Sermon: The Cost of New Life

Texts: Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33

Date: September 9, 2007

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

            I keep trying to imagine Philemon’s reaction as his runaway slave Onesimus came trembling up the walk clutching Paul’s letter in his sweaty fist.  I bet the owner grabbed that slave by the ear, twisted him around, barked at him: “Have you any idea how much trouble you have caused me by disappearing in the middle of the grape harvest, you wretch!  Have you any idea how much I have spent on slave-catchers trying to track you down!”  Onesimus, wincing, waved the letter in Philemon’s face.  “What is this, you good-for-nothing dog?” Philemon growled.  And he reads it.

            What do you suppose Philemon felt at that moment?  I feel for the guy.  You have to set aside, for the moment, your conviction that owning slaves is wrong and Philemon should have known that, because slave ownership was as normal in those days as dog ownership is in these days.  So if you had mentally put a black hat on Philemon the bad guy, take it back off.  Philemon was an upstanding citizen whose local church met in his living room.  I’ve tried to put myself in his shoes, and while I don’t have slaves, I’m imagining that owning a slave would have been an investment similar, maybe, to owning a pretty nice car. 

What if I had a teenaged neighbour who hot-wired my Passat station wagon and drove it off to California, and what if he wound up staying in some pastor’s house and became a Christian?  And what if that pastor wrote a letter that the teen delivered when he drove my car back up my driveway, telling me that this kid had turned over a new leaf, and that I ought to forgive him, and treat him like a son?  And furthermore, that I ought to give him my car, because he needed it to go back to California where he was going to join a mission that assists migrant farm workers?  What would I do? What would you do?

I might decide to do the right thing.  That is, I call the cops, have the kid arrested, and send him through the juvenile justice system so that he will learn a valuable lesson about living according to the law of the land.  I will put my Passat—which I spent $18,000 dollars on!—safely back in my garage and start using it for what it was meant for, driving to church and hauling my recycling to the dump.  That’s what a person in my position has every right to do, don’t you agree? 

Or, I might decide to do what is right.  Forgive the young man, kiss him on his greasy pierced eyebrow, say no more about the crime, feed him dinner, put him up for the night, give him the title to my car, and send him off the next day with some gas money, telling him to be sure and write to let me know how his work among the migrant farm labourers is going.  And I’m guessing that if this were my course of action, I would be a laughingstock on Bainbridge Island.  Am I right?

My scenario with my imaginary thieving teenager offers a dilemma that is not right vs. wrong so much as it is right vs. right according to two different sets of values.  Same thing with Philemon.  He would be perfectly within his rights to have Onesimus whipped within and inch of his life and put him back to the work he was meant to do as soon as possible.  Not only was Onesimus well below him on the social scale, he probably represented a significant capital expenditure—18,000 drachmas or whatever.  But in the brand-new Christian faith community, he was being challenged to treat him as a brother instead of a slave.  Paul hinted heavily that he should set him free, and return him to Paul who could use him to support his missionary work.  If he did as Paul wished, he would certainly be a laughingstock among his neighbours; he might even have been accused of fomenting revolution if he casually set his slave free, giving hope to other slaves in the neighbourhood that they, too, could be liberated.  Relating to Onesimus as a brother rather than a slave was going to cost Philemon plenty: it would cost him financially, socially, and personally as he had to set aside his pride and his sense of outraged injury.  Perhaps this was the first time Philemon had to come to grips with how much following Jesus would demand of him.  Which right do you suppose Philemon chose?  The right thing according to his culture’s standards or doing what was right by Jesus?

We don’t know the rest of the story.  Whatever happened to ol’ Onesimus?  We don’t know.  We do know this.  Philemon’s dilemma has played out countless times in countless ways throughout Christian history.   Doing the right thing according to social custom vs. doing what is right in the eyes of Christ—conflicts emerge for thoughtful people of faith over and over again.  If no conflicts ever present themselves, it’s probably time to audit our faith to make sure we haven’t reduced discipleship to a brand of middle-class respectability that is safe and painless, making no costly demands.

One of my e-zines recently included this story.  A while back Will Willimon, Dean of the Chapel down at Duke University, got a call from an upset parent, a VERY upset parent. "I hold you personally responsible for this," he said.  "Me?" Will asked.
           The father was hot, upset because his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to chuck it all ("throw it all away" was the way the father described it) and go do mission work with the Presbyterians in Haiti. "Isn't that absurd!" shouted the father. "A B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Duke and she's going to dig ditches in Haiti."
            "Well, I doubt that she's received much training in the Engineering Department here for that kind of work, but she's probably a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months," Will said.
             "Look," said the father, "this is no laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible," he said.  As the conversation went on, Dr. Willimon pointed out that the well-meaning but obviously unprepared parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling. THEY were the ones who had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, took her to Sunday School, let her go with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship to ski in Vail. Will said, "You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me."
             "But all we ever wanted her to be was a Presbyterian," said the father, meekly. [1]  Hmm.   I’m not trying to poke fun at Presbyterians here.  Fill in “UCC” wherever our sister denomination appeared in that story.  It’s quite possible that all most of us wanted to be when we joined a church family was UCC.  You know: nice, polite, respectable, upstanding citizens.

It seems in the gospel lesson for today that Jesus was attracting a crowd of nice, polite, respectable upstanding citizens who were attracted to Jesus’ charisma and hoped to gain something by following him.  Who knows what that crowd wanted—inspiration, excitement, healing, peace, the fun of being In with the In crowd, It with the It-guy.  Who knows?  Isn’t it fascinating that Jesus seems determined to actually scare a bunch of them off?  He says very pointedly that potential disciples jolly well better count the cost.  He makes it clear than he has to come higher on the priority list than family.  That disciples should expect to carry a cross.  That a disciple could be called upon to give up all their possessions. 

The guy obviously knew nothing about church growth techniques.  Nowadays one of the fashionable phrases in church growth literature is borrowed from computer terminology: “user-friendly.”  Patrick J. Willson writes, “User-friendly religion invites people to church by giving them what they want.  Many churches, [especially in new designs,] are removing Christian symbolism from their sanctuaries.  After all, the cross is so morbid, the pulpit so authoritarian.  The table can stay because it makes a handy place for a flower arrangement…In user-friendly church worship becomes merely one more form of entertainment.”[2]  “Come to church, you’ll feel better for it,” we say.  “You’ll have fun,” we say.  “You’ll make friends.”

“What was that about a cross?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing…”

Behind the scenes in a user-friendly church is a user-friendly God, naturally.  C.S. Lewis, in his book The Problem of Pain describes us this way: “What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter as long as they are contented?’  We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves,’ and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might truly be said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all.’”[3]  That may be what some part of us longs for; but in our wiser moments, we realize that a religion or a God who just “lets us be” is not the way to renewal, to new life.  Martin Luther put it succinctly: “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
            Jesus knew that, even though he had his moments of wishing for a less costly way of obedience to God.  He knew that a person would be required to give up his or her life in order to save it.  To teach his disciples otherwise would have been false.  So he unveils the cross before he arrives in Jerusalem to face the one that has his name on it.  This amounts to more than simply “truth in advertising.”  It is at the heart of the grace-filled new life he offers to relinquish all lesser claims that would interfere with or distract from devotion to God. 

Ruth Rimm has written a commentary on the gospel of Mark that draws on many spiritual traditions in addition to Christianity.  She points out that the idea of relinquishment of the self symbolized by carrying the cross finds an echo in other wisdom traditions as well that invite seekers to suspend the ego because the ego blocks one’s receptivity to the deeper mysteries.  For instance, Sufi mystic Rumi wrote, “If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you.”  Another Sufi poet, Mahmud Shabistari, writes, “When you are free from self, God will show His beauty.”  Yet another Sufi poet, Abd Al-Rahman Jami, puts it this way: “Be the captive of Love in order that you may be truly free—free from coldness and the worship of self.”  Rimm says she has come to believe that picking up the cross does not mean that we are all to be martyrs for Christ.  “It means: seek a better, more spiritually enriching life.  Crucify your doubts and fears…The crucifixion of self is simply the crucifixion of the self you no longer want to be.”[4]

Jennifer loaned me a video of a tribute to singer Leonard Cohen that offered another insight on this wisdom of relinquishment of the self.  Cohen began a Zen Buddhist practice at the feet of a teacher named Roshi during a troubled period in his life.  He studied with this teacher for years, during which time Roshi became a “deep friend.”  He was someone, Cohen said, who really cared about who he was…or, perhaps, deeply didn’t care about who he was.  He deeply didn’t care about who he was, so that who he was began to wither, and the more who he was began to wither, the better he felt. 

I think that may be what Jesus was trying to say to his potential disciples.  That he cared so much for them that he deeply didn’t care for all those traits which had up to that point defined them in the world: their family connections, their possessions, their habits, their professions.  Anything that had been part of their public definition of self up to this point was up for grabs and a radical new life was offered.  He was trying to tell those who would truly listen that the new life he offered was going to require relinquishment of the old life; and following in his footsteps might mean relinquishing even the very life of the body. 

Philemon and Onesimus were faced with a choice about relinquishing what had defined them up to that point—their socially acceptable roles as master and slave, the financial investment that stood between them and their potential relationship as brothers in Christ, their acceptance of the rules and laws of their culture.  They were confronted with the cost of following Jesus in a way they probably hadn’t anticipated when they first said “Yes” to Jesus.  For them, it was not a life and death choice…or was it?  Was it abundant life vs. the numbness of a conventional life and faith that risked nothing?

            You are thoughtful people, so I expect that similar life and death choices come your way regularly.  Abundant life vs. the deadly numbness of convention, respectability, habit—how has this dilemma played out in your life?  How have you responded?  The next time such a dilemma comes your way—perhaps this very day—I invite you to reflect on the Jesus’ invitation to follow.  Since Leonard Cohen’s words intrigue me, I’ll apply them to the way I understand Jesus’ invitation.  Jesus deeply doesn’t care about who you are right now.  He doesn’t care about your beautiful wardrobe, your tastefully decorated home, the successes and failures by which others know you.    He doesn’t care about your title, your position, whether you are popular and well-liked by your peers.  He doesn’t care about the stunning number of times you have messed up, letting yourself and others down. What Jesus cares about is whether you will give yourself completely, heart, soul, mind and body to a love for God and neighbor so intense that what has defined you so far can go up in smoke.   Australian poet David Foster has these lines in his poem “The Fleeing Atlanta”--Listen:

Don’t give everything.

How many times have you heard them say

Don’t give everything.

You would think that they

Had given everything and lost, but hardly

A thing could be further from the truth.

They lost because they did not give everything.

[1] David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, Adapted from William Willimon, Pulpit Resources, September 10, 1995, p. 45.

[2] Willson, Patrick J.  Preaching: Word and Witness Sept. 5, 2004, Vol. 04:5, p. 28

[3] Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain  New York: Macmillan, 1962, p. 40

[4] Rimm, Ruth  The Lost Spiritual World  New York: The Global Renaissance Society, 2007, p. 129