Guts

Philemon 1:1-21

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

To our beloved coworker Philemon, to our sister Apphia, to our fellow soldier Archippus, and to the church in your house:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God always when I mention you in my prayers, because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. I pray that the partnership of your faith may become effective as you comprehend all the good that we share in Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.

For this reason, though I am more than bold enough in Christ to command you to do the right thing, 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. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me so that he might minister to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for the long term, 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.

So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.

Philemon is the shortest of all the epistles definitively written by Paul (the passage I just read is almost the entirety of the book, in fact). It’s one of his many letters from jail—he was jailed for preaching the gospel, of course; but it’s also very unique—it’s not written to an entire community of new Christians; it’s written to one man—Philemon. And after 16 verses of compliments and flattery and lead-up, Paul finally gets to his point—that Philemon should welcome this slave, this man, Onesimus, back as “a beloved brother,” no longer a man in bondage.

As is always the case with Paul’s letters, we’re only getting one side of the story—we don’t know if Onesimus has run away from his master; it seems to be implied that he has cost Philemon some money; or maybe Onesimus has been tasked with assisting Paul during these difficult times—but no matter the case, the point is that in his time with Paul, Onesimus has been converted as a Christ follower, and Paul is now calling on Philemon to grant him his freedom, to grant him the full equality he deserves as a fellow Christian in community, and as a fellow human—as a beloved brother.

Now, this passage is not only unique as a Pauline epistle, but it’s unique as an epistle that’s been included in the sacred canon at all—most epistles are to whole communities, or they’re more like sermons than letters that can be applied to any number of Christian communities—but this one is to a specific person, and it revolves around a specific favor, a specific request—that a single man, a new convert to Christianity, be freed of his bondage, regardless of what wrongs he's committed or what money he’s cost his master.

Surely this is also a strange passage to our modern ears. We struggle with the concept of slavery being accepted here—yes, Paul wants Onesimus to be freed, but this is certainly no abolitionist creed. In fact, Paul seems to kind of… tiptoe around the issue a bit. It’s unusually tactful, unusually flattering; he appeals to Philemon’s goodness, his new and strong faith. He builds him up before making his bold request. The simple fact is that slavery, both chattel slavery, and indentured servitude was a deeply ingrained part of society in these times—it was not racial, as it was in our country’s sinful history, but it was still a deeply ingrained and unfortunately accepted aspect of ancient society. During the abolitionist movement here in the US, Philemon was used by both abolitionists and pro-slavery people alike to try to prove their points—abolitionists, of course, used the fact that Paul wanted Onesimus freed, while pro-slavery people pointed to the fact that Paul does have Onesimus return to his master. But I don’t really see either of those arguments as especially compelling on the surface; and in our modern world today, that has, thank God, progressed from chattel slavery for the most part (the ethics of prison labor is a sermon for another time), what could possibly be the point of including this letter from Paul to Philemon in our lectionary?

There’s one thing that I couldn’t shake when I was reading the annotations, translation notes, and commentaries on this—and that one thing pops up in verses 7, 12, and 20. In 7: “…the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.”  In 12:  “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.” And finally, the end of verse 20: “Refresh my heart in Christ.” All mentions of the heart. Lovely, right? Well, the original word from the Greek is “splancha.” It already sounds kind of gross, right? That’s because it kind of is. Splancha means literally internal organs, viscera, guts. The King James version often translates it to bowels. What a lovely topic for our Welcome Sunday sermon!

But I actually do find this to be very compelling. This viscera, these guts, in both Hebrew and Greek thought, meant something vaguely akin to the soul. It meant one’s most deeply felt desires, passions, our deepest emotions. Think about the saying, to go with one’s gut. It’s when you get a deep, intuitive feeling about something, be it good or bad; it’s when you trust yourself to know what’s right. And when you actually follow through on what’s right, regardless of the danger or the consequences, it’s said that you have guts.

So in verse 7, you have Paul giving Philemon this lovely compliment that “the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through him—” that Philemon has the guts, the bravery, the passion of the saints and the good disciples who have come before him… he’s really flattering him for his request, which comes in verse 16, but which begins to take shape in verse 12, when Paul calls Onesimus “my own heart—” someone with the deep faith and passions akin to his own. And finally, as he ends his letter, he makes the request that his guts, his deep passions, be refreshed in Christ, that he may strive to be as brave. And let’s remember— this was one of many letters that Paul wrote from jail, where he was constantly finding himself for preaching the gospel. If anyone was allowed to talk about guts, it was Paul.  And in this letter, Paul is imploring Philemon to make good on his compliment about having the guts of saints to do the right thing and give Onesimus his freedom.

As I’ve said ad nauseum, despite what some Christians may claim, we will not be persecuted or jailed simply for being Christian. But— as this country continues to slide into fascism and authoritarianism, we could surely be jailed or persecuted for acting out the gospel; for following the call of Christ. There was just a disturbing story about a US military veteran, Sgt. Bajun Mavalwalla, who has been charged with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” for simply joining an anti-ICE demonstration in Washington state, and locking arms with fellow protestors to block ICE from committing more violent and unlawful arrests and deportations. And we know all too well that this is all happening close to home as well from the Mohsen Madawi saga last Spring, when Mohsen, a member of this Upper Valley community, a member of the First Universalist Society in Hartland, right down the road, was unlawfully detained for speaking against atrocities and war crimes in Gaza…

Matthew 25: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Truly I say to you, as you did it to the least of these…you did it to me.” The least of these— immigrants, strangers seeking asylum and safety; or perhaps just people of color here legally, being discriminated against; the least of these— Palestinians being systematically starved to death with the help of our tax dollars. The least of these—these are the people Sgt. Mavalwalla and Mohsen were standing up for, respectively. They were, they are, doing the work Christ calls us to do. And they were jailed for it. They knew that this was possible as the current administration continues to push past the limits of their authoritarianism, and yet they had the guts to speak out anyway. Paul says to Philemon in his letter, that the guts of the saints have been refreshed in him—Paul is leading him to making the gutsy and bold choice to give a (possibly runaway) slave his freedom with no consequences, simply because it is the right thing to do—to treat his fellow brother in Christ as just that— as a sibling, an equal.

I want to remind you of something we read in our prayer of invocation today, originally written by Kate Bowler: “…may we also learn bravery in small acts of love.” Because the examples of bravery, of guts I gave you are… for lack of a better word, scary, and I understand that. That’s why it’s important to understand that we can be brave, we can practice having the guts to do the right thing in small ways— we can step out of our comfort zones in our own small ways— we can provide seemingly small acts of comfort towards someone we might not know all that well; we can speak up when someone says something problematic or offensive, even when we’re scared to; if you’re an introvert who’s been wondering how to make the world a better place, you can volunteer by joining a church committee or you can do some kind of volunteering in your community. These are all acts of courage that can seem insignificant, but can have a hugely positive impact on somebody’s life, or the life of a community. There have been so many times, and I promise this isn’t me tooting my own horn here, where I’ve hemmed and hawed about preaching on a supposedly controversial subject, and when I do, I hold my breath waiting for the fallout. And without fail, after I’ve decided to push through the fear and have the guts to preach what I believe in my heart of hearts, in my guts, is the right thing, multiple people will come up to me and say something to the effect of “I needed to hear that.” You get rewarded when you push through that fear to say or do the right thing. You’re rewarded by passing on that Good News, and by that Good News encouraging others to have guts, and the more bravely loving people we have on this planet, the closer we get to that earth as it is in heaven.

We don’t know the details of Paul’s relationship with Onesimus. We don’t know the details of Onesimus’ relationship with Philemon, except that of slave and master. What we do know is that Paul feels, believes, knows, deep in his guts that Onesimus must be a free man, must be seen as an equal in Christ. Paul knows deep in his guts that no one should be in bondage even in a society in which slavery is almost universally accepted. There’s a reason Paul is complimentary and a little vague about his request initially. It is certainly an unexpected and bold request, so he has to couch it in flattery first… but he also wants Philemon to come to this on his own. He wants Philemon, with a little prodding, sure, to realize that the right thing to do, if he’s going to be a true follower of Christ, is to own no one, to be above no one else. And while Paul does pepper this letter with all sorts of adoration, I think it’s genuine, because I don’t believe he would send Onesimus back to Philemon without being absolutely sure that Philemon would do the right thing. So Paul has the guts to make this bold request to have a slave freed. He then has the guts to trust (because let’s be honest, really trusting other people can take a lot of guts sometimes) that Philemon will do the right thing. And then he prays to be renewed with Christ’s guts, with Christ’s bravery, in order to make it through his current jail sentence and march onward, continuing to preach the Good News in the face of an unjust, authoritarian, hierarchal system.

So—as we begin this new church year, as we join together to continue to discern how to be the church in the world, to support each other and those who need support most in these continually trying and frightening times, may we have the guts to do the right thing in big ways and small. May we have the guts to stand up for the oppressed, to speak up even when we are scared, or maybe, especially when we’re scared; may we have the guts try new things, to meet new people, to make more connections, to put ourselves out there. May we have the guts to do the scary, revolutionary, bold, status-quo demolishing work of unconditional love that Christ calls us to do. May we all have our guts refreshed in Christ. Amen.