Useful Freedom

Philemon

Did you hear about baby Jamie? His parents and twin sister were on the news and the internet last week. Jamie was pronounced dead at birth, while his twin sister was healthy and thriving. His parents wanted to say good-bye by loving him. His mother got him on her chest skin-to-skin and they held and talked to him. They wanted to love him for the last minutes of his life. The doctor warned them that he would make involuntary movements and not to get their "hope up." The minutes turned into tens of minutes, and they were simply overjoyed to have more time with their dying son. Even when he opened his eyes they were just happy to have seen his eyes before he would die. They were loving him onto heaven. They time continued with more movements one would not believe a clinically dead baby would make, and while they were still in the mindset of loving him to God, they were starting to have some hope and asked for the doctor to visit. The doctor kept reporting back through the nurses that it was natural for a baby to move etc. Well when it was about two hours later and the Jamie tried to move his head and grasp with his fingers, the father reported he said a little white lie to the doctor. He told the nurse to tell the doctor, "We have come to grips with our son's death, and we wanted to talk to him about how it happened." The doctor arrived and today Jamie is five months old.

When I heard what the father did to compel the doctor to check out his son I thought about the letter of Philemon. No, Paul does not utilize any white lies, but he does carefully craft this letter to influence Philemon's actions. Paul is writing this letter to Philemon so Onesimus will be accepted back into the home not just as a slave, but as a brother in Christ. Paul starts this personal letter by also naming others in the household, knowing it would be read not just to the head of the house, Philemon. Paul also ends the letter by saying prepare a room for me, which is his way of saying he would check up on Philemon's action. Some believe that Onesimus was a slave that ran away and found his way to Paul, which may be the case if he was compelled to hear about Christ from Paul, but if he truly wanted to escape he would not have gone to a friend of the household. It seems that Onesimus was actually sent to Paul by Philemon, but was greatly delayed in returning. He was delayed perhaps because Paul needed his services and because Onesimus was accepting Christ as his savior through his work with Paul and the others who were imprisoned. In those days, if someone delayed a slave or helped him escape, they would owe the owner for the work, hence Paul's offer to put anything owed on his account.

Paul wants not to simply have Onesimus accepted back into the household but to be an example about how the church should operate. Paul uses Onesimus' name to make a point for it means "useful," but Paul states that Onesimus was not previously useful. This must not be true in the literal sense, for why would Philemon be concerned about a runaway slave or delayed slave if he was not useful, and if he was sent to work with Paul would he not choose a useful servant to work with Paul, who planted the church in Philemon's own household? So when Paul is saying Onesimus was not useful, he was playing with his name to make a point that how he accepts him into the household, into the church, will be a useful example. Onesimus will be able to do the same useful work, but now he will also be a brother, not a slave. And even though Philemon owes his very self to Paul (which Paul will mention he will not bring to bear) Philemon must accept Onesimus on the basis of love. This rhetoric that Paul uses, does seem to our contemporary selves, to be "passive-aggressive," however I believe Paul's point is that he is not trying to tell Philemon what to do, but that his freedom from sin and evil through Christ Jesus, must be the authority.

When Jamie's parents were loving him into death, they were intent to listen to that love. Love was their authority and a resurrection happened.

God is love and thus Love is the authority and if you follow Love, resurrection happens!!!