Clothing Others in Our Privilege: From Slave to Brother

Did you know that we can give others our privilege? It's true. We can give people the privilege we have so that they might also enjoy it and experience the immense privilege that God is trying to give all of us. Sometimes it is as simple as inviting someone into our home for dinner, to stay the night, or to see something new we have, but not all privileges are like a jacket you can just put on someone’s shoulders. The hard part with less tangible privileges we don’t control is that we don’t know how other people will respond. Because of my colour and gender or maybe a friendship, I can find myself in a situation where I am more trusted. I can then use that to instill trust in someone else who may not be given that privilege. Their moment of decision arises in that they can either extend the trust to this other person or they can retract it. When we give our privilege to another we are trusting them with it and trusting others to respond rightly, though we can’t know for sure. This might be a scary prospect for any number of reasons, but the interesting thing is that God has done this for us. The only reason we have privilege at all is because God has given us His privilege, trusting that we will use it rightly and that others will respond in the same way. As God’s image bearers, we are meant to do the same.

This brings us to our first reading from this little tiny book in the bible called Philemon. This letter from Paul is his shortest by far. As only one chapter with 25 verses, Paul’s letter has one singular purpose and that is to transform a former slave into a brother in Jesus Christ.

I want to give just a brief warning at this point. For understandable reasons, we might have a struggle with talking or hearing about slavery, especially coming from me, a white male. I can’t help that, but it is still important we dig in. We may have struggled in the past with the Bible’s talk about slavery. It is not an easy line, but the Bible has always walked a fine line between recognizing humanity's brokenness in either enslaving others or selling ourselves, and yet amid that brokenness God is always trying to point us towards his ideal.

A small note: slavery has looked different throughout history and households - this is not to redeem slavery, but rather to expand our thinking on the subject. We might immediately think of slavery in the American South and that more recent slave trade, but slavery at times was not that different than our current forms of employment, sometimes it was better in that slaves would have been given the privilege of the house they served in. In older times, there are stories of slaves refusing to be set free, because they know there is more benefit and privilege in staying.

I say this to give us a better sense of what the Bible was speaking into, but also so that we might better understand what it means to serve God and one another. When we serve God, in his household, we exist in a more privileged place then we could ever be outside of it. We serve a whole lot of things, that we too often feel indebted to that don’t give us half the benefit that our service to God does. Our service to God also becomes the ideal though, because even while we are slaves, he transforms us and calls us His children, His hears, His beloved.

This brings us to Paul’s letter to the likely fairly wealthy former slave owner Philemon, whom the letter is named after. Paul had likely brought Philemon to faith in Jesus Christ a while ago and somewhere in the midst of that conversion, Philemon’s life had been changed drastically for the better - maybe healing, maybe community, maybe reconciliation, maybe resurrection, we don’t know - but Paul can say in the end “Philemon, you know you owe me your life”.

Since then, Philemon has kept up a substantial and generous house church that has shared Jesus’ love with others and Paul has been imprisoned for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Somewhere in that ministry, Paul met Onesimus, a former slave of Philemon. Onesimus had also turned to Jesus and was serving and caring for Paul in prison. Paul finds out Onesimus was once a servant of Philemon, but for some reason was considered unuseful.

This is where things start to get interesting, but also complicated, because Paul sends Onesimus back to his former slave owner Philemon, with the express request that Philemon receive him as a brother and not as a slave. This might get our walls up. Wait, Paul, a follower of Jesus, is sending a former slave back to his old owner? That seems bad, but that is not exactly what is happening. Paul is sending Onesimus back, not just to restore their relationship, but to utterly change and transform it. Paul is using all the privilege he has to transform Onesimus from a slave into a brother, into a cherished family member and friend.

Paul once used his privilege with Jesus Christ to save Philemon whatever that looked like. Amazingly, we see that this resulted in Paul gaining even more privilege in his relationship with Philemon. Just notice that for a second, Paul used his privilege to save and transform Philemon the slave owner, which led to Paul having more privilege in that new relationship; this is an amazing reality of giving up privilege for Christ. Now, Paul is using that privileged relationship as a friend, saviour, and teacher and giving it to Philemon’s former servant Onesimus.

There are two scary realities here. The first most obvious one, is Paul can’t be sure what Philemon is going to do with his former slave. Yet, Paul does everything in his power to mitigate that. Paul calls on Philemon to respond out of love for him, out of his continual devotion to Jesus Christ, in response to Onesimus’ care for Paul, in response to Paul’s trust and humility, in response to Onesimus’ newfound purpose and “usefulness” in Jesus Christ. Paul doesn’t stop there, because he calls Philemon to welcome Onesimus as he would welcome Paul. This brought with it a connotation of messenger - or in modern terms, a delegate or emissary - Paul was giving Onesimus his image, making him his representative. Philemon through Onesimus would show that he loves Paul or not. Lastly, Paul says that if Onesimus owes you anything, he will pay it back. When we approach this initial scary reality, we begin to see that Paul is doing something amazing. He is putting everything he has on the line to restore, rebuild, to empower this relationship between two loving Christians.

The second scary reality is maybe less obvious behind the first one and that is that Onesimus may not live up to what Paul is entrusting him with. Onesimus may misuse Paul’s image, he may misuse his new relationship with Philemon, he might degrade the work of Jesus Christ or any number of things. To this, Paul does not do anything to mitigate that. He trusts. He trusts that Onesimus will use this new privilege for the glory of Christ in a new kind of brotherly, familial service. He trusts that if Onesimus falls short, like we all do, that they will find a way through it together, to see God’s redemptive power. Paul trusts God to use the love and fellowship he is trying to create, even while he is in prison.

Here we see in numerous ways that Paul is living according to what Jesus is telling his disciples. If you want to be the greatest, or if you are great, then you must be like a child or a servant to one another. You have probably heard this before, but put it into this context, we can see how far it goes. Paul puts himself under Onesimus so that he might lift him up and serve him. It sounds like that Onesimus and Philemon had already done the same for Paul. Now, Paul is doing everything in his power to create that relationship of mutual service between Onesimus and Philemon all for the glory of Jesus and the unity of God’s people.

This is my last point and it is important. Paul is doing this primarily for Jesus, not just Philemon or Onesimus, though they will both benefit. This primacy of Jesus is important again, because this exact scenario, which is getting close to God’s ideal wouldn’t work in every situation. Paul is being called to this by God, through the love he knows in Jesus, Philemon, and Onesimus. How we are called through Jesus to do this same work of giving our privilege to others will look different and needs to look different. We must trust God to know how and when to do this so that we might join in His Kingdom, glory, and unity. We must remember that God knows better than us or the ones we serve.

Today, we have begun to dig into what God is calling us to do when we give up our privilege and how giving our privilege to another can mean a new kind of privilege and relationship for them too. We don’t just give up our privilege, we can clothe others in it. That is what Jesus came into this world to do, as he gave us his faith, his spirit, his brotherhood, his baptism, his eternal life and so much more. Now, that we have been given so much in Jesus Christ, He appeals to us out of love to do the same for others, to give them our privilege, to restore relationships, to build up, to serve, and to equip others for mutual service of Christ-like love. Through Jesus Christ, we live in a privilege we never deserved, and we can help others to live in that privilege too. AMEN

We can easily look at two people, two nations, and two situations and compare the drastic differences in their privilege. It is important to notice the difference, especially between us and others, because we can often make a difference and I don't just mean through physical means. We can actually clothe others in our privilege in a way that changes their situation and relationships.

This Sunday we walk through Philemon a letter from Paul where he is using his privilege, his relationships, his faith, and his physical means, all with the intent of transforming Onimus, a former slave of Philemon into a brother in Christ. Join me while we explore how we can cloth another in our privilege so that they might enjoy that privilege too.