A Vocation Transformed Philemon :1-21 The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 8, 2013 Immanuel Lutheran Church, Broadlands As soon as you were born God gave you a calling. In fact your birth is the reason why you know that God had called you. If you are a male and you are born, then God has called you to be a son. If you are a female and you are born, then God has called you to be a daughter. I am not going to address the added steps of families affected by adoption. The end result in front of God is the same. You wind up being the son or the daughter of your parents, whether adopted or birth. The reason that you know that God has called you to be a son or a daughter is the commandment: Honor your father and your mother. This is your calling as a son or as a daughter. It is not the only calling that God will give you throughout your life, but it is the first one that you get. If you have been looking for some cosmic purpose for your life and you have been looking to God for the answer, Honor your father and your mother, is part of the answer. You find your purpose in life in your vocations. You find your meaning in life in your callings. As soon as were you born God either called you to be a son or He called you to be a daughter. Your calling involves certain responsibilities. God deliberately uses the command honor instead of obey. When you are young you honor your father and your mother by obeying them. When your parents are older you honor your father and your mother by caring for them. God gives these responsibilities to both believers and unbelievers alike. Even if a person does not believe in God that does not stop Him from calling them to be a son or a daughter. It is a calling that everyone has. A few us do not have enough information to fulfill this calling, but that is the exception rather than the rule. For those of us who are here, we know enough to fulfill this vocation that God has issued to us. As soon as you are born, your parents have a vocation. Their vocation comes directly from God Himself. Because He tells you to honor your father and your mother, He gives to them authority over you. Fathers and mothers are therefore representatives of God Himself in the family to their children. The vocation of father and mother does not extend over all children. It extends only over the children who are born to them or adopted by them. It may briefly extend to other children when your children bring their friends over, but in such an instance you are merely exercising the other parent s authority on their behalf while their child is in your home. It is useful for your children if they respect their friends parents when they are in their friends homes. God has given certain responsibilities to the vocations of father and mother. His main command is that you raise your children in His fear and instruction. It is your vocation to teach your children about God. It is your vocation to teach them that He exists and is to be feared for He is the judge of the living and the dead and He is the one who sees everything. In addition to that God has given the vocation of protecting their children to fathers and mothers. He has also called fathers and mothers to feed and clothe and house their children. He calls them to be productive citizens. He calls them to educate their children in matters of this world as well as supernatural matters. That is why parents have such supreme authority. No other authority makes the commandments. The government does not make the commandments. Pastors do not make the commandments. Father and mother make the commandments. They have supreme authority over their children. They are the church and the state to their children. Therefore the home constitutes a realm separate from the Church and the State which God has instituted and it shall be respected by both the Church and the State.
Parents need this authority if they are to carry out the vocation that God has given to them. They cannot instruct their children on how to be good people, much less on how to be the people of God unless God gives them the authority necessary for the performance of such duties. They cannot protect their children from harm and danger unless God gives them authority to protect them from harm and danger. So God gives fathers and mothers authority by telling the children, Honor your father and your mother. That way God can protect His children by giving you the authority to tell them, Don t run with scissors in your hand, or Don t play in the street, or Don t talk to strangers when I am not with you. God gives this authority to believing parents and unbelieving parents alike. Even the unbelievers need this authority in order to do what God has required them to do so God gives them the authority. Even though the unbelievers will not fulfill their vocation regarding the supernatural things of God for they require faith, they will at least raise their children to be decent human beings. We all know both believing and unbelieving parents who fail in their vocations. Nevertheless both believing parents and unbelieving parents have this sacred calling. They have this holy vocation. When you get married God issues you a new vocation. If you are man and you get married. God issues you the vocation to be the husband of the woman that you are marrying. If you are a woman and you get married, God issues you the vocation of being the wife of the man that you marry. Your vocation begins as soon as you take your marriage vows and in our liturgies as soon as someone in authority declares you to be married in the name of God. Since not all liturgies include this declaration and God issues the vocation of husband and wife to both believers and unbelievers alike, the wedding vows themselves serve as the point at which God issues you the vocation to be the husband or the wife of the person whom you are marrying. Your wedding therefore is God s way of issuing the vocation. It is just as certain and just as precise as God appearing to Moses in the flames of fire in the bush and telling him to go to Egypt to redeem His people. God appears to you at your wedding and tells you to be the husband or the wife of the person whom you are marrying. God therefore issues responsibilities to each person in the marriage. Husbands are to treat their wives in the same way that Christ treats the Church. They are to give to them. They are to give everything to them. They are to give their lives to them. The calling of the husband is to give. The calling of the wife is to respect her husband. Respect him in all things. Respect him in his leadership as head of household. They are both called to sexual fidelity to one another with the knowledge that now that they are married God may issue them the call to be father and mother. Now God instituted marriage in the beginning. As soon as He made a woman He made marriage. Since God instituted marriage in the beginning marriage is available to all human beings in the creation. What I mean to say is this: it does not matter if you believe in God or in Jesus or not, marriage is available to you as an institution. God calls unbelievers to be husbands and wives and expects them to fulfill their marital responsibilities. It does not matter whether or not a person believes in Jesus or not, God calls some to be husbands and some to be wives and some to be single. God issues vocations for some to be officers of the State. He grants them specific responsibilities via the constitution and laws of the State, at least in our country, which He expects them to fulfill. He also grants them the authority to fulfill it. God issues vocations for some of us to be slaves. I am using the biblical term. The current term is employee. An employee is just as dependent upon his employer as a slave was on his master in the ancient world. The only real difference between the two is that generally employees are treated with more dignity, at least we would like to think that they are, and that it is easier for an employee to go from one employer to another nowadays than it was in the ancient world for a
slave to go from one master to another. It was possible for a slave to do so and slaves in the ancient world even had certain rights. God expects employers to treat their employees in a certain way and grants to them the authority over the employee necessary for that purpose. God expects employees to respect their employers as those whom God has called to have authority over them. And I could go on. Doctors have authority over their patients for the purpose of healing them. Therefore you are called to respect your doctor as one whom God has sent to you to heal you. Therefore you treat them with respect and do what they say. They are there for your good. The same is true of dentists, nurses, etc. Many of you toil in agriculture. Your calling is somewhat different in that unlike an employee God has not given anyone direct authority over you. Nevertheless you have certain responsibilities as farmer. Your vocation is to feed the rest of us thereby making civilization possible. Your work allows the rest of us to launch spacecraft and write poetry. God therefore grants you the necessary authority over land and equipment and employees to get the vocation accomplished to which He has called you. I don t want to go on at length about extended vocations in your professional lives. You get the idea. Even if you are in business for yourself God gives you authority over your customers so that you may aid them with goods and services. You are therefore God s gift to them to bring them the goods and service that they require. As with the other vocations that I mentioned both believers and unbelievers are called to these positions. I have had doctors that believed in Jesus and I have had doctors that do not believe in Jesus. Whether they believe or not God has called them to do what they do and given them the authority to do it. Now, does believieng in Jesus make any difference? Obviously it does. The issue is how it makes a difference. When the people involved in a given vocation are believers in Jesus and baptized into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, it does not erase the vocations that God had granted to them prior to believing in Jesus. However, faith in Jesus Christ does not leave your vocation unchanged. Faith in Jesus will change your vocation. And here is how: There was a slave owner in the ancient world named Philemon. The Scriptures seem to indicate that he had enough wealth to own many slaves. One of them apparently escaped from him and ran away. This slave s name was Onesimus. Onesimus abandoned the vocation that God had given to him to be the slave of Philemon. He had sinned against Philemon. Under Roman Law Philemon was permitted to apply consequences to Onesimus, some of them were severe. Beatings were common with a lash. Onesimus is imprisoned for some reason. While he is in prison he encounters a man named Paul. Paul instructs Onesimus on the ways of the Lord. As a result of such instruction Onesimus becomes a believer in Jesus. Now here is the kicker, Philemon also believes in Jesus. Paul had previous encountered Philemon and had instructed Philemon in the ways of the Lord. As a result of Paul instructing Philemon in the ways of the Lord, Philemon became a believer in Jesus. Because of Philemon s wealth and because He believed in Jesus Philemon provided the home in Laodicea for the congregation in Laodicea to meet. That means that on Sunday morning the congregation at Laodicea would gather in Philemon s home for worship. The body and blood of Christ were eatend and drunk in his home. The praises of Jesus were sung in his home. The message of Jesus was preached in his home. That is how devoted Philemon was to Jesus. Now Onesimus is about to be released from prison and Onesimus makes a strange choice. He chooses to go back to his vocation as the slave of Philemon. Under Roman Law Onesimus knows that Philemon could have Onesimus put to death. But because Onesimus believes in Jesus Onesimus knows that the right thing to do is to follow the vocation that God has given him and at the time that is to be a slave of Philemon.
That is how faith in Jesus transforms the relationship. It does not do away with slavery, but it makes the slave a willing participant in the institution. That is not all. Philemon is no longer receiving back a runaway slave. Philemon is now receiving back a brother in Christ. Philemon must now ask himself, What is appropriate treatment of a brother in Christ? If Onesimus were merely a runaway slave and nothing more Philemon would have him beaten or imprisoned or returned to the fields for labor. But now Jesus must be taken into account. Jesus also summons Philemon to forgive Onesimus if he should repent. Onesimus is repenting by returning to Philemon. Philemon s calling as a brother in Christ is to forgive Onesimus. Forgiveness means that no punishment will be administered. Onesimus will get away with it in the sense that Philemon will not mistreat him nor will he punish him. And Philemon will not invited his slave into the courtyard of his home for the public services of Christ s Church. That is how faith in Jesus transforms the vocations that God gives. Let us take the vocation of son or daughter. When your son or daughter sins against your authority as father and mother it is your right to punish them. They must experience some kind of consequence for their actions because they are your son or your daughter. But your sons and daughters are baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. They are therefore not simply your son or your daughter, they are also your brother in Christ. If you prefer, they are your brother or sister in Christ. That means that if they are penitent Christ is calling you to forgive them in the same way that Christ forgave you. Such forgiveness means that there is no punishment. And the reverse is also true. Since they are brothers and sisters in Christ, they are called by Jesus to forgive you when you sin agains them. I remember being in the home of a married student when I was in college. He and his wife used to invite the single students to their home on Tuesday evenings. I think it was their intent to find us all a wife or husband. At some point during the evening the father of the household disciplined his son for a sin that he did not commit. The father was mistaken. He yelled at his son and sent him to his room. Later in the evening the father realized his mistake and realized that by making that mistake he had committed the sin of misusing the authority that God had given him as the father of his son. So he went into his son s room and for some reason I do not remember they wound up in the hallway so that all of us long ears in the living room could hear. He apologized to his son. He explained to his son that he was wrong for yelling at him for doing something that he did not actually do. He asked his son to forgive him. I do not remember what that little boy said, but I have heard other fathers tell me about their small children telling them, I forgive you, Dad. I think that all of you are sharp enough to be able to apply such an illustration to your other vocations. If your employer believes in Jesus, then they are not just your employer they are a brother in Christ and forgiveness applies. If your employee believes in Jesus, then they are not simply your employee they are a brother in Christ. If your doctor believes in Jesus, then he is not merely your doctor he is one through whom God bringing resurrection into the world. When your spouse is a believer in Jesus they are more than simply your spouse, they are a fellow heir with you of your heavenly Father s blessings and that must be taken into account when you deal with them. It must be taken into account when you do business with someone. If they are an unbeliever and you are doing business with them you fulfill your vocation and make sure that you do not steal from them. If they believe in Jesus and you are doing business with them, then forgiveness is in play, for they are not merely a business partner, they are a brother in Christ. You may be called upon to give up your rights in the face of the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. After all when He forgives you He gives up all of His rights to get it done. Jesus made use of none of His rights when they put Him on trial. If He had used His rights, He would not have died and you and I would be going to hell. But Jesus did give up all of His rights and He gave up His life. He shed His blood and your sins are all forgiven. That means that Jesus has the right to bar you from eternal life. You are sinners. He does not have to give eternal life to you.
You have no right to it. But Jesus does not make use of His rights. He lays them aside. He forgives you. He grants you everlasting life in spite of the fact that you do not deserve it. Therefore when you are dealing with a brother in Christ, there will come the time when in the face of their sins you will have to lay your rights aside. It will hurt when you do this. You will suffer loss, financial or otherwise when you do this. But that will acknowledge that you are a brother in Christ and that you truly believe in Jesus. After all that is what Onesimus was doing when he went back to Philemon to face his consequences. And that is what Philemon did when he fulfilled the apostolic exhortation and received Onesimus back as a dear brother. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.