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Here Comes
Everybody!
by the Rev. Rich Smith
September 9, 2007
Philemon 1:1-21
Traveling around the country, as I have for the past
four months, one sees some amazing things but sometimes what sticks
with you are the bumper stickers. Out West there is one that is popular
with both Republicans and Democrats. It simply says, “Run, Hilary,
Run!” The difference is, democrats place it on their back bumpers,
while the republicans afix it to their front ones.
Well, we’re bound to see a lot of such things over the next fourteen
months, but I am reminded of a bumper sticker I saw nearly twenty years
ago in the midst of another presidential campaign: “He’s tanned, he’s
rested, he’s ready: Nixon in ‘88!”
I come to you today, tanned, rested, and ready to announce my intention
to run for.... well, just to run. To “run the race that is set before
us,” as one biblical writer would put it, for we have quite a race of
our own here at Westmoreland, as our Fall programs gear up, and we
build on the momentum of what was an unusually lively summer. Thanks to
Bob and Amber and Alejandro and all of you who stayed around there we
didn’t experience the usual summer doldrums, and now, as Emeril would
say, we’re going to “kick it up a notch!”
Now while I’ve been away for the last four months, I haven’t exactly
been sitting around. True, I have been living by a different rhythm,
experiencing “Sabbath” in the deepest sense, and there were a few days
where my biggest outward accomplishment was perhaps picking a quart of
wild raspberries. I got used to not wearing a watch....though for your
sake I put it back on today. But for the most part, I kept on the move.
I flew back and forth across the continent three times, and made two
additional trips to New England. I saw bald eagles in Alaska and
guitars being made in Pennsylvania. I worshiped in eight different
churches, and numerous outdoor cathedrals, where I heard the word in
the wind as clearly as from any pulpit. I read more books in four
months than I had in the previous four years, including almost
everything Barbara Kingsolver ever wrote. I saw movies as varied as
Harry Potter and Sicko – which I saw in Canada and of course the
Canadians loved it! I saw three presidential candidates in person. I
experienced with some of you and 10,000 others the magnifcent
celebration of the UCC’s fiftieth birthday at the General Synod. I
achieved a good balance of nutrition, exercise and rest and brought my
cholesterol down some 70 points. I encountered four separate people who
assumed I was a professor - which is why I kept my facial hair - I try
to be wise, but I can use all the help I can get! I met some
fascinating people, like the woman pastoring a small Methodist church
on the California redwood coast who is on her 94th and 95th foster
children, or the Episcopal deacon from Hong Kong studying to be a
priest, or the couple from the group “No more deaths” who hike through
the harsh country along the US/Mexico border trying to save the lives
of dehydrated migrants, or the woman who with her three developmentally
challenged sons is transforming a conventional 85-year-old apple
orchard into an organic one in a remote southwestern mountain canyon.
Those are just a few of the snapshots I carry in my mind, all of which
have enriched my spirit and re-energized me for ministry among you and
with you in this place. It’s been a great time, and I thank you for
making it possible!
Of course, like the church, the world did not stop in my absence. Barry
Bonds kept hitting home runs, although many preferred not to notice.
Paris Hilton flirted with jail time and made everyone notice. What have
we come to when Larry King bumps a serious guest in order to get the
first live post-jail interview with her? Do our modern lives demand
such escapism to keep us sane?
Of course the war in Iraq continues, and we await the reports of
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker thsi week; Immigration and
climate change are huge issues, followed by health care and poverty and
No Child Left Behind and now another mortgage crisis. The “war on
terror” that began six years ago Tuesday, two days after my first
sermon here, continues to shape so much of the climate of our everyday
and corporate lives. There are plenty of big things to occupy our
concerns, not to mention all the challenges of our personal lives -
aging parents, raising children, job satisfaction, personal health. We
turn to our faith for answers and discover that even Mother Theresa
struggled with a life-long spiritual crisis, which may be
disconcerting, but at least to me makes her more human.
So we all come back here to this community of faith, as we said
earlier, tired or energetic, faithful or doubting, confident or timid,
healthy and bruised, rich and poor, bound and free, a diverse, exciting
and exasperating, very human mix of folks, the very ones that Jesus
loves and that God can use - the Church, no more, no less, where we
strain to listen for a word that will empower and encourage us to run
the race of life set before us.
That word today comes from a short letter that the apostle Paul wrote
to his friend Philemon and the house church that he had gathered. It is
one of only seven letters, or books of the Bible, that really do go
back to Paul, not simply written in his name. Paul is in jail, or at
least under house arrest, probably in Rome, when he is visited by a
runaway slave, by the name of Onesimus. Onesimus fled from the house of
his master, Philemon. One doesn’t know why exactly, what the
circumstances were that led up to it. Slavery was not the worst thing
that could befall a person in those days, certainly a better option
than starving, and some slaves had fairly decent lives. As an
institution it was not really challenged and would not be for some
seventeen hundred years, although Jews, because of their own experience
of being slaves in Egypt, were not allowed to keep other Jews as slaves
for life. In any case, for whatever reason, Onesimus runs away, makes
his way to Rome and Paul and in the process becomes a convert to
Christianity. I would imagine that one-on-one Paul could be rather
persuasive! And Paul decides to take a chance – he sends Onesimus back
to Philemon, knowing full well that the punishment he might receive
could be brutal. But Paul also sends along a letter, which we heard as
our scripture reading, in which he basically asks Philemon to “do the
right thing.” He knows what he is asking for could be difficult, even
offensive, and so he is quite gentle. He doesn’t outright order
Philemon to free his slave, but that’s really what he is pointing
towards. Treat him as more than a slave, as a brother in Christ, for he
is now one of us. After all, among bothers and sisters in the faith,
there can be no distinctions, no hierarchy, no one with power over
another.
Maybe that’s too much to hope for. Maybe if Philemon simply takes him
back into service without punishing him, that will be enough. And
that’s what Paul is asking for on the face of it. But, he writes, I
know you’ll do more than that.
Faith makes those kinds of demands on us, gives us those sorts of
opportunities, to go beyond the requirements of law and enact the
mandates of love.
Eventually, Christ’s followers came to see that the institution of
slavery itself was wrong, an abomination. It’s where Paul is heading,
even if he doesn’t say it. The wheels of justice grind slow. Slavery
was abolished in this country in the 1860's, but it wasn’t until the
1960's that we finally began to deal with the legacy of racism, and in
some ways we’re still only beginning to do that.
Movements toward justice are like that. An idea is planted and
consciousness unfolds slowly. Movements build, eventually laws are
enacted, finally behaviors change and the world is a little more like
the kingdom of God. In the midst of a highly patriarchal culture the
seeds of gender equality are planted; after long struggle women can
vote, but full parity takes even longer, and only now do we have a
woman running for president who has a realistic chance of competing.
The struggle to be fully inclusive – open and affirming – of gays and
lesbians is also a long one, with small victories, like Iowa offering
marriage equality for even a few hours. It’s a long road, but it’s not
going backwards, not in the long run.
I look at these movements, these changes in consciousness and
eventually laws and behavior, these things our faith calls us to, and I
wonder – fifty years from now, what will be the great struggle? What
will they look back on and say, “In 2007 hardly anyone had even thought
of this, but thank God we are making progress?” What will be the
personal mind and spirit opening ideas that you and I might face in
even the next twenty years?
For me, I find a clue back there in Paul’s letter to Philemon. In it he
urges a new relationship with Onesimus because Onesimus is now a
brother, he is a follower of Jesus. That’s well and good, but then I
stop and ask myself: what if he wasn’t. What if Onesimus remained in
whatever faith he professed, or was a man of no particular faith at
all? Does one have to claim the name Christian in order to be loved and
accepted and treated with dignity and respect and equality? Paul wasn’t
quite ready to go there himself – it’s a big step to urge his friend to
graciously take back his slave and perhaps free him. The next step is
to say, you’re a human being, and that alone makes you a child of God.
We see far too much of sectarian strife in this world, division based
on which god you worship or which son of which prophet you listen to.
The next step is to build an interfaith community, a human family,
beyond creeds, beyond borders. You may call it naive, you may call it
radical, but it may well be the next step in our journey of human
liberation. It brings to mind the phrase that Irish author James Joyce
used in the book Finnegans Wake: “Here comes everybody.” For him is was
a description of what the Catholic church was supposed to be – and
Joyce would no doubt find it a good description of what Ireland itself
is becoming; after all, a Nigerian immigrant has recently become the
first black mayor in Irish history – but I find it a good image for
where I think we are called: to a great tribe from which no one is
excluded, an inclusive community where differences are celebrated, not
eradicated, one which is communal not authoritarian, one where we know
and act like we are intimately related to the earth and each other and
all of life.
I see this playing out in all sorts of ways. This summer I met some
people who are involved in what’s known as the “New Sanctuary
Movement.” It is the successor to the 1980's “Sanctuary Movement” where
churches in the Southwest were giving shelter to political refugees
from Guatemala and El Salvador, in this country illegally, but fearful
that if they were deported they would face imprisonment and death
because of their political activity. The New Sanctuary Movement focuses
on families that may be separated, cases where children are born here
but the mothers will be sent back to China or Mexico.... Churches in
this new movement offer moral and legal support, and if need be, a safe
shelter. It’s happening in places like New York as well as Los Angeles.
Maybe this is something that we would want to explore being part of, or
at least learning about . We have a lot going on already, I know, with,
our Green Group challenging us to find ways to counter global climate
change, with our Worship Initiative opening us to fuller and more
powerful spiritual connections, with our continuing concerns for peace
and justice in the Middle East, with our trying to fully live out our
Open and Affirming stance.... still there may be yet another area that
deserves at least our consideration, if not involvement and action.
In one state I visited this summer, they are dealing with the results
of a proposition that voters passed overwhelmingly last year – one with
employer sanctions so harsh that any business cited three times for
having undocumented workers on their payroll would lose their license
to operate, meaning that it’s quite possible that power plants or
hospitals might be forced to shut down. Students who can’t prove legal
residency would be made to pay out of state tuition. In that same
election, another proposition was passed, requiring that those who
raise pigs provide an ample amount of space and humane treatment Now
I’m all for animal rights, but I find it disturbing that voters wish to
essentially treat pigs better than they want to treat some people. It
ain’t right! What else do I need to say?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that the church should be the
headlights, not the taillights, in matters of justice. I hope and pray
that we will be, and I promise you, as we begin a new season together,
I will keep shining the gospel light ahead of us, so that we might move
forward as the people God is calling us to be.
There is no written sequel to the letter to Philemon. We don’t really
know how it turned out, whether Onesimus was accepted back graciously,
as “more than a slave, as a brother.” We would hope so. But like so
many of Jesus’ parables, which are without end, it’s up to us to supply
the ending, as we live it out in our own lives. Let’s get busy and
write that sequel together!
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
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