Trinity 12

Sermon preached by the Reverend Ed Green

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So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.

Generally speaking, villains don’t know that they’re villains. They have a motive. Usually, they think they are serving justice, or improving the world, or even just going about their daily lives.

They’re not like naughty children, who see a boundary and test it, to see how firm it is. Nor are they people who, in a state of desperation, do something that they know isn’t allowed, but they see no other alternative.

No, villains believe wholeheartedly that they are heroes. The things that they take were in the wrong hands, they believe. The things they destroy were no good, they believe. And the people they hurt - well, they were bad people, they deserved what they got. Or even worse, even more villainous: sometimes they even think that the people they hurt are not people at all - instead, they are some kind of dangerous imposters, monsters walking among us.

It all sounds dreadfully evil to us. But in their own heads, the villains think that what they’re doing is perfectly reasonable.

Because of this, it can be extremely hard to change their minds. A child, even a stubborn one, knows that there are rules, and usually knows when they’ve broken them. Even if it can be difficult, there is a way into the conversation, a way to continue learning and growing.

A desperate person choosing the lesser of two evils does not need anyone to explain to them what they have done wrong. In fact, they are more than likely deeply upset about it themself.

But to tell a person who genuinely believes themself to be perfectly reasonable, that they are in fact doing something evil is an incredibly difficult task. They feel attacked, and go on the defensive, digging their heels in further.

What we need, and what Saint Paul so masterfully demonstrates for us today, is diplomacy and rhetoric.

I daresay that if a movie were made of the events surrounding today’s Epistle, Philemon would be portrayed as the villain. Although we don’t hear all that much about him, we do find out a few pieces of information from the letter.

Firstly, he’s a community leader. How often have we seen the trope of community leaders abusing their power? It’s a common theme in fiction and, sadly, all too common in real life. Power and influence can be used for good or for ill, but the sort of people who find it most attractive tend not to have the best of motives.

But much more importantly, Philemon is a slave-owner. We rightly think of people who keep slaves as villains. It’s evil today, and it was evil then. But despite being evil, it was normal, and so Philemon presumably didn’t think he was doing anything wrong when he treated Onesimus as property.

Now, like many things in the Bible, there is disagreement about what all this means, with some scholars claiming that Onesimus isn’t a slave after all, and others that he his, but that Paul is not calling for his manumission. But without getting into too much debate, let’s look at what we see in the letter.

Paul is an authority figure for Philemon, and that means he could give him an instruction and expect it to be followed. But he chooses not to do that. Instead, he appeals to him as family.

He calls Onesimus his own child, making him family, too, and he wants Philemon to treat him “no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother.” And he wants Philemon to welcome Onesimus as he would welcome Paul himself. Clearly what he wants to see in his friend is a complete change of behaviour and attitude.

So far as I know, nobody in this room is a villain. I certainly hope not. But without getting into terrible acts of evil, we are, all of us, fallen, and therefore sinful.

Sometimes we do things that we know are wrong. Other times we neglect to do things that we know are right.

And while we wish that we could be made perfect, like Jesus Christ, at least these kinds of sin are relatively easy to deal with. For God forgives all who truly repent of their sins, and through the Church we have access to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in which we confess our sins to God and one of his priests pronounces his absolution.

But how often do we commit a sin while believing that we are being virtuous? By definition, we cannot know.

This is part of the reason why Law isn’t enough. We are not justified by the perfectness with which we follow a commandment. It’s not virtue if we’re just doing what we’re told.

St Paul knows this - it wouldn’t be good enough for Philemon to treat Onesimus as an equal under compulsion, because he would resent him. Even when thinking he was following the command, he would not be acting in love for his brother in Christ. And, he would surely go on committing those sins that one is not even aware of.

Philemon needed to abandon his whole concept of who and what Onesimus is, and how a household ought to be run. If he doesn’t, he’s the builder who hasn’t planned his tower properly. He’s the King who hasn’t properly considered the size of his army. He is the person who has not given up his possessions, and isn’t able to follow Christ.

Onesimus returns home. And from what evidence we have, it appears that Philemon learned well the lesson that Paul was trying to teach him. In a letter written by Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians, we discover that Onesimus is their bishop, or at least, someone called Onesimus.

While we can’t absolutely prove that it’s the same person, I think it very likely. Because, as we know from the rest of the Bible, that’s how God works. He chooses somebody small, who is nobody in the eyes of the world, and uses them to achieve great things.

Moses was found abandoned in a basket; King David was a shepherd boy; and the Blessed Virgin Mary was the young wife of a carpenter, but became the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven.

An escaped slave, afraid, alone and exhausted, sent to Paul, the great teacher and planter of churches, and finally restored to his own place, but raised up to be a great leader of the church - that sounds like exactly the sort of thing that God would do.

It doesn’t come across in the English translation but Paul uses a really clever pun toward the end of his letter. The name Onesimus means ‘useful’ or ‘beneficial,’ and when Paul says “let me have this benefit” the Greek word he uses, οναιμην, is related to it.

This is no coincidence. What he is saying to Philemon is “now it’s your turn to be Onesimus. For a time, you’ve been away from your Master, Jesus Christ, because you couldn’t face the demand he was making on you. But now, it is time for you to return, sure in the knowledge that he is not only your master, but also your Father and your brother.”

We can’t choose to stop committing a sin if we don’t know we’re doing it. But we can accept Christ’s love with all the consequences it brings. And as we accept him fully, we start to become more like him.

And as we become more like him, the chance that we’re really the villains, blissfully unaware of our sins and adamantly assured of our own righteousness, will gradually shrink away. Thanks be to God.