The Epistle appointed for today is exactly that:  . . . it’s simply a letter.  It’s a letter that Saint Paul has written with no higher purpose than to ask a favor of a Christian of his acquaintance, by the name of Philemon, who lives in the Asian town of Colossae.  Paul met Philemon in Ephesus when Philemon was in that city with his wife Apphia and their household servants for both business and shopping.  Apphia had heard Paul speaking in the Marketplace, . . . and she was captivated by what he had to say about God’s love and mercy.  She had had her slave boy Onesimus invite Paul to dine with herself and her husband . . . which had led to a visit by Paul to Colossae . . . where Philemon and Apphia both embraced the liberating discipline of the Christian Life.  . . . The happy beginning of Philemon and Apphia’s new life in Christ Jesus was marred by only one thing.  . . . Their household slave Onesimus had disappeared.  . . . He had taken the occasion of Philemon and Apphia’s joy and liberality to slip his moorings and disappear into the night.

    But Onesimus didn’t go far.  He had gone after Paul as that worthy Apostle returned to Ephesus.  . . . No one knew where Onesimus had originally come from.  Apphia had seen him a number of years ago as she happened through the slave market.  He was shivering with fear, covered with scrapes and bruises, and looked utterly miserable.  . . . Apphia bought the child on the spot, explained the expense to Philemon by assuring him that the boy would be useful, named the child Onesimus (which means “useful”), saw to his education and training, and set him to worthwhile service in Philemon’s household.  At the time of Philemon’s conversion Onesimus was at the height of his adolescence.  . . . And that was why he had run away.  Onesimus had heard Paul speaking with great eloquence about being free in Christ . . . and in a flurry of rebellion and righteous indignation; the kind of high dudgeon that only an adolescent can have, . . . Onesimus (privately) repudiated his master and mistress as self-indulgent hypocrites to whom he had no moral obligation and went after Saint Paul to confront him with the fact that he didn’t know what he was talking about, since the Apostle was a Roman citizen and had never been a slave.

    Saint Paul hears Onesimus’ lecture with kindness, . . . feeds him, . . . and then asks him what he plans to do with this freedom about which he is such an expert.  . . . And then it dawns on Onesimus:  . . . he’s now an outlaw:  a run-away slave; . . . Onesimus is in deep doo-doo.  . . . But Paul brings Onesimus under the protection of his missionary “household”, gives him work to do, . . . and has long talks with Onesimus about what enslaves a man or a woman . . . and what makes them free.  . . . After some months Onesimus announces to Paul his desire to make those three outrageously brave Christian renunciations of the world, his own flesh, and the devil . . . and to tenderly and forever embrace Jesus Christ the risen and ascended Lord in Whom he shall put his entire obedience, trust, and love all the days of his life.  . . . And Onesimus is baptized.

    Paul understands that he is legally obligated to return Onesimus to Philemon.  . . . Nonetheless, after Onesimus has been trained in the maturity of the Christian Life . . . Paul, in sending Onesimus back to Philemon, is not returning property to its master, as the law requires; . . . in Christ Jesus, Paul is sending one servant to be reunited to his brother.  And so, Saint Paul writes,

I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment.  . . . I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.  . . . Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother . . .

Philemon and Onesimus share a common life . . . and it’s unaffected by the mere accidents of circumstance, one being rich and the other a slave; . . . that doesn’t define the meaning of the life of either man; . . . the life that Philemon and Onesimus share is that they are both children of God in Christ Jesus, having renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil.  . . . And the reason we read Saint Paul’s Epistle to Philemon every now and then . . . is so that we we might remember that we are brothers and sister to Onesimus and Philemon; . . . that we share with them the very same life they share with one another.

    For quite some time now, it has been fashionable for preachers, particularly urban preachers, to challenge the validity of that assertion, . . . the assertion that we share with Onesimus and Philemon the very same life they share with one another.  This is because it has become fashionable, in some circles, to question the competence of Holy Scripture to have the same authority over the moral life of a twenty-first century person as it had over Onesimus and Apphia and Philemon and Paul.  After all (the argument goes), Holy Scripture was conceived and written in a very dim past among peoples devoid of any scientific enlightenment whatsoever.  This invincible ignorance (the argument continues) shaped a culture whose moral stance in most matters was fearful, ignorant, and cruel.  . . . But, you see, that is all a lie.  It is a lie because God is not a scientific phenomenon.  . . . God exists and is apprehended outside the constraints of science and culture.  And so, for instance, Moses, who was raised up and trained in a culture of multiple gods, . . . could say, after his encounter with the One, True and Living God on Mount Horeb; . . . Moses could say to the children of Israel,

See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.  If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God . . . then you shall live . . . But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you this day, that you shall perish . . .

    Every Easter (and on other occasions) The Book of Common Prayer requires that we recollect and rekindle the profoundly holy and merciful thing that was done when each of us was baptized; . . . and so, The Book of Common Prayer requires that I ask of you, “Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil . . .”; . . . which is the very same evil that Philemon and Apphia and Onesimus renounced when they were baptized.  I ask, “Do you renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil?”, . . . and you say, “I renounce them.”  . . . But what were Philemon and Apphia and Onesimus doing, and what are you doing when you renounce these things?  What is the Church doing when She renounces the world, the flesh, and the devil?  What is “renunciation”?  . . . Well, a Fifth Century monk by the name of John Cassian writes in his “Institutes of Monasticism”,  “Renunciation is nothing but the evidence of the Cross (The Institutes, Book IV, Chapter XXXIV)”, . . . and then he explains that remark by saying “The fear of the Lord is our cross (The Institutes, Book IV, Chapter XXXV).”

    Now, when John Cassian says that “The fear of the Lord is our cross”, he doesn’t mean that the cross gives us cause to be afraid of God.  When the Tradition talks about “fear of the Lord” it means the terror that a reasonably intelligent person must have at the thought of what it’s like to be without God!  Because, you see, who we are is defined . . . not by science . . . but by God.  Or, to put it more precisely, who we are is defined by God particularly as we know Him in Christ Jesus.  And that’s why Jesus says to us,

If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

In other words, none of these things mean anything apart from God!  Fatherhood means nothing apart from God; . . . motherhood means nothing apart from God; … marriage means nothing apart from God; . . . family relationships mean nothing apart from God; . . . and, yes, even ones own life . . . means nothing apart from God.  And it is these things as they exist apart from God that we have renounced at our baptism.  . . . Or, as John Cassian puts it,

as he who is fastened to the wood of the cross no longer considers things present, . . . [but] considers that he is dead . . . sending the thoughts of his heart on before to that place whither he doubts not that he is shortly to come;  so we ought to be dead indeed to all these things … having the eye of our minds fixed there whither we hope each moment that we are soon to pass (The Institutes, Book IV, Chapter XXXV).

In other words, . . . it is the soul of the Christian Life to keep our attention and our intentions fixed upon our heavenly Father in Whom is contained the meaning and purpose of all things; . . . in Whom is contained the meaning and purpose of father and of mother; of wife and of child; of sister and of brother; and, indeed, our very own lives.  . . . Or as Jesus puts it, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me”; . . . whoever does not renounce everything about their life that denies the authority of God, Jesus says, . . . “cannot be my disciple.”  It’s not that they don’t have permission to be a disciple, mind you; . . . it’s just that without the cross . . . without renunciation . . . Christian discipleship is physically and morally impossible.

    There isn’t any record of how things turned out between Philemon and Onesimus.  Although, some fifty years later (when Onesimus would have been about sixty-five or sixty-eight), Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, wrote to the Church at Ephesus praising the Christ-like sanctity of their Bishop, whose name is Onesimus . . . whose name is “Useful”.  . . . May it please God to make of us, who share the same life; . . . who are brothers and sisters to Onesimus and Philemon and to one another; . . . may it please God to make of our own renunciations and fear of the Lord; to make of our own discipleship . . . something useful to God; . . . may it please God to make of our discipleship a light that will sanctify people’s lives by drawing us and them into the arms of Christ.