Sermons

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The readings appointed for this morning offer several challenging themes, from the Moses’ ultimatum to the children of Israel to Jesus’ discomfiting words regarding the sacrifices inherent in following the Gospel. There is much unpacking and explanation that should be done for both of these readings, but perhaps another time. I want, instead, to focus on the Epistle, Paul’s letter to Philemon. I feel compelled to focus on the Epistle, if for no other reason than because this is the only Sunday in the entire three year lectionary that we read from this little, relatively obscure book in the New Testament. The book is only twenty-five verses long, and we read twenty of them this morning, and we won’t hear them in church again until 2025. So, here’s our one shot at Philemon.

All of Paul’s Epistles can be called “occasional” in the sense that each of his letters is written to address a particular concern of a local church or of an individual. We’re fortunate that much of the situation which gives rise to the letter to Philemon can be inferred from the text.

Paul opens the letter with a little bit of what one biblical scholar called “holy flattery” in which Paul praises Philemon’s faithfulness. In other words, Paul butters Philemon up. He knows that his request will be unpopular, and yet he is confident enough in its appropriateness to claim his Apostolic authority, should Philemon refuse to take the recommendation. “Accordingly,” he writes, “though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you.” Like a parent, Paul wants Philemon to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, but he’ll force the issue if it’s necessary.

Finally, Paul gets to his request. He has run into Onesimus, or rather Onesimus sought Paul out, the Apostle being imprisoned at the time and not likely to come upon someone by chance. This Onesimus was Philemon’s slave and had run away. The precise events surrounding Onesimus’ escape are unclear, but what is clear is that the runaway slave is frightened of his master’s response should he return.

Indeed, Onesimus had reason to be frightened. According to Roman Law, a master could do just about anything he wished to a slave, and typically, a runaway slave, upon being returned would be branded and would sometimes be forced to fight with beasts to the death. Slave and master would be brought back together, reconciled in a sense, but without any sense of equality.

But Paul pushes reconciliation on Christian terms, which is to say that real reconciliation is effected between people whom God has already made equal, and the terms of Christian relationship is fraternal rather than hierarchical. Hierarchies exist (between employer and employee, between parent and child, and so forth), and those hierarchies exist for the common good; but getting beyond the practical, often necessary distinctions which serve to make society function, on the deepest level the relationship between Christians as Christians (indeed, between human beings as human beings created in the image of God) is that of brotherhood and sisterhood.

Philemon should have known this, because he had surely heard it before. He had surely heard Paul’s radical reënvisioning of Christian relationships, because our equality under Christ was so central to Paul’s message and because Paul and Philemon were apparently so close. In all events, Philemon was about to hear that message again, not just in this private letter, but read out in the local church, which met in his own home.

We know that Philemon and his household lived in Colossae, because so many of the people whom Paul mentions in his Epistle to the Colossians are also mentioned in the Epistle to Philemon, including Onesimus himself, who is called “one of yourselves” in Colossians. In fact, the original copy of the Epistle to the Colossians, as we learn in the text of that letter, was delivered by Onesimus, probably also carrying the Epistle to Philemon. Whereas today’s reading was a private letter encouraging Philemon to do the right thing, the Epistle to the Colossians would have been read publicly in the church. And what does that letter say?:

Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scyth’ian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.

What is Paul doing here? I think he’s hedging his bets. If the private letter doesn’t convince Philemon to have mercy on Onesimus, perhaps the same message read out to the whole Christian community will force his charity in the matter.

Tragically, considering the sad history of slavery over the following two millennia, Paul never explicitly demands manumission of Onesimus or abolition of slavery more generally. Nineteenth century Anglican biblical scholar J.B. Lightfoot wrote, “the word emancipation seems to be trembling on his lips, and yet he does not once utter it.” Paul does, however, hint at it in the last verse of this morning’s lesson:

Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

What more could Philemon do than what Paul had demanded in the letter? Well, set Onesimus free from slavery, no strings attached.

In all events, either because of the private letter to Philemon or the public letter to the Colossians, we know that Onesimus was made free. Ignatius of Antioch informs us that Onesimus went on the be Bishop of Ephesus, and the Apostolic Constitutions tell us that Onesimus and Philemon died together as friends, free men, and martyrs during Nero’s persecution of the Christians.

At its heart, the Epistle to Philemon is a challenge to all of us still. Certainly, the days of slavery are happily over, but we still build walls between us for the sake of power or propriety. We still have a hard time creating relationships of genuine love as brothers and sisters, because we still see divisions which do not exist in the mind of God: divisions of race or class or power. We still permit our authority to distance us from those in our charge, or lack of power to scare us from building relationships with those we see as being “above us.” But if a slave and master in first century Greece can be reconciled, can become equals, can die together for the sake of their Lord, then our divisions can cease, too. May God do it, and may we be ready.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The biblical scholar and erstwhile bishop of Durham N.T. Wright once wrote that “Jesus didn’t come to give good advice.” He wasn’t an early precursor to Dear Abbey or the self-help movement; he came to reveal the truth of God and to die for mankind, not to give us helpful pointers.

That said, Jesus’ words in this morning’s Gospel might at first strike us as nothing more than some good advice:

When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, `Give place to this man,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.

How embarrassing! You arrive thinking you’re the guest of honor and you get shuffled off to the “kiddie table”.

If we take Jesus’ words in context, though, I think we’ll find that there’s a lot more here than tips about social propriety. You might have noticed something strange about the passage we read this morning. Luke 14:1, 7-14. It skips six whole verses. If I might give a tip, I’d suggest that one always be a little bit suspicious when the lectionary cuts bits out of the readings. Sometimes it cuts out the nasty bits—you know, the wrath of God and all that—and sometimes it cuts out bits for some other editorial reason. So, here’s what we didn’t hear in the Gospel:

One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath, or not?” But they were silent. Then he took him and healed him, and let him go. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a sabbath day?” And they could not reply to this.

Why was this cut out of this morning’s reading? Well, I don’t know anybody who was on the committee that revised the lectionary, but I have a hunch. The section that was cut out sounds an awful lot like last week’s Gospel reading. It’s not; it’s a whole chapter later in Luke. Just like in last week’s Gospel, Jesus is calling out the hypocrisy of the fashionably religious, who at this point had become a little less willing to criticize him for his apparent Sabbath-breaking. Anyway, the story is so similar to last week’s Gospel, that I suspect that those who revised the lectionary didn’t want the repetition, fearing we’d lose interest or get confused about what week were in or something.

In all events, it’s a shame that these six verses have been excised, because it’s these six verses that provide the context for Jesus’ words which immediately follow it, and which saves that text from sounding like a Miss Manners column.

This man with dropsy was, we can assume, not invited to the dinner party. He just kind of shows up and disappears, like a plot device. He provides Jesus a teachable moment, though, which Jesus then avails himself of by means of the parable about table manners.

What would not have occurred to the Pharisees until that night—and what would not have occurred to us if we didn’t have the six omitted verses—was that maybe this poor man with dropsy deserved the place of honor, and they were all taking it from him. They were likely not malicious, but they were probably simply ignorant of those outside their circle.

That can happen to us, too. Our own comfort with “our sort of people” can keep us from seeing everybody who deserves a place at the table. When we permit discomfort with those we consider unlovely to blind us to their very existence, we can pretty easily exclude them from the party.

The church does that, you know. Sometimes churches pretty explicitly exclude people that make them uncomfortable, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about when church people don’t even notice those they don’t consider “our kind of people.” They don’t consider that somebody who is “not like us” should be invited to supper at God’s Table. But if we were really paying attention to the Gospel, then we’d know that “those kind of people” are going to be given the places of honor at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, that the lowly and the ignored and the despised are going to be faring better in eternity than the “in-crowd”.

We’ve got to wake up and open our eyes to see those to whom we were blind. We’ve got to be able to see the people whom we’ve ignored, but whom God loves just as much. I know that I’ve been as guilty as anyone of failing in that regard. I’ve been guilty of thinking “he wouldn’t really fit in, would he?” Well, friends, that’s sin motivating me, not love. This isn’t a supper club, it’s the Church of God, so let’s all be a little more willing to open up the church doors which symbolize sanctuary and acceptance. Let’s be a little more willing to open up to people that aren’t like us, knowing that as Christians all people are “our kind of people”, or at least we ought to see them like that, not just those who look like us, or dress like us, or use the same kind of language, or have the same ideas about things. If we start doing that, we might not be as surprised when we get to that great feast in that kingdom which is to come about who else is going to be at dinner.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning, I want us to begin by looking at a very strong word Jesus uses in the Gospel reading. When the leader of the synagogue shames Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus responds by exclaiming “hypokritai”: “you hypocrites”. While every modern translation I’ve found uses this plural vocative form of the noun found in most Greek manuscripts, I think a case can be made for the singular vocative found in early Syriac manuscripts, rendering the classic translation “you hypocrite”, as it seems more likely to me that Jesus is not berating the crowd or anyone else here, but the leader of the synagogue specifically. The hypocrisy is not that of Judaism and the Law, by any means, but of this individual.

Now “hypocrite” is, like I said, an awfully strong word. I have heard many complain about the hypocrisy of some church people, and too often this is a reason for people leaving organized religion altogether. How many times have you heard somebody say “I can’t be in the church, because everybody’s a hypocrite”? But let’s take a look at what such critics of religion mean by hypocrisy and what Jesus means when he calls the synagogue leader a hypocrite. They are, I contend, a bit different.

Generally, when we talk about hypocrisy we mean something like “not practicing what one preaches”. At the risk of spouting what may sound like a heresy to contemporary people, there are worse things in the world than this kind “hypocrisy”. You see, this definition assumes that the so-called “hypocrite” does, indeed, have some principles, he just has a hard time living up to those principles, and he might lack charity for those who also have a hard time with it. By this definition, we are all hypocrites from time to time. I preach love, and I believe I ought to be loving, but sometimes I slip into hatred. We believe in mercy, and we try to be merciful, but sometimes we take God’s judgment as our own prerogative. This is a sad result of the fall, of our sinful nature, but the alternative is far worse, because the alternative is to have no principles whatsoever.

But Jesus means something a bit different when he calls the synagogue leader a “hypocrite”. I already mentioned that Jesus used the Greek word “hypokrita”. This noun is derived from a verb “hypokrinomai” which literally means to play-act. It means to pretend. The original meaning was not especially pejorative. If you were to land a role playing, say, Falstaff in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” you’d be a hypocrite, and there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that, unless, of course, you were a bad actor.

One of the funniest bits of television I’ve ever seen (and granted, I’ve not seen much television in the last couple of decades) was several years ago when Sir Ian McKellan was a guest star on the BBC series Extras. The protagonist of the series, played by Ricky Gervais, was always trying to get a better role in some movie or television show, and each week a different famous actor would show up and give him advice. On this particular episode McKellen went to great pains to explain the craft of acting as he understood it. “I see you don’t understand”, he told Gervais’ character. “Take the Lord of the Rings. I played a wizard, but, I am not a wizard. I had to pretend. I’d be on the set, you understand, and I would still be Sir Ian. Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian… Action… I am a wizard… Cut… Sir Ian, Sir Ian, Sir Ian.” It was funny on a number of levels. Obviously there’s more to being a great actor than that, but at its heart pretending is all it’s about. You’re a hypocrite, pretending to be something you aren’t, and that’s okay, because it’s your job and everyone knows you’re just pretending.

The problem comes when we play-act in real life. We can pretend to be something we’re not if we’re on the playground or on a stage. When our whole life is such a forgery, though, we cause great harm to ourselves and others.

The real problem with the leader of the synagogue was not that he had some principles and failed to stick by them. The problem was that he had no principles at all; he was just pretending.

The practical problem with such play-acting in real life is that we will be found out. We cannot know the role we are playing well enough to pull it off. This is what Jesus is getting at in the rest of his dialogue, though it may not be immediately obvious. He asks, “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead it away to water it?” It’s not that there are a bunch of people breaking the Sabbath by letting their livestock out to drink. Quite to the contrary, this would have been permitted by the Law, which actually demanded that the welfare of livestock be provided for on the Sabbath. But somebody who was just acting righteous might not know the Law well enough to realize that, because he would not know the Law in his heart.

Jesus compares his own healing of the woman to this example. He wasn’t breaking the Sabbath at all, but somebody who didn’t know the Law well enough, who knew the Law only well enough to pretend to be righteous, would not have known it.

I read some time ago about a shocking finding of some research undertaken by a professor of religion, whose name and school I sadly cannot remember. Anyway, he found that people who claim to be religious tend to have more racist sentiments than the general population. Of course, racism is just the sort of backward mindset that one would expect Christian practice to chip away at in the heart of a practitioner. After some further study, the researcher determined that those who actually came to church because they wanted to have some connection to God and to be changed by it were actually far less likely to be racists than the general population. The problem was that so many of his original sample had a different reason for being religious. They wanted to fit in; they wanted to learn the “in-language”; they wanted to maintain the social cachet that was attached to being a member of a particular church. In other words, they were play-acting. One hopes that if they keep going to church, even for the wrong reasons, something of the life-changing message of Jesus will eventually sink in. In all events, there are many today who indulge in religious hypocrisy without even thinking about it. I wonder sometimes if we pay enough attention to our own motivations to ferret it out in ourselves, or if Jesus will have to call us out, just like he did to that synagogue leader.

The good news in all this is that we have a reminder to be vigilant of our own motivations. We have an opportunity to figure out if we’re really committed to the Gospel or not. And, what’s more, we have another chance to commit ourselves to those values and principles which are designed to change our lives for the better, to make us more gracious and loving. When we turn our judgment inward, not worrying so much about whether or not others are “following the rules” but rather concerning ourselves with whether or not the Good News is changing us from within, then we approach a turning point in our own Christian lives. We will be the better for it, and the Kingdom will benefit from our renewed sense of direction and resolve.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.