30 to 50% of Rome’s population consisted of slaves.” Now stop right there. Imagine this congregation back in the times of Rome, reflective of its society: up to half of us would be slaves. From 30 to 50% of Rome’s population consisted of slaves. “Most of the slaves were war captives or persons who had been kidnapped and separated from their families.” Can you imagine? Although a Roman citizen could sink into the unfortunate position of debt slavery, the vast majority of slaves were not Roman citizens, but foreigners who were regarded and treated like a species of property or chattel. They had few, if any, human rights, or avenues to the Roman justice system. Ill treatment of slaves was not frowned upon, because Roman culture stereotyped them as lazy, criminal, inferior, inferior and useless. Slaves were therefore constantly subjected to physical abuse and sexual violation. Thus, although slavery was not based upon a theory of biologically-determined racial inferiority, as was the case with slavery in the Americas, derogatory attributes like laziness, criminality and immorality were nevertheless attributed to the slave population as a whole.” Sounds a lot like our time, doesn’t it? Criminality, laziness, immorality. Ironically, even though Rome’s economy was dependent on slave labor—again, sound familiar?— those who were reduced to this status were commonly thought of and referred to as useless. Paul uses this term in his defense of Onesimus. So Onesimus as named, in many ways typifies the practice of slavery in Rome during the first century, where people were dehumanized by being reduced to their function, their usefulness to the rest of society. Not only that, but slaves had another issue as well: crucifixion. “Crucifixion was an excruciatingly painful Roman form of torturous death by hanging on a polar cross reserved for the lower class, usually inflicted on slaves or rebels in subject provinces like Judea.” So, sometime back, we’ve talked about the criminals to the left and right of Christ on the cross. They were rebels, revolutionaries. Jesus himself was seen as a rebel, a revolutionary, so he’s on the cross. But typically, slaves would go to the cross if they ran away from their master. A more benevolent treatment of the day was to be branded on the face. So, slavery was not a form of employment, however inferior, back in Roman times, it was a brutal system of domination. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Paul’s desire to free Onesimus is encouraging, even if he does not contest the more broadly practiced institution of slavery. So what do we do? We have Paul telling slaves that they should remain as they are. We have Paul asking only for the freedom of one slave in his letter to Philemon. Well, the first thing to know is that, in context, Paul thinks that we are at the end-times, this is mid first century; that “the world is about to turn” as we sing in one of our hymns, that we are transitioning from the old eon to the new eon. Why, he might wonder, would we wish to restructure society if God is going to take care of that just around the corner? So it’s quite possible that contextually, Paul is so focused on the return of Christ and the advent of the new age, that he doesn’t advise people openly to rebel in the name of Christian freedom. Having said that, Paul does something no one else of the time does: he invites churchgoers to practice what it means to live in the new age by dismantling the hierarchy of congregations. Which is to say, as he writes in Galatians 3, that “all are one in the body of Christ, such that there is no longer male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free.” When Paul says those last two terms, he’s speaking possibly to up to half of his congregation, if not more. And so, what Paul is inviting people to do within the walls of a house church is to practice the life of the world to come, by dismantling hierarchy, such that all are one in the body of Christ and these divisions dissolve away. This is a kind of ethics of anticipation: of living as if the kingdom of God has already arrived. Finally, in Luke 4, Jesus preaches the gospel, one that includes the freedom of captives. He says, quoting the book of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Here we have a blueprint for how abolitionists responded to those who were “proslavery:” appealing to Paul’s affirmation of our oneness in Christ, where divisions like slave and free dissolve away, and then appealing to Jesus’s own understanding of his ministry as one wherein he came to free the captives. What is encouraging about the letter of Philemon: Paul requests Onesimus’s freedom, confirming the gospel, in principle, means freedom for the whole person, including freedom from physical oppression and actual slavery. This is why, to answer the question I posed at the beginning, I love that the lectionary pairs Philemon with our Gospel Reading for today from Luke. In Luke 14, Jesus shows us that slavery also has a spiritual dimension. In Luke 14, we have a hard saying. Jesus says you must sell all your possessions to follow him. But Philemon, I submit, invites us to read what Jesus says here differently. To follow Jesus means not to be enslaved by what we own, not to be owned by what we own, something we heard last week from Hebrews 13, where the author writes, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. For he himself has said, I will never leave you or forsake you.” God wants us to be free, just like Paul wanted Onesimus to be free, just as Jesus, according to the words I quoted from Luke’s Gospel, sets us free. That is the message of the gospel. You and I, Paul writes in Galatians 5, are called to freedom, and freedom applies to the whole person. It is a both physical as well as spiritual. The abolitionists were right to demand freedom for slaves, and Jesus was right to demand as well, freedom from our possessions. Now, normally, I would offer a few recommendations you might consider to become even freer in your own lives. One way to become more free might be to practice giving back, as we’ve talked about over the last few Sundays. But beyond that, and here’s today’s twist, I want you to draw your own conclusions, perhaps use the quiet time after the sermon and before the Hymn of the Day to think about one thing or one area in your life from which you’d like to be less enslaved. What is trapping you? In what way are you called to freedom? This is the message: in Christ, you and I are freed—from servitude of all kinds. Free to live a life that God intended. So, what do we do now? What might our life in Christ free us from? That is for you to answer. Amen.