Dear Friends,
This is the fourth message in a series on Paul’s Letter to Philemon.
——————————–
Have you ever over-tightened a bolt with a wrench until it stripped out and wouldn’t budge? Have you pushed and pulled on a stuck moveable part and wished you had been more patient when you snapped it off ruining the whole mechanism?
How about people? Ever put more pressure on a point of friction until you wore away a whole relationship? We can drive a point until we break the person receiving the point so it won’t hold in the same way we punch a hole in the wall if we pound a nail in too far.
Paul was facing the challenge of how much pressure to apply to resolve the sticky problem of the runaway, thieving slave, Onesimus. If Onesimus didn’t return to his master Philemon, he could be captured and even put to death. If he did, return, he faced the possibility of harsh treatment, even death if Philemon chose to punish him. Yet, sheltering the fugitive would likely expose the Christian believers to disrepute and even greater persecution than they were already suffering in pagan Rome over an issue of Roman civil law.
Paul, the former persecutor of Christians, was capable of harsh judgments conveyed with forceful speech. No one in the First Century Church was tougher than Paul–no one! He had started out his career as Saul of Tarsus, a zealous persecutor of believers in Christ against whom he organized a reign of terror and violence. Jesus knocked him out of the saddle on the road to Damascus where he was going to seek out and kill more Christians. Paul repented and joined the little band of Christians becoming their most effective evangelist and leader.
Paul’s faith brought him a hard life. Overloaded with work, flogged and beaten senseless multiple times, stoned and left for dead, shipwrecked three times, left adrift at sea, left naked and destitute in barren places, imprisoned multiple times, in constant defense of the Gospel against false teachers (2 Cor.11:23-29), he was under house arrest in Rome because of his belief in Christ
When life breaks a person he or she may harden into jagged edges of defense or soften in understanding and acceptance of others. The love, forgiveness, gratitude and encouragement I wrote about last week makes the difference. But persons who won’t accept any God but one who keeps them trouble-free and prosperous–a magic God offering immunity from the human condition — frequently become disappointed and bitter at the breaking.
Knowing that one is loved by Christ who enters into our pain and anguish and walks with us through to the other side imparts confidence and peace that surpass understanding. Those that come to this realization of Christ’s love are loathe to use coercion or manipulation to obtain the consent of others.
Paul might have used his spiritual authority to order Philemon to accept and forgive Onesimus as a brother in Christ on pain of church discipline. A prominent business leader like Philemon probably gave up a lot in the pagan city of Colosse in order to become a Christian. His community of faith, “the church in his house,” would mean a great deal to him. Threatening to disfellowship Philemon likely would have worked to spare Onesimus the penalty of the law, but it would have allowed no grace between the men. It would have been the one turn too far of the wrench that would strip out the threads of fellowship in the Colossian Church.
Paul knew forcing church members to do the right thing was no substitute for the persuasion of love. Paul wrote Philemon: “For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, 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 preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed be voluntary and not forced” (Phil. 8-9, 14).
It is always the temptation of authority to use it to force a result rather than persuade. A community built on such methods is a community of fear rather than faith. Paul would know this as the former defender of the purity of Judaism through the persecution of Christians. Skilled educators know that how something is taught is as important as what is taught. You cannot teach grace by forcing men and women to accept it and extend it. The most that can be gained from this is social pretense like telling an unrepentant child to say he’s sorry to keep appearances. The achievement is a sham.
I returned to my undergraduate alma mater upon graduation from law school. At just twenty-six years-of-age, I became an administrator and legal counsel for a place where I’d been a student just four years before. People who had taught and supervised me now worked for me. There were still students around who had taken classes with me as an undergraduate.
In my ignorance and inexperience, I was fearful of doing the wrong thing. So I stuck to the rule book whether it made any sense to do so or not. I made others miserable and myself unhappy. It all depended on me being tougher, stricter, and more detailed than anyone else, or so I thought. I wouldn’t rest until every “t” was crossed and every “i” dotted. I wasn’t up to the task or equal to the pressures I brought to bear. The “square pegs” wouldn’t fit in the round holes” but instead of looking for a fit, I just pounded harder until they broke. My sense of proportion was the first casualty, followed by love and justice.
One day I had ten students suspended at the same time for various offenses. They were all under consideration for expulsion. Students were petitioning me. Parents were calling me. Colleagues were arguing with me. I went home extremely stressed and complained to Patricia. “They all knew the rules,” I said. “When they enrolled they knew what was expected. Now, they’ve made choices and they have to live with the consequences.”
Patricia offered me conviction, but no sympathy. She said, “Kent, know you were born old. Your problem is that you expect everyone to act like you, to reason like you, to make decisions like you. But they aren’t you!
“You make informed choices. These students don’t have the same information to make the same choices. Their parents didn’t teach them what yours taught you. These students don’t think the same way you do and you can’t treat them all like they knew what they were doing. You need to deal with this case by case and cut these students some slack. You have to teach them how to think and make informed choices before you hold them accountable for their choices.”
A friend of mine says, “You force feed youth from the tree of knowledge and they lose their appetite for the tree of life.” Putting it another way, theologian James Burtchaell writes, “Sin has too often been imagined as a responsible decision to do evil. Instead, it is a suffocation of responsibility through repetitive actions that generally avoid any open decision” (Philemon’s Problem [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998], p. 135).
(Before you send me letters about the importance of morality and discipline, please understand that I am a zealous advocate of Christian education of which my spouse and I are products. I frequently defend the rights of Christian schools to maintain their distinctive mission and expectations for employee and student conduct. We provided a Christian education for our son because of the commitment of the teachers and the Christ-centered curriculum and programming. The points I make here apply to higher education. His mother and I wanted more than anything for him to know and follow God with whole-hearted devotion all his days and that is the commitment he has made for himself.)
It is exhausting to be a Pharisee over the long haul. Living by the letter of the law requires and effort that is more than humanly possible. Time, suffering, and encounters with the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ have softened the harsh lines of my judgment a good deal.
Paul described the blessings of this softening process to the Corinthians: “All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort–we get a full measure of that, too” (2 Cor. 1:3-4, TM).
To come alongside a person in distress is a voluntary action worthy of a God who desires our mercy, not our terror. Christ invites us to the table of grace of our own volition: ” ‘ Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘ Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land” (Is. 1:18-19, NASB).
The school of hard knocks has taught me something of what Paul knew. One who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. One who insists on the letter of the law will be condemned by the letter of the law. A demand without choice and a response that is manufactured cannot be called love or grace. A community of faith built on fear is false lacking the essential elements of communion, unity, and faith.
Of course, a line must be drawn against unacceptable, destructive conduct. However, if individuals must be compelled by threat or bribed to do the right thing, the cause is already defeated. That’s why Paul said if believers have to go the lengths of suing each other to get what they want, they have lost before they begin (1 Cor. 6:7). If I would have kicked every misbehaving student out of school, I would have forfeited the opportunity to change their minds for the better.
The radical nature of Paul’s appeal to Philemon to voluntarily accept Onesimus as a brother is underscored by the fact that under Roman law, Onesimus’ life was Philemon’s property. Philemon could legally order Onesimus to do anything Philemon wanted and punish Onesimus unto death for disobedience.
By offering Philemon the opportunity to forgive and accept Onesimus as an equal, Paul was modeling the freedom and gratitude inherent in the new life God had gifted to all three men in Christ Jesus. Christ was calling Philemon beyond mere belief by assent (orthodoxy) to a deeper conversion of practice (orthopraxy). This would mean Philemon would have to confront head-on a challenge that eventually breaks the heart of every person in authority, including, but not limited to, parents, spouses, siblings, employers, pastors and healers — the challenge to give up our “rights” to the person in our charge and to recognize them as gifts over which no ownership can be humanly asserted.
This conversion of belief to practice is the true sign of a life birthed in Christ and breathed by the Holy Spirit. In the spiritual classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan has the character Faithful explain to Talkative, to whom faith is talk, that the working of grace in our lives is confirmed by two things: an experiential confession of faith and “a life answerable to that confession” (E. Glenn Hinson, in Weavings, [Vol. X VIII, No. 3: May/June 2003], p. 31, quoting John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress [London: J.M. Dent & Sons; New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1907], p. 840. It was to live a life worthy of the Christ of his belief, that Paul was now inviting Philemon.
Each of us is invited to the same life. It is thirty-five years since I sought to force those miscreant college students to the choice of “my way or the highway.” I have acquired the authority of gray hair, experience, reputation and trust, instead of only title. Authority has proved to me to be, as I think it was to Paul, more of a temptation than a prize.
I now know what Henry Nouwen was talking about when he wrote: “What makes the temptation of power so irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life…The long painful history of the Church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope our the true saints” (In the Name of Jesus [Crossroad: New York, 1989], p. 59-60).
I don’t know about you, but I am no saint; only a novice at “the hard task of love” for my brothers and sisters. I read Paul’s appeal to Philemon to live fully and freely as a lover not a taskmaster and I am inspired to take grace of Christ out of the locked trophy cabinet of my pretense and put it to the every day use of living in fellowship. I invite you to do the same. There appears to be plenty more grace where that came from.
Next week’s message will discuss how we transform from seekers of the will of God to active participants in living by his will.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8).
Under the mercy of Christ,
Kent
————————–
Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.
————————–
Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.
Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.