June 16, 2019 Misfits Like Us

Onesimus – “From Slave to Son” Philemon

We know very little about him; but in truth we are all like him.

In many parts of the Roman Empire, slaves accounted for nearly half of the population.

Nearly everyone took the institution of slavery for granted. While many philosophers said that slaves were equals as persons, they never suggested owners should free their slaves. Roman law recognized that slaves were by nature persons, but from an economic standpoint they were property. Even the lost time of an escaped slave was considered lost money and legally viewed as stolen money, to which the slave or the one harboring a slave was liable.

Slaves were found in nearly all professions. Many made up a large portion of the agricultural work force. Some worked in mines, a most dangerous life, often dying in the harsh conditions of the mines. But generally slaves had opportunity for social advancement. This social mobility applied especially to household slaves who from an economic and social perspective, and with regard to the ability to determine their own future, were better off than most free persons. Slaves, especially skilled and educated males, were often sent on errands and trusted with their master’s property.

Onesimus was most probably of this status. He had gained the trust of his owner,

Philemon, a Christian and leader in the church at Colossae, to the point that he was trusted to run errands and entrusted with property. His name, Onesimus, means “useful” or “profitable” and we can assume he was that to Philemon. Likely, his life was better off as a slave than a free person.

And yet, Onesimus ran away. If things are going so good, why run away? Inside each person is the understanding that we were not made to be slaves. We were made in freedom for freedom. When God created humankind, he created them in his own image. God is not enslaved to anyone or anything. God is free. We were made to be free … free to live in the holiness and

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perfection, and love of God. Onesimus may have had life is as good as it could be possibly be from an earthly perspective, but he was not free. So he ran … far.

How far exactly we cannot be sure. But however far he ran, by God’s grace he met up with Paul. Perhaps he remembered Paul from when he started the church in Colossae. That church now met in the home of his master Philemon, so he probably had many encounters with

Paul. Paul, by all appearances, took Onesimus in and introduced him to Jesus and in that encounter Onesimus was set free from bondage that he didn’t realize he had. He was still a slave, but now he was free!

I began by stating that we are all like Onesimus. Whether you like the reference or not it is true. We are all slaves. “Pastor, no one has ever owned me. I am my own person. I am not a slave!” Yes you are, were, and may still be. No person on earth may literally own you, but you are a slave. We may even have life as good as it gets here on earth, and compared to over three quarters of the population of the world we do, yet we have still been and are slaves, perhaps even more than they are.

We were made to be free, but we are slaves; we are not free. And so we run. We run away. Some of us run away literally, moving from place to place or job to job, or spouse to spouse. Some of us run away figuratively, living vicariously through characters in a book or movie or TV show. Some of us runaway by hiding in our work, our family, social media, or community service. Some of us run away to our hobbies and our toys. Some of us runaway using things such as drugs, alcohol, pornography, food or lack of food … whatever will help us “feel better” or forget, even if for a short time. But here’s the thing, the farther we try to run away, the more enslaved we become.

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Try as we might, we cannot free ourselves. The more we try the more enslaved we become. We will never experience freedom unless someone else sets us free. That someone must be free. Our enslaver is Satan and our bondage is sin. Jesus tells us, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (Jn.8:34). Only one who was not enslaved by Satan and chained to sin could set us free. It is for that very reason that Jesus came so that you and I could be set free. By taking upon himself our sins on the cross, Jesus released us from captivity to Satan. By his death Jesus broke the chains of sin. And, by his resurrection we are now able to live in the freedom of God’s love for which we were made. As Jesus declared, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!”

(Jn.8:36). Do you believe this?

Our worship and celebration each Sunday, indeed each day of our lives, is a result of the freedom that is ours in Jesus. So we don’t forget, perhaps we should put a note on the mirror in the bathroom to remind us each morning as we start the day, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free!” (Gal.5:1). Just think what that would do to jump start your day. More than that, instead of being called slave, we are now called sons and daughters. “How great the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1Jn.3:1). When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we are set free from our enslaver and the chains of sin and are restored to the position for which we were made: Children of God!

A moment ago I asked if you believe that when Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed.

How many of you, be honest now, would have to confess that you do not always feel free, that there are times when you still feel in bondage?

Onesimus experienced a freedom he had never felt before. Paul tells us that Onesimus had become a “brother in the Lord” and that he had become as a son to Paul. But, Onesimus was still a slave. Even though Paul would have loved Onesimus to stay with him, it was necessary for

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Onesimus to face Philemon and acknowledge his earthly position as a slave before he could fully live into the freedom Jesus had given him. If he did not, Onesimus would always be chained to the fears of being a “runaway slave.”

We, too, have to face that which still holds us in bondage. Even Paul, the great apostle, struggled with this. He writes, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin” (Rm.7:15, 25). In Christ I’m free and yet I feel as if I am still chained to sin.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”

(Rm.7:24). Ever feel like that? Thankfully Paul knows how to overcome: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rm.7:25).

John Wesley understood this, too, and would remind us that we are being brought on to perfection. That happens as we give to Jesus what still enslaves us. It’s easy to accept Jesus as our Savior, but unless he is also Lord of every aspect of our life - the part he is not Lord of still enslaves us. For example, an alcoholic may be free in Christ but still be enslaved to the alcohol unless he or she is willing to accept that there is slavery and take the necessary steps, with Jesus enabling every step along the way.

By God’s grace you can be free. I encourage you to stop running away. Instead, run to

Jesus. He has set you free. You no longer need to be a slave. Instead, you can be a child of God.

Jesus will loose the chains of sin and pay the debt and set you free. Children of God, still wrestling with chains that won’t let go, face them, name them, give their control to Jesus, then follow his steps and they will fall away.

There is so much that this little letter of Philemon can teach us. Our focus has been on

Onesimus and how we are just like him: slaves that are and can be children of God.

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Before I conclude, let’s take a quick look at Philemon. Philemon did not legally have to do what Paul asked; he didn’t have to free Onesimus. But, the fact that this letter was saved and not burned leads us to assume that Philemon did indeed free Onesimus. Rather than look on

Onesimus as a slave, he considered him a brother in Christ. And, tradition and fragmented sources tell us, Onesimus went on to be a Bishop of Ephesus.

As children of God, we know what it is to be slaves and we know what it is to be free.

How sad that even in the church slavery to sin has become natural instead of unnatural. Let’s look on everyone for who they can be and not who we think they are. Some may be fellow brothers and sisters in Christ still wrestling with chains. We must be careful not to look at the chains. Others are still slaves; remember they were made to be free and it is God’s intention that they be free and to be children of God. Be careful not to look at the chains. Instead, let us see brothers and sisters as they are meant to be – free in Christ.

“It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift from God!” (Eph.2:8).

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