Philemon (1-21) is challenged to change, and the Gospel reading (Luke 14.25-33) is also about risk and change. What might this mean for us?
Context
This week is billed in the UK as a momentous week in our country’s history as Parliament and Government clashed on Tuesday evening and more clashes seem likely. Weeks like this are hard for PostScript writers because we submit on Wednesday and I am certainly no better at predicting the situation you will face on Sunday than anyone else. Readers will need to read the news for themselves.
As I write, an almost stationary hurricane Dorian has battered the Bahamas and is beginning a path up the east coast of the United States. What seems clear is that the frequency of unusual climatic events is increasing as was indeed predicted when climate change emerged as an issue in the 1990s.
Reflection
If you have been following the Gospel readings in recent weeks you will have noticed several hard challenges from Jesus. And this week’s Gospel reading is no easier. In our present context, for example, dare any of us preach on Luke 14.33 and challenge people to give up all their possessions to become a true disciple? The gospel may be good news but it is not easy news.
One might reflect that, whether for individuals or for whole societies, real choices can often be difficult and challenging. We would hardly need political processes if all the decisions which those in authority need to make were straightforward. In democracies we choose people to represent us in taking those hard decisions and we cannot expect to agree with all the decisions they make.
So, as the week in which momentous decisions may (or may not) have been made, we can and should note that the New Testament invites us to obey lawful authority (Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2) and indeed pray for those exercising it. But we also hear of unjust and corrupt rulers such as Herod the Great (Matthew 2) and his son (who had John the Baptist executed to bolster his authority, see Matthew 14.1-12). And in the end we are to obey God ‘rather than any human authority’ (Acts 5.29, NRSV). It has been claimed that various outcomes of this week have been ‘war-gamed’ within 10 Downing Street. Even if that is not true, is it not intriguing that Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel passage of how a king might think about the resources available to him before engaging in war. What might be the issues which we should take into account as important decisions face us whether as individuals, or congregations or as a society?
This week’s AAA Bible notes suggest that Paul’s solution (over Onesimus) ‘might seem both risky and foolish’. Intriguingly elsewhere Paul speaks of the gospel as foolishness (1 Corinthians 1). As the Gospel writers frequently remind us, the upside-down kingdom which Jesus preached often involves risk and challenge. The week of hurricane Dorian comes soon after Greta Thunberg arrived in New York after her voyage in a solar powered yacht with no creature comforts to continue her protest about a world at war with nature.
In the past, the letter to Philemon was sometimes used to defend slavery; sadly, today we know that people still get find ways to get round laws banning that practice. It is worth recalling that Christian voices were at the forefront of the battles against slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. Is a key challenge for contemporary Christians to speak for the environment as over 200 years ago many of our forebears spoke for the enslaved? At the very least climate change remains a huge challenge for the whole of humankind, whether or not all our political leaders yet recognise it.
Prayer
Creator God, in uncertain times,
help us always to seek your will,
and to act with integrity and with courage
as we seek to discern honestly what you are doing in the world
and to join in joyfully.
Amen.
Questions
- We would surely not send a victim of modern slavery back to a master; so what might be the nearest equivalent today of sending a slave back to a master with a letter like that to Philemon? And what sort of letter might be written?
- Slaves were considered to be property; how might you write to someone to whom you were returning property today?
- In the Gospel reading, Jesus uses the example of a king planning conflict. What factors should we consider today before making hard choices about the issues which face us? Should we be equally careful before getting into any sort of disagreement with other people?
All-age activity
Write a letter commending one of your friends to a third person – on the basis that your friend will be the one taking the letter.
Young people
If you did/could not do so when I recommended this in PostScript a few weeks ago, try to watch Greta Thunberg’s YouTube video and discuss what you might do about it.
Dudley Coates is a Local Preacher in the Yeovil and Blackmore Vale Methodist Circuit and a former Vice President of the Methodist Conference.
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