This sermon was preached on the 7th of September 2025, The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie.

Texts:

I was tempted today, perhaps a little earnestly, to change the introduction to the reading from Saint Paul. We didn’t just hear from his letter to Philemon – we heard the whole letter, all four hundred and fifty or so words of it.

It’s a fascinating letter, full of mystery. Unlike the other authentic letters of Paul, this one is written not to the church gathered in a place, but to specific people – primarily Philemon.

But who was Philemon? Well, we don’t know. He was likely a leader in the early church in Colossae. And it seems that he owned at least one person – he owned a man named Onesimus. And that’s shocking isn’t it… and it really ought to be.

Philemon owned Onesimus – and it is wrong to own people. We all know this, in a way that feels instinctive, in this time, in this place. But in the ancient Greco-Roman world, owning people was normal, usual, routine. And so I want to ask you a challenging question.

Why does Paul say, at one point in the letter (v.19), that he is writing in his own hand?

The answer is that Paul wrote with the assistance of scribes. He dictated his correspondence. He was only barely able to write himself.

Preserved in his letter to the Galatians are the words ‘see what big letters I am writing in my own hand!’ And that was like a signature – the scribe handed Paul the scroll, and Paul wrote on it in his own hand, in big goofy letters, because he was barely able to write.

And each time that happened, the scribe who handed him the scroll, almost certainly, was a slave. Scholars tell us this. They tell us also that the correspondence of Saint Paul, and the letters that Paul received from congregations around the Mediterranean… they were written out by, and couriered by, slaves.

Our contemporary culture has become hyper-fixated upon purity. So what are we to do this information? If slavery was essential to the spread of Christianity, if slavery was essential to the spread of the Good News… then was it Good News at all?

“I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.”

… “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.”

Onesimus had become Saint Paul’s own heart.

I said earlier that we don’t know much of the history and context of this letter of Paul. We don’t know where Paul was imprisoned – it might have been Ephesus, it might have been Rome. And we don’t know how he came to meet Onesimus. It’s likely that Onesimus had run away from his owner, away from Philemon, perhaps even away from abuse at the hand of Philemon.

I myself wonder if it was Onesimus himself who served as scribe to Paul, writing out Paul’s plea on his behalf. What a joyful but bittersweet scene that would have been.

But we do know one thing. Saint Paul saw who Onesimus was.

He saw his humanity, he saw his personhood, even when his society fervently wanted him to see Onesimus as less than, as a tool, as a piece of technology, as an apparatus. Saint Paul saw Onesimus, and he loved him.

Thanks be to God! Thanks be to God, for when Saint Paul saw Onesimus, he saw him through the eyes of Jesus Christ.

He saw Onesimus as God sees all of you, all of us. In your beauty, in the fullness of your potential, as you shall be in eternity, the image of God, Holy and Triune, shining forth from your breast, brightly and forever.

And so Saint Paul became, in a way, the Good Samaritan. He embodied that story of Jesus, that tale of Jesus, he lived that parable. Saint Paul, a Roman citizen, a leader of the church, emptied himself of power and authority.

He wrote to the owner of Onesimus, and appealed to him on the basis not of power or authority but of love. He gave no order that Onesimus be freed. He gave no order that Onesimus be restored even into the household of Philemon.

He did far more than that – he declared Onesimus his brother, his son. And he withheld judgement, he withheld judgement of Philemon, instead placing his hope in God. And so he wrote to Philemon: “Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.”

Saint Paul knew that he had seen Onesimus through the eyes of Christ, the eyes of God, Holy and Triune. He knew that the testimony he wrote, the testimony that Onesimus perhaps wrote down on his behalf, was true, was real. Paul knew that he spoke truth eternal and unchanging. And so he knew that Philemon would be moved to free the Onesimus, who he would now understand was his brother… his brother in Christ.

Neither Philemon, nor Onesimus, is ever mentioned again in the Bible. We cannot know for sure what became of either of them. But we can hope and we can trust. I believe that Onesimus was released, that he became the brother of Philemon, the kin of every Christian in Colossae… the kin of us.

How great God is.

Saint Paul never condemned, or rejected, the institution of slavery. And I can’t blame him, or judge him, for that. Slavery was part of his society, woven in, something that had existed when he was born, and which continued to exist after he died.

He couldn’t really see it, he couldn’t really criticise it… and yet. God did give him eyes to see: eyes to see the humanity, the personhood, of Onesimus.

And so, now I ask you – what is it that we cannot see?

Slavery still exists in the world today. That is a horror: a horror which the church must oppose, a horror which the church must and does speak and act against. But what is it that we cannot see today, because it is woven into who we are, woven into our society?

The letter of Philemon gives us an insight into how we are to look, how we are to see. Ask yourself, honestly, when it is that you find yourself viewing other people as something other than people. When is it that you view your fellow people as tools, as objects, as a means of achieving an end?

And then remember: every time you do that, you are sinning. For in turning away from the personhood of another, you are turning away from the image of God that they bear within their heart.

We are called to do a very simple, and yet very difficult thing. With God’s help – just as, precisely as, God helped Saint Paul – we are called to hold always to the personhood of others. Never treat another person as a means to an end.

Love your neighbour as yourself, and so, loving God, shine brightly as a beacon of God’s ever abundant Grace.