The Risk of Relationship LIVING IT Dr. Scott Dudley January 28, 2018 8 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus 10 that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me. 12 I am sending him who is my very heart back to you. 13 I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. 14 But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord. 17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back not to mention that you owe me your very self. 20 I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ. Philemon 1:8-20 NIV New International Version Well hello. It s good to see all of you here. Those of you watching at home, and our middle schoolers, high schoolers. Great to have all of you here. I also want to thank the 700 of you that volunteered yesterday to help pack 150,000 meals for Sierra Leone, so thank you. It s so cool to see five-year olds and 85-year olds, and everyone in between. This place was just abuzz with activity. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. As I've shared with you before, I have serious facial recognition problems. We'll be watching a movie and I'll say to my wife, "Who's that actor? Seems kind of familiar." She'll say, "Tom Cruz." I'm like, "Oh, yeah. That's right." This is a problem if you are a pastor, right? Remembering faces. When I was a college pastor at Stanford, Bill Clinton was president. This is not political. Don't worry. His daughter, Chelsea,
went to Stanford and was friends with some of my students. One day, I was talking to one of my students and Chelsea came up. The student introduced us. I said, "Hi, my name is Scott." She said, "Hi, my name is Chelsea." I kind of gave her the confused dog look; you know, the tilted head and kind of like looking at her. She finally goes, "Clinton. I'm Chelsea Clinton." "Oh, so you are," the most recognizable college student in the world. Yes. Well, what I do because something's wrong in my brain, I think all of us in one way or another do to each other. We look past each other. We don't really see who the other person is, because we see them in various categories. Right, like old, young, Asian, white, black, Latino, republican, democrat, husky, cougar, duck. I know, that last one hurts, doesn't it? Today's text out of the Book of Philemon shows us how we can get past some of those divisions, so we can heal tensions in our homes, in our neighborhoods, workplaces, schools; have better relationships, experience Jesus' power, and be healers in a very divided culture right now. Philemon is the third shortest book in the Bible, only 335 words. Philemon was a wealthy Christian whose slave, Onesimus, had run away. The Apostle Paul tries to convince Philemon to take Onesimus back, not as a slave; but as a brother in Christ. Paul here lobs a Molotov cocktail into his culture, because his culture was even more divided than ours. Jews hated Gentiles and vice versa. Romans looked down on everyone they had conquered. Slaves loathed their masters, and masters were terrified their slaves would one day kill them. Paul says through the power of Jesus, all of these kinds of divisions can be healed. He starts the letter by saying, 'To Philemon, our dear friend and to the church that meets in your home.' That's significant. The fact that it met in his home means that Philemon was probably the richest Christian in that church. This is Paul's top giver, right? Like if this guy gets ticked off, Paul's not going to make his annual budget; but he takes the risk anyway. As Philemon reads this letter, he may have thought, 'What's this troublesome preacher doing meddling in all these political and social things? Why doesn't he just stick to preaching about spiritual stuff?' Which may be what some of you feel when we say that one of our big goals in this church is to build toward third-way racial justice and healing. Maybe to you that's like, 'Oh man, that's the church getting all political,' and, 'This is controversial.' That's why we call it third way, because we believe if we do this right, it's not going to look liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, it's going to look completely different. It's going to look like 2
Jesus, because Jesus is the one who brings all things together. Ultimately, this is not a political issue; this is a Bible issue. I have been far too slow to see this, and I owe you, the congregation, an apology for that. I have been far too slow to see this, but it is everywhere in scripture both Old and New Testament. Any time scripture talks about Jews and Gentiles being reconciled, which it talks about a lot. Let's be clear, that's racial. Gentiles were mostly white Europeans, Jews were brown-skinned Middle Easterners. With maybe the exception of one or two books, the entire New Testament, every book in the New Testament talks about racial healing and justice. This is a big theme in scripture. As Christians, we can't ignore it, because it's just everywhere; but it is highly controversial. It's very sort of charged and polarized in our country right now. Maybe some of you, you're just weary of hearing about it, because it's just everywhere. My two oldest kids nicknamed our youngest 'Peh,' P-E-H. When all three of them sit in the backseat of the car, Peh will sit in the middle. The other two kind of push her back and forth, and back and forth. I thought, 'Poor Peh,' just back and forth, back and forth. They call it 'Peh Pong,' all right? Now, maybe that's how some of you feel when issues about racial justice and healing get brought up. It's like, 'Ah man, back and forth, back and forth, all the conversations, back and forth, back and forth.' Nothing ever gets solved. You're weary of hearing about it. After all, we've been talking about it in this country for 400 years. If you're getting weary, imagine how weary God is getting. You can see Him up there right now going, 'What part of love your neighbor don't you get?' Like, it's not that hard, right? So let's fix it, okay? People of God, first and foremost, are called to do this. The first multi-ethnic community was the church. This is our specialty. A lot of my remarks in this sermon will be tailored around race and racial healing, but this text applies to lots of categories: rich, poor, old, young, gay, straight. As I said a couple weeks ago, we don't all agree on that last one in this church. We can still love each other and disagree. I am sure we all agree no one should be treated as a category. Everyone should be treated with respect. Paul here says, "Although in Christ, I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love." That is, rather than force or coerce, or compel, or try politics, or laws, Paul wants a relational solution. He says, "I appeal to you for my son, Onesimus." Words like, 'son,' 'father,' 'love.' These aren't political words. These are relationship words. Paul is going at it relationally. He's also probably aware that as Philemon is reading this, he's probably getting a little ticked off; because he views Onesimus as his property that he paid for, and Onesimus ran away. Philemon might be getting a little 3
annoyed, so Paul diffuses the situation with humor. He says, "Formerly, he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me." That's a pun on Onesimus' name, which means 'useful.' Paul is trying to diffuse the tension with this kind of first century joke, this kind of corny pun. Old useful wasn't very useful to you, was he? He ran away. It's supposed to be funny. Guess you had to be there. All right, it's sort of the equivalent of bad dad jokes in our culture. Paul does this pun to try to lighten things up a little bit. Then, he says the really explosive thing. "Perhaps the reason he was separated from you was that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but better than a slave; as a dear brother." Another relationship word. In other words, Onesimus is not a category, 'slave,' he's a person. He's your brother. Issues around race, politics, sexuality; no matter how we feel about them, Paul is saying these aren't issues to argue about. They're people. They're not political footballs to kick around, or theological litmus tests to prove your orthodoxy. They're people, start relating as people. Start finding solutions that are about people and relationship, and stop putting everyone in these categories. A few weeks ago, someone on staff found a picture of me from like eight million years ago. They made these little cutout clothes of various kinds that could be taped onto the picture. Here's me wearing a fascinator, and then here's me in jail. I don't even know what this one is. What's with the space caps and the light saber? I have no clue what that is about. They call it 'Dress Me Dudley.' They think it's very funny. No respect. I get no respect. A staff person I just heard say, 'That's so good.' See? He doesn't work here anymore. Your job is safe. We all do a version of this 'Dress Me Dudley' deal to lots of people. We put on them various political, theological, ideological categories. We don't see past them, but Paul here asks Philemon to do something very difficult. He asks Philemon I think my kids love that picture. He asks Philemon to do something very difficult. He asks Philemon to take the risk of relationship. Don't see Onesimus as his category slave, see him as a brother; because when you are in relationship, you begin to understand other people. You may not always agree with them, but it will soften, and nuance, and humanize what you do believe. We are losing the ability in our culture to be in relationships with people that are different than ourselves. Someone's politics annoy you? Unfriend them. This news source doesn't square with your politics? Change the channel to find one that does. We often don't have close friends of a different age, or a different race, or a different politics; so we just live in an echo chamber of our own ideas. Recently, there was a study that put people with radically different politics together in a room, and just kind of locked them in this room and told them to talk about politics; AKA: hell, right? When they did, it got pretty tense in the room. Then, halfway through the study, they switched and said, 'Each of you take about 15 4
minutes to talk about your life story, the highs, the lows, the defining moments.' They all did that, and at the end, they were saying things like, 'I don't really agree with this person, but I sure do like him.' So often, we go for structural solutions. Let's elect the right people. Let's get the right laws enacted. Those things matter, but you can pass all the laws you want; it doesn't change human hearts. If they're not changed, people will just find a way around the law. Real healing starts personally, relationally. When we get past the categories and just relate as people. This is not some wimpy, mamby-pamby church solution. 'Oh, pastors, all they do is just tell us to be nice to each other.' This has nothing to do with nice. Okay, this is political TNT. This is social dynamite. Think of how it would destroy slavery from the inside out to have a Christian voluntarily release a slave. If Philemon does that, his other slaves are going to want to go free. Then pretty soon, all of Philemon's friends who have slaves, their slaves are going to want to be free if Philemon does this. That's going to get Philemon in a lot of trouble with his friends. In Paul's time, Roman culture imposed strict separation between master and slave; worse even than Jim Crow America where blacks and whites couldn't eat at the same lunch counter. Now Paul says, "Receive him not as a slave, but as a brother." He doubles down and says, "Welcome him as you would welcome me." You got to get this... If Paul were to come, Philemon and Mrs. Philemon, would put him in their guest room, give him the special pillow; maybe put some chocolates on the pillow. Now Paul is saying, 'Do that for Onesimus.' In their culture, this is scandalous. Jesus obliterates social categories, which is why as more and more people in the Roman empire became Christian, slavery gradually faded away. In the book of Ephesians, Paul, speaking about Jews and Gentiles, that is white people and brown people, says, "Christ has made the two groups one and has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility; and in one body, reconciled both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility." What that's really saying is Jews and Gentiles are both sinners in need of Jesus' death on the cross to pay the price for their sins. This is what makes it third way, because the mini movements have waved the banner of universal brotherhood and equality but usually lead to arrogance and self-righteousness. But, if where we start is that we all fallen sinners, the ground levels radically. Nobody is superior. Nobody's inferior. We all are just sinners in need of God's grace. That's why it's third way. Then, when we ask the Holy Spirit to change our hearts because we can't do this without the Holy Spirit, gradually those dividing walls of hostility begin to come down and we begin to see our differences as blessings, not as problems. Let me ask you this: when God made us, do you think that He knew that as humans migrated all over the earth, they'd encounter different growing conditions, which would cause them to grow different food, and have different food, and have different cultures, face different weather, which affect the color of their skin? 5
Do you think God knew that, or thousands of years later did he go, 'Oh shoot, now they're not all the same. Dang it.' No, he did it on purpose because one race, one culture, one gender cannot express the fullness of God. Sometimes people will say, 'I don't see race. I'm color blind.' Well, God isn't. God isn't. He loves a multiplicity of races. As I've shared with you many times, I have gained a ton by being married to a Chinese woman. The first time I met her extended family, we'd only been dating a few weeks. Met her entire family. We went to a Chinese restaurant, a real Chinese restaurant. Her mom was ordering for all of us in Chinese. I said, "What's she ordering?" Christina said, "Don't ask. Just eat it all when it comes, and ask for more. It's the Chinese way." To this day, I have no idea what I ate that night. During that dinner, her aunt was next to me. She said, "You know, it's an ancient Chinese tradition that new boyfriends have to kneel on an abacus until their knees bleed to prove their worth." I laughed. I said, "Ha, that's a good joke. It's a joke, right? You are joking." Those differences make my life richer; occasionally they create conflict. Sometimes my wife and I have a little bit different parenting styles. I'm sure we're the only ones in this room that that's ever happened to, right? Sometimes that's cultural. She'll say, "That's not the Chinese way." I'll be like, "Well, but we're in America now, right?" We work through that, but mostly, it's been great. My daughter wrote her college essay on how I'm different culturally than Christina, got her into college. Very useful, right? Let's get practical. What does this look like? Some things we can do to get past these divisions and be healers in our schools, in our workplaces, neighborhoods. Three things: first, take the risk of relationship. Take the risk of relationship. One of the concerns I sometimes hear is, people will say, 'I'm afraid to talk about race, especially with someone of a different race; because what if I say something wrong? The terms are always changing. I don't know the right words to use. What if I offend someone? What if I say something wrong?' Well, I asked a Latino friend of mine that question. He said, "Well, you probably will, right? But do you care about me enough to stay in a relationship with me long enough to learn about me and my world, and understand it, and me to understand you and yours? Will you get past your fear of discomfort? Am I more important than your need for comfort?" In other words, will you take the risk of relationship? 6
Now that does not mean you walk up to the African American person at work and say, "What do you think of Black Lives Matter?" No, you kind of got to work into that. You have to start with a cup of coffee. Eventually we can, and we need to get to get those conversations. 'Hey man, the hard things. Here's what I don't understand. Here's what I don't like. Here's what kind of makes me mad,' and kind of work through that. As a church going forward, we're going to try to help you have some of those conversations. Yes, we may say something wrong. Sometimes when people meet my wife for the first time they'll say, "Oh, do you know so-and-so? They're Chinese, too." My wife is like, "There's a billion of us." But we can get past that. Ask another student or co-worker to lunch, coffee. Ask questions, 'Hey, what's your life like?' Background. Get to know them. Give me your story. Maybe read books that talk about people's experience from other races. One that we would recommend is 'Just Mercy' by Bryan Stevenson that talks about some of the experiences black people have in our country. Our justice and reconciliation team is going to be discussing this one in March. They're going to be out in the lobby today if you want to ask them questions. See the world through someone else's eyes. Which brings me to the second thing, listen to understand; because when we argue past each other, that just creates dividing walls. But when we listen to understand, that builds bridges. When it comes to racial issues, I know this is hard because it's so supercharged right now. It's tense. Everyone is kind of on the defensive. I know that as a middle age white male, sometimes I feel like I'm being blamed for everything that's wrong in our culture; like I'm the problem because I'm white, I'm male, I'm middle-aged. I ve got a position of power. Now, I need to say, none of the people of color I know think that about white people; but just from the media rhetoric, I can sometimes feel that way, but I am called to listen, to understand. All of us need to do that no matter what race we are. Hear the experiences of an Asian woman in this church who was called a racial slur aimed at Asians just a few blocks from here while she was getting on a bus. I told you before about a friend of my parents' from their church who is black. He worked at a restaurant. The restaurant was robbed. The police came, could no find no evidence pointing to anyone; but they fired the black guy anyway. The black Christian guy, even though there was no evidence. Recently a black woman in our community was leaving the grocery store here in Bellevue and held the door open for a white man that was behind her. As he passed through with anger in his voice, he said, "Holding the door for me. That's as it should be. Glad you know your place." Oh my goodness. In Bellevue, in Bellevue, in Bellevue. 7
As I have listened these past few years to my Asian, black, and Latino friends, who are all over the political spectrum; liberal, conservative. I am coming to see what I have not seen as part of the majority culture because I don't experience it. These problems still exist. Not everywhere, not all the time, but more than they should. These people can't all be making it up. It can't all be blamed on the media trying to create a problem. Also many of them are asking to hear, especially from someone who is white, is, 'You're not crazy. It's still with us. How can I help?' Take the risk of relationship. Listen to understand. Then third, be willing to pay a price. Paul says to Philemon, "If Onesimus has done you any wrong, or owes you anything, charge it to me. I'll pay it back." He's willing to pay a price for reconciliation. For us, maybe that price is deep in prayer, we have to ask Jesus, 'Do I have bias that I'm unaware of?' Maybe it's to ask forgiveness for that from someone. Maybe that price is, at some point, having to advocate for someone; like a group of white suburban moms who found that an African American teenager they knew had been arrested because he was standing in line at a store to pay. He opened a bag of potato chips and started eating them. The manager had him arrested for shoplifting, even though he was in line to pay. These white moms went to the manager and said, 'We do that all the time. Every mom does that,' right mothers in the room, fathers in the room? You've been in line. The kid is making a lot of noise. You open something up, 'Here, be quiet.' They said, 'We do that all the time. You never arrested us. Seems like you perceived differently because he was black. The manager said, "I am so ashamed of myself. You're right." Got the charges dropped, apologized. Maybe it's to advocate. In this letter, Paul is willing to pay the price for any debts Onesimus owes so that there can be reconciliation. Willing to pay a price so there can be reconciliation. Does that remind you of anyone? You're in a church. The answer is always 'Jesus.' It's always a safe answer. You can always answer 'Jesus,' no matter what the preacher asks. 'Jesus, I think it's Jesus.' Yes. See this risk of relationship thing; God has already done for us. He came himself, as Jesus, born into poverty, died a painful death to pay the price for our sins so that we could be reconciled to Him. He took the risk of relationship, because He loves you so much, He'd rather die than lose you, so He did. I recently saw a story about an African American man named Shaun Corbett who owns a barber shop in North Carolina. He says that to him, the barbershop can be summed up in one word: family. Whatever's going on in the community comes through the barbershop. A lot of the talk in this barbershop was around racial issues, particularly related to police shootings. Shaun contacted the police department and came up with a program he called 'Cops and Barbers,' kind of like 'cops and robbers,' but 'cops and barbers.' 8
That white police officer there is Captain Rob Dance, who is Shaun's partner. Dan says, "I don't think we can police people in the community until we know people in the community." They created a tutoring program where every new recruit to the police department, every new recruit, is assigned to tutor a black or Latino youth in the community; just to see what their lives are like and get to know each other as people. They work with local churches that are fostering dialogue between cops and youth. The cops say to these black and Latino kids, 'Look, we know there are dirty cops out there. We need to know that so when you encounter one, please, please file a compliant with us.' Black teenagers can ask hard questions of the cops like, 'Why does it take two police cars to stop me on my way home from school just to see if I'm doing anything wrong? We're tired of this.' Shaun has black and Latino teenagers do simulations of high intensity encounters that police face where the teenagers have a split second to decide whether to shoot or not; and realize just how difficult those split second decisions can be. All to create understanding on both sides. Shaun and captain Dan say you just treat someone different when you know them. That, more of that. More of that. Positive, third way, relational solutions where white, Asian, black, Latino, can see each other as people, not as categories. Now, you don't have to open a barbershop to do that; unless God tells you to be a barber. You could go to our next Frames and Filters workshop in May, that helps us see the filters we see people through, not just race, but education, income, all kinds of things. Maybe you could talk to someone of a different age or race in your school, in your work, at your neighborhood. Maybe it's to pray, 'Jesus, do I have bias? Reveal it to me if I do.' Maybe it's to invite a neighbor to dinner. On my block, I am quickly becoming the only white guy on the block. I've long been the only white person in my family, but now I'm like the only white person on the block. That's happening in a lot of neighborhoods around here. Maybe invite people to dinner, or a barbecue in May. Who knows the healing you could bring through relationship? An interesting PS to this letter is 50 years after Paul wrote it to Philemon, a Christian named Ignatius talks about a bishop in one of his letters that had enormous impact as a Christian leader. The bishop's name is Onesimus. We don't know for sure if it was this Onesimus or not, but tradition says it was. That would certainly explain how this tiny little letter, this scrap of paper that's really just a post-it note to a friend got into the Bible; because Paul and Philemon saw Onesimus not as a category but as a brother in Christ. Onesimus could proudly proclaim, "I once was a slave, but I am made new in Jesus. I am Onesimus the Bishop." Now, maybe this church can't change our whole country this week; but you can change the culture 9
in your school, or your workplace, or your neighborhood. There are 4,000 of us, so that is 4,000 classrooms, 4,000 workplaces, 4,000 neighborhoods changed. If all those people that got changed made some more change, then pretty soon, we could change Puget Sound, Washington; and I do believe, our country. Yes. You can say 'amen' to that. Wouldn't it be wonderful, wouldn't it be wonderful if in a culture divided by race and politics, and class, and all kinds of things, wouldn't it be great if the world looked at us and said, 'You Christians, how are you doing this? How are you reconciling what the world divides? How are you able to make this work?' Our answer will be 'Jesus.' How would that change his reputation in our world? As Abraham Lincoln put it, 'With malice toward none and charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us bind up our nation's wounds, care for those who have born the battle, and do all that we can to achieve a just and lasting peace. May it be so, and may it start with us. Amen. Jesus, thank you that you are the one who brings together what the world divides. Jesus, we ask that through the power of your Holy Spirit, you help us be people who bridge the divides, who tear down dividing walls of hostility; and in your name, reach out and love people and become one community under you. We pray this in your name, Jesus, amen. Discussion Questions Please read all of Philemon 1. What qualities in Philemon does Paul praise? 2. Roman law imposed strict penalties on runaway slaves (usually death) and Roman culture imposed strict legal and social separation between slaves and masters. Given all that what is radical about Paul's view of Onesimus (v.10-17)? 3. Why doesn't Paul come right out and order Philemon to receive Onesimus back? 4. What do you make of verse 18-19? 5. What do you think this short letter says to American culture today? What does it say to you? 10