A Hell of a Story (2)

(If you want to see how I revise my older sermons, here's an example. I first preached and posted this on September 26, 2010 when I had just begun the blog. I forgot and did a small revision and update to preach at the jail this morning. I didn't realize I had posted it 15 years ago until just now. So you can just read this version and if you're curious, go back and compare.)

The scriptures referred to are 1 Timothy 6:6-19 and Luke 16:19-31.

When I first discovered podcasts one of my f,avorites was The Tobolowsky Files. It is a series of stories told by Stephen Tobolowsky, one of those actors whose face everyone recognizes even though they don't know his name. He's been in many movies, including Mississippi Burning, Thelma and Louise and Memento. He's also a staple on TV. He's probably best known for playing Ned Ryerson, the insurance salesman who annoys Bill Murray everyday in Groundhog's Day. Tobo, as his friends call him, is a born raconteur with a wealth of stories about both his professional life and his personal life. He has been thrown from a horse and broken his neck, suffered amnesia, had his apartment broken into as he lay medicated and helpless in his bedroom, formed the “Dangerous Animals club” with his boyhood pals, written the film True Stories with David Byrne of the Talking Heads, and chatted with an irrepressible Holocaust survivor at his synagogue. This last person's experiences are the basis for the podcast episode entitled “A Good Day at Auschwitz.” Tobo's stories are funny, sad, nostalgic, mystical, bizarre, dramatic, romantic, heartbreaking and heartwarming. If you just want to hear a good story, google The Tobolowsky Files, go to the website and click on any episode. You will be spellbound.

Besides a compelling plot, one of the keys to making a story memorable is good details. Details can flesh out a story, make it more vivid and more arresting. Jesus was a good storyteller and one of his most memorable tales is today's parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In just two sentences Jesus sets the stage. The rich man wears fine linen and purple, a very expensive dye later reserved only for kings, and he feasts every day. In contrast, the poor man lies at the rich man's gate. He would be satisfied with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. Instead of being covered with fine linen, he is covered with sores. Which the dogs lick. That detail, besides making us go “Ick,” makes us sympathize with Lazarus.

Note that the poor man has a name and the rich man doesn't. Tobo says the worst parts for an actor are those without a name but just a title like “second detective” or “loudmouth executive.” Those characters are never fleshed out. And indeed, Jesus' “rich man” has no distinguishing features or personal characteristics. He is just a generic rich guy, because that is not the point of the story.

The stage is set. It's time to call “Action!” Which in this case is that both men die. Lazarus is carried by the angels to Abraham's side; in other words, heaven. The rich man finds himself in Hades. He sees Lazarus and Abraham far off and asks the father of the faithful to send the poor man with just a drop of water to cool his tongue. But every story needs an obstacle. Abraham says there is an uncrossable chasm between the two places. So the rich man pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers. Abraham replies that they have the writings of Moses and the prophets to tell them how to live. The rich man says that the scriptures won't do them any good, but a man coming back from the dead will impress them. Abraham begs to differ. If the moral arguments of scripture won't move them to turn to God, neither will the miracle of a man returning to life.

There are a couple of things to note here. First, the layout of heaven and hell in the story cannot be taken too literally. Hell is separation from God. But here they are within hailing distance. But if the rich man and Abraham couldn't interact, the story wouldn't work. So the chasm that prevents people from crossing over but allows for conversation should be seen as a plot contrivance. It makes it possible for us to see what the story is really about.

And what it's about is not that the rich automatically go to hell and the poor always go to heaven. The Bible does not condemn gaining wealth if it is done through honest work and if it is used to aid those in need. (Proverbs 19:17, 22:9; Luke 3:11; 1 John 3:17-18; Ephesians 4:28) The man's sin was not being rich but not helping Lazarus. The poor man was lying at the rich man's gates. He couldn't enter or leave his house without stepping over Lazarus. But he couldn't even be bothered to give the man his table scraps or leftovers, much less treat him like a fellow human being. We are commanded to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. (Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:31) The rich man's actions or rather, lack of action are anything but loving. He reserved all the pleasures he could afford for himself. The rich man suffers in the afterlife what he avoided in this life. Lazarus, deprived of all physical and social comfort in this life, is comforted in paradise. So it's not about how much you have but what you do with it. The man isn't condemned for being rich but for being selfish and not even thinking of helping his neighbor.

And the rich man still hasn't learned his lesson because he asks Lazarus to do for him what he didn't do for Lazarus—give him a morsel of mercy, that is, a drop of water. Only when he is told that it is impossible, does the man in Hades think of others. And his concern doesn't go beyond his own family. He asks that Lazarus be sent to warn his brothers. This time Abraham doesn't say that this request is impossible, he merely says that all the warning they need can be found in what Moses and the prophets revealed. And you cannot read the Bible with an open mind without noticing that God expects us to take good care of others, especially those too poor to afford food, water and shelter. The prophets routinely connect bad religion with a lack of concern for the poor and powerless. (Deuteronomy 15:1-11; Isaiah 1:15-17, 58:6-10; Jeremiah 5:26-28, etc) So Abraham is right. If the brothers would only heed the commandments of their own religion, they would avoid the rich man's fate.

Ah, but the man knows his brothers only too well. They won't listen to God's word. They need something more arresting, like a resurrected Lazarus. (And what does it say about the brothers that they also saw Lazarus at the gate often enough to recognize him should he return from the dead?)

But wait! Wouldn't a resurrected Lazarus convince them? Well, if someone you knew came back from the dead and told you to change your ways so you won't go to hell, wouldn't you listen to him? Or would you run to a psychiatrist, terrified that you were going crazy? After all, even the disciples had doubts at first. (Matthew 28:17) When he first appeared to them, they thought the risen Jesus might be a ghost. (Luke 24:36-43) Contrary to popular belief, it was hard for them to get used to something that went against what they previously thought about reality, as well as the beliefs they had grown up with. They thought the Messiah was meant to sit on a throne, not hang on a cross. So it took 40 days of encountering the risen Jesus for the new reality to take hold. (Acts 1:3)

There's another reason why sending Lazarus might not work. True, he might put the fear of hell into the brothers but that's a pretty negative motive to do good. It's like putting a gun to someone's head and saying, “I want you to be a good person.” You may change their outward behavior but not their inner attitude. They would still in fact be acting out of selfishness, in this case, self-preservation.

God is love. (1 John 4:8) He made us in his image. (Genesis 1:27)He wants us to emulate him by loving him and each other. So as Abraham says, if people are not touched by God's word on justice and mercy, they won't be changed by an external event, no matter how spectacular.

But weren't the disciples changed by the resurrection of Jesus? Yes, but only because they had already been touched by his words. When many turned away from Jesus because of his difficult preaching on his body and blood, he asked the twelve if they were going to leave as well. “Lord, to whom shall we go?” they reply. “You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) What the resurrection of Christ did was confirm what they already had begun to believe—that Jesus was the Messiah. And rather than putting fear into them, it took their fears away. If Jesus conquered death, what else was there for them to fear?

The point of Jesus' story of a man who goes to hell is that the existence of hell isn't sufficient to change people. If they don't respond to God's word, to the values it promotes, to the perspective on life it gives, to the just and loving God it reveals, to the good news that Jesus proclaims, then they won't respond any better to miracles or even fear of hell. That's the twist to Jesus' story.

The best stories change the way we look at things. Tobo's episode “A Good Day at Auschwitz” lets the listener see the Holocaust through the eyes of a resourceful man who could find moments of joy even in that hell on earth. In today's parable, we see that heaven and hell are not so much external places but internal states of the spirit. Those who live for themselves alone are cut off from God, the source of love, even in this life, as we see in the rich man's five brothers. They are deaf to the gospel. Wrapped up in themselves, their exile from God is self-imposed. As C.S. Lewis said, the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

Those who love God and others, not just with their lips but with their lives, are already part of the community of God, and both in this life and the next, they can look forward to greater intimacy with God.

Character is destiny, especially if you live forever. The good news is that we can change. If you let the Spirit of God grow you into his image in Christ, then, as you reach out and connect to others, the body of Christ grows and the kingdom of God expands. The kingdom, Jesus said, is among you and within you. (Luke 17:21) Heaven is not where you are going; it is what you are becoming.

Think about it. There is no place you could put someone like Hitler that would not be hell for either him or for others. He carried his hatred and rage and love of destruction with him. By the same token, anywhere Jesus is can be paradise. So the ideal place for him is in your heart, in your mind, in your life.

But don't think that you can keep him to yourself. Nothing can contain Jesus. Hell couldn't. And if you keep your eyes open, you'll see Jesus in the damnedest places, like in the poor, the needy, the sick, the imprisoned and the stranger. (Matthew 25:34-40) If he is in you, then you can't help but reach out to him in others. You just can't stop him from acting like that. He is irrepressible. And thank God for that.

The Heart of a Traveler

My wife and I just binged the Netflix series Travelers. It's a different kind of time travel show. Using historical records, a mysterious director in the future sends the consciousness of volunteers into the bodies of people who are about to die. By using the extra life they have given these bodies, the travelers from the future try to change their past, which is our present. It turns out that in the 21^st century everything went so wrong that the future is hellish, with people living in underground bunkers to protect them from nuclear winter and without any of the foods we have today. Each team of travelers consists of an historian, a medic, an engineer, a tactician and a leader. They follow a list of protocols that are calculated not to cause too many changes other than the big ones that will enable humanity to survive. Of course, this is difficult for them to do and remain unnoticed by the families and friends of the people whose bodies they have taken over. Towards the end of the series, a man who has fallen in love with a traveler asks the team why they don't simply tell the world what is wrong with it and how to fix it. They explain that most of the people in the world know both what is wrong with it and what they should do to fix it. The implication is that people just don't want to make the necessary sacrifices to change the way things are.

There are religions and philosophies which hold that all the problems in the world stem from our ignorance of certain truths. If people just knew the truth, they would change the way they lived. But it doesn't take much reflection to realize that folks don't always react to knowledge that way. When I was in a skid row ministry in college, I thought the key to helping the people we were encountering was to first get them to acknowledge that they were alcoholics. So I was shocked to discover that they readily admitted that they were. But what they took from that knowledge was that their situation was hopeless and so they just leaned into their addiction.

Today most of us now know that our world is heating up because we are burning fossil fuels. We know that nuclear war is a stupid and self-destructive option for anyone to attempt. We know that life expectancy is better than ever because of things like vaccines and modern medicine. We know that huge inequalities in income undermine stable societies. We know that mindlessly following all-powerful rulers leads to authoritarian governments that oppress people. We, like the travelers, are living with the consequences of our past. But we don't want to make the changes necessary to avoid repeating history.

Knowledge is not enough. For instance, putting the Ten Commandments into classrooms will not stop school shootings. The problem isn't that somehow violent people have never learned that the Bible says “Thou shalt not kill.” It's that they don't care. It's that in their hearts they think their feelings of insignificance or anger or despair or self-righteousness are more important than the lives of others. And it doesn't help that “follow your heart” is the message most often expressed in our culture, from self-help books to Disney movies.

In fact you could create an alternate version of the Ten Commandments that express our true values, the ones we don't always say aloud.

It would go something like this: “You are the master of your own life. You shall have no priorities higher than your own desires and comfort.

“You shall make idols out of anything you wish. You shall be free to make gods in your own image. You shall worship and follow your idols no matter how damaging this is for you or other people.

“You shall freely use God's name to justify whatever you want, even if it directly contradicts what God or Jesus explicitly said.

“You shall work continuously without rest and make those under you do likewise. You shall not set aside time to think about and reorient yourself to anything or anyone greater than yourself.

“You shall blame all of your problems on your genetics and upbringing, excusing yourself from making any changes in the way you act and ignoring those who managed to become better people in spite of what they were working with.

“You shall demonize and dehumanize and diminish and even take the lives of those you don't like.

“You shall do whatever you desire sexually, without regard to whether it harms others.

“You shall take whatever you want by whatever means you can get away with.

“You shall not let truth get in the way of what you want to say, even if it harms others.

“You shall not let the fact that what you want belongs to someone else stop you from pursuing it.” (Compare this with Exodus 20:1-17)

The problem in following your heart is that the heart doesn't always want what's good for it or for you, much less what's good for others. As it says in Jeremiah, “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurably sick—who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) As Jesus said, “For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance and foolishness.” (Mark 7:21-22)

This is something the travelers in the TV series come up against. It turns out that other people in the future have lost faith in the director's great plan and have come back to our time to sabotage it and take control for themselves. And when the existence of the travelers comes to the attention of the governments of the present day world, they are distrusted. Some wish to get their hands on the future technology for the benefit of their own governments instead of sharing it with the world. The biggest problem the travelers encounter is not ignorance but human nature, including their own.

Knowledge is good but knowledge alone is not sufficient to solve our problems. Knowledge must be coupled with wisdom, which is about understanding the human heart and understanding what is truly valuable in life. For example, the Nazis had some of the best scientists and some of the best generals of that time. The problem was in the ways they used their knowledge of chemistry and rocketry and warfare. In fact the British called off their plans to assassinate Hitler when they realized that he was overruling his generals and redirecting the scientists' work according to his own desires. He thought he knew better than the experts. The British realized that by letting Hitler continue to direct his country's war effort, he would lose the war. Hitler's evil heart would bring about his own defeat.

But knowledge and wisdom are still not enough. For people to use their knowledge of God and his commandments wisely, they need a change of heart. In Ezekiel, God says of his people, “I will give them one heart and will put a new spirit within them; I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies and I will give them tender hearts, so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.” Ezekiel 11:19-20) Likewise in Jeremiah God speaks of a new covenant in which “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33) Jesus came to inaugurate that new covenant and to give us a new heart and a new Spirit. (Luke 22:20; John 14:15-17)

In this day and age, there is very little in the way of essential knowledge for living that we do not already have. What we lack is the motivation to put that knowledge to use wisely. As a nurse, I have taken care of patients with conditions that they fully understood and I watched them ignore their doctors' orders because it would go against their desires. I have seen patients with emphysema continue to smoke. One even managed to get about 25 feet of tubing for her nasal cannula so she could stand outside her door and smoke while hooked up to the oxygen tank back inside her room. She didn't want to die instantly by blowing herself up while smoking next to the oxygen tank, but apparently she had no objection to killing herself slowly with tobacco. Another patient, a brittle diabetic, was secretly eating sweets his wife brought him, sending his blood sugar soaring. And he was a retired nurse! They knew what would save them but their hearts were not in it.

When a person's physical heart is incurably failing, we call it congestive heart failure. Their heart can no longer do its job properly and so they are slowly dying. It is possible these days to replace it with a donor's heart. Of course the donor must die so that the heart's recipient can live. One way you can think of what Jesus did is that he died so that we might have a change of heart: his heart. He gave his life that we might have life. As Paul put it, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

For a patient to receive a new heart they have to trust a surgeon to cut them open, break their sternum, take out the bad heart and then transplant into them the healthy heart. It is difficult and the patient can expect to have some pain afterwards. They must do physical therapy to regain strength and mobility. They will have to take their medicine so they don't get an infection or reject the heart. And they will also have to change their diet to stay healthy.

To get a change of heart spiritually, we have to trust God to open up our life, get inside us, and change out our corrupt heart for the heart of Jesus. Afterwards we may feel the pain of leaving behind the stuff we desired but which was bad for us. We have to work with his Spirit as he helps us gain spiritual strength and the ability to walk with God. We need to avoid those things that will infect our hearts with unhealthy desires and habits and cause us to reject Jesus' way. So we need to change what we consume mentally and spiritually.

One of the things I hate in TV shows and movies is when the hero wakes up in a hospital bed, rips out his IV, tears off the leads to the heart monitor, gets up and leaves the hospital to get the bad guys. It is very dramatic but it is also unrealistic because anyone in that bad a shape is in no condition to do anything by themselves. (Not to mention the fact that pulling out an IV and not applying a pressure bandage will cause him to bleed profusely. Instead of walking out, he'd most likely pass out and possibly bleed out.)

We cannot radically change our life without help. That's why Jesus gives us his Spirit to comfort, strengthen, guide and encourage us. (John 14:26) The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to trust God, to turn our life around (ie, repent), to pray, to love God and to love other people, including our enemies. The Spirit of God gives us gifts and abilities for us to demonstrate that love. (1 Corinthians 12:4-6; Romans 12:6-8) The Spirit produces in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) We need the Spirit of Christ in us because otherwise we cannot change in the ways we must in order to become new creations in Christ. (Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 5:17)

In the TV show Travelers we see a countdown of the seconds before each person faces death. Then they start to show pain as the new person's consciousness takes over. In real life making a change can be similar. As a nurse I have seen that often people will not make major changes in their lives until it becomes too painful to continue living in the same unhealthy ways. It took a near-fatal heart attack and quintuple bypass surgery for my father-in-law to change his lifestyle, like to stop eating fatty Polish foods and start exercising. It wasn't that he didn't know that he should do those things. But it took the pain of his desperately sick heart to make him realize that he must change or die.

It is wiser, of course, not to wait until the last second to change. After all, every second of this life is a second chance to change what we are doing. At any moment, we can decide to turn from the desires and fears that actually rule our lives and turn to God. We can let him take over and bring us back to the path we should be traveling—back to the One who is the source of healing and forgiveness and growth and love.

A Plus Sign

The scriptures referred to are 1 Corinthians 1:18-24.

I don't know if you've ever seen the gurney on which condemned prisoners undergo lethal injection. It looks like a typical hospital gurney except for two extensions that stick out on either side. Those extensions are there so that the person's arms can be strapped down away from the body and so that those performing the execution have access to the veins on the arms where the IVs are inserted that will deliver the lethal doses of drugs. Now imagine that you saw people walking around with miniature versions of those gurneys hanging around their necks. Some might be realistic but some might be rendered artistically; some might even be made of gold and some might be encrusted in diamonds. You would still think that wearing an instrument of death was really weird.

But essentially that's what the cross is. And it was more brutal than the gurney. Contrary to what you see in movies and art, the condemned man would not carry the entire cross. He would just carry the crossbar, or in Latin, patibulum. The upright would already be in place. It could even be a tree with the branches cut off. The patibulum, weighing about 70 pounds, would be laid across the shoulders of the condemned man (or woman) and tied to their outstretched arms. They would be marched through the streets of the city, with a placard that announced their crime. At the place of execution the condemned were stripped naked. They may also have had their wrists untied and then nailed to the patibulum. They would be lifted onto the upright. It would be just high enough off the ground that the condemned could not stand but would hang by his arms. The feet were then nailed by their heels to the upright. The placard with the charge was hung above the condemned person's head. And then he was left to die, from shock, dehydration and asphyxiation, because it was hard to fully expand your lungs in that position. This could take days. In Jesus' case, he was whipped beforehand by a cat-o-nine-tails with either bones or metal hooks on the ends of the leather strips, shredding his back. So in his case, blood loss would hasten his death. It was meant to be a painful and humiliating way to die to reinforce the idea that Rome was in charge and that this is what you got if you opposed the empire. After the slave revolt led by Spartacus, after the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, after the local rebellion of the Galilean town of Sepphoris when Herod the Great died, the Romans crucified thousands of men. Since Sepphoris was only 4 miles from Nazareth and was being rebuilt by Herod's son during Jesus' boyhood, if Joseph and Jesus looked for work there, they would have passed those crosses every day.

How did such a grisly instrument of torture and death become the symbol of Christianity? Well, it wasn't at first. Christians secretly identified themselves by the symbol of the fish. The Greek word for fish, ichthus, was used as an acronym for Iesus Christos Theos 'Uios Sator or Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior. But by the 2^nd century, Christian were making the sign of the cross on their foreheads. And in fact, Christians were mocked as “adorers of the gibbet.” There is a graffito from the year 200 AD of a young man worshipping a crucified donkey-headed man, with the words “Alexamenos worships his god.” This blasphemous picture, scratched into a plaster wall in Rome, is the earliest depiction of Christ on the cross, his arms stretched out on the patibulum and the placard above his head. By the 4^th century, after the first Christian emperor Constantine outlawed crucifixion, we start to see visual depictions of the empty cross.

But why did the cross come to represent Christianity? Because of its centrality to the faith. As Paul writes in our passage today from 1 Corinthians, “....we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” In his teachings, Jesus turns the values of this world upside down, declaring that the “first shall be last and the last first.” (Mark 10:31) And who is considered the last in society if not someone who was publicly executed in the most shameful and gory way possible?

For many Jews, especially the religious authorities of the time, the idea that a crucified handyman was the Messiah was something they could not accept. The Messiah they wanted was a holy warrior-king, a David 2.0, who would free them from the Romans. What good was a dead Messiah? And indeed had Jesus not risen from the dead, he would not be a useful Messiah. As his critics said mockingly at his crucifixion, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one!” (Luke 23:35) Jesus healed other people and he raised 3 people from the dead that we know of. (Luke 7:11-15; 8:49-56; John 11) If he stayed dead, what would we make of that? But in our earliest book in the New Testament, Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, in the very first chapter he mentions Jesus' resurrection. (1 Thessalonians 1:10) So why didn't the empty tomb become the symbol of Christianity?

Because first Jesus had to die. And his death was not just a fluke or merely the result of running afoul of the authorities. He died for us. (1 Thessalonians 5:10) Specifically, he died for our sins. (1 Corinthians 15:3) As it says in 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you are healed.” And he did it out of love for us. As Paul says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Essentially Jesus went on a suicide mission to save us. He gave his life so that we may live for him and with him forever.

How does that show the power of God, though? You measure a hero by what he overcomes. In fact, one of the reasons they introduced kryptonite into the Superman stories is that he is so powerful, his victories are no more impressive than one of us crushing ants. In the words of one of the comic book's editors, Dorothy Woolfolk, Superman's invulnerability is “boring.” Green kryptonite weakens and can kill Superman. It is his overcoming that in order to save others that makes him a hero.

Death is the final enemy, as Paul puts it. (1 Corinthians 15:26) Most of us would agree. Right now there are billionaires like the founders of Amazon, Google, Paypal and others are trying to figure out ways not to age and ultimately not to die. Bryan Johnson of Braintree is paying experts millions of dollars to help him live forever by creating specialized diets, taking 100 supplements a day, optimizing his sleep, using light and oxygen therapies and basically turning himself into a guinea pig for various controversial medical experiments, such as blood transfusions from his teenage son. There's a documentary about him on Netflix.

Jesus willingly went to his death and defeated death by rising again. His resurrection after being killed for the sins of the world validates his power to forgive sins, just as his healing the paralyzed man lowered through the roof did. (Mark 2:3-12) Jesus can overcome death which is the result of our sins. That's how he is the power of God. That makes him the ultimate hero.

And that's why it's become popular these days for superheroes to die and come back again. They are imitating Jesus. Too bad they aren't imitating the way he lived his life, like turning the other cheek and loving his enemies. But people love displays of physical, political and earthly power, not of the moral power of forgiveness, healing and transformation of lives we see in Jesus.

But how is the crucified Christ the wisdom of God? Earthly wisdom tends to be about how to get what you want and protect yourself from things you don't want to happen to you. In other words, it is about control. We've gotten so good at controlling so many things these days that we don't feel that we need God. We've got it all handled. Until we don't. At any time a disaster can take away our belongings, our home, our loved ones or even our health. In fact, as someone said, being a disabled person is not only something anyone can become at any time, it is something all of us will become if we live long enough. Statistically, most people will suffer a disability for the last 8 years of their life. Knowing that you are not in control of everything can be scary. But it is that fear and the knowledge that God is in control that is the beginning of wisdom.

In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds a character says, “Not believing you're going to die is what gets you killed.” She could almost be thinking of Jesus' parable of the man who has a surplus of goods and figures that from now on he can relax, eat, drink and be merry. “But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded back from you, but who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'” (Luke 12:20) Living only for yourself and your pleasure is not wise but foolish. It is short-term thinking. Jesus teaches us to think really long-term: not just for this life but for the next. If you will cease to exist in a few decades, the kind of person you are becoming is not that important. But if you are going to live forever, whether you are becoming a more heavenly person or a more hellish creature, tormented by regrets you can't get past and grievances you won't forgive, is absolutely vital. The kingdom of heaven is within and in the midst of us. (Luke 17:21) The person you will be for eternity has its roots and beginning in the present. Now is the time to change the trajectory of our life.

Living for the God who loves us enough to die for us and serving him through serving the others for whom he died is wise in the long run. When you die, will you find any comfort in the awards you won, all the video games you played, all the time you spent drunk or drugged, all the trivial pursuits you indulged in? Will you regret all the time you spent thinking about yourself? Or will you instead find meaning in all the time you spent loving and helping others, leaving their lives better for you being there for them? And what do you think you will find more of in the next life—mindless activities and distractions and things that will make you feel worse, or will you find love and meaning and purpose and joy?

The reason Jesus is still changing lives 2000 years after he went to the cross is that people find deep wisdom in what he taught and how he lived. And people find great power in following him, even though it means renouncing themselves, taking up their crosses and following in his way of self-sacrificial love.

Usually when you read about the life of a great person, the last part, the part about their decline and death, is a bummer. Queen Elizabeth 1 was depressed and sat motionless for hours on end, refusing to lie down in bed, where she knew she would die. Having conquered the known world, Alexander the Great suddenly got sick, lost the power of speech and died at age 32. Suffering from dementia, Robin Williams, who made so many people laugh, killed himself. But as awful as Jesus' death was, it does not have that same effect on us. Instead in his last days we see nobility; we see great sacrifice; we see deep love. Jesus' death is what all the gospels, or good news, are inevitably leading up to.

Some people, not believing that Jesus was the Son of God, see his death as the end of the story. And many probably think Christians are ghoulish for wearing the instrument of his death. But as it says in 1 John, “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” And it goes on to say, “Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11) The cross is a symbol of God's love for us. As Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Paul writes, “And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised.” (2 Corinthians 5:15) Ironically Jesus transformed the cross from as symbol of death to a symbol of a life lived without fear of death.

Think of what you could do if you did not fear death. In the movie Groundhog's Day Bill Murray's character, realizing he can't die but will wake up every morning, eventually comes to see this as a great gift and changes from a selfish person to one who helps and saves others. In this life fear of pain and persecution keeps people from sticking their necks out and doing what's right. We let others suffer rather than taking action to help them because we are afraid of suffering. Jesus didn't let the fear of suffering and death stop him from breaking rules to heal others or from speaking the truth to power. If we truly trust in him, we will give up all rights to ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him, knowing he will raise us up on the last day. (John 6:39-40) 

Free At Last

The scriptures referred to are the book of Philemon.

I remember when computers were first introduced into the workplace, in my case, the hospital where I worked in the early 1980s. They had a black screen with green letters and you could order a limited number of supplies or tests by using a lightpen to click boxes. My children remember us getting a computer for the home in the 1990s as a present from my mother. My grandkids have never known a world without computers. They take them for granted. They are considered digital natives.

If you were living throughout most of history you would never know a time when slavery did not exist. It was universal since roughly the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution 11,000 years ago. A person could become a slave to pay off a debt, as punishment for a crime, as a prisoner of war, as a child abandoned by poor parents, or by being born to slaves. It is estimated that in the first century AD approximately 1/3 of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves. As the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says, “Slavery in the Roman Empire was not ethnically based; the Romans were happy to enslave anyone.” And if you lived back then, you would have taken the institution of slavery for granted. (Sadly, it still exists in parts of the world.)

Some forms of slavery were death sentences, like working in the mines or being a gladiator. Some forms of slavery meant a life of hard labor, such as working on a farm. Some forms of slavery were a bit better, such as being a household slave, provided your master did not sexually abuse you. They could do even worse. Your master could have you tortured to extract information from you, have you beaten for disobedience, and even have you killed, especially if you tried to run away or if you stole from him. In fact, he could have you crucified. That form of execution was primarily used as a punishment for those who rebelled against the empire and for slaves.

That's what makes Paul's letter to Philemon such a remarkable document. Philemon was a friend who had been converted to Christianity by Paul. Philemon had a church meet in his house. (There wouldn't be any church buildings until after Christianity was legalized in the early 300s by Constantine.) Paul is writing to Philemon because he had a problem. He had also converted a man named Onesimus, who helped him in his ministry. Then he found out that Onesimus was a runaway slave. In fact he was Philemon's slave and apparently he had stolen money from him. Paul's dilemma is this: According to the Torah, if you found a runaway slave you were not supposed to give him back. Deuteronomy 23:15-16 says, “You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in whichever of your villages he prefers; you must not oppress him.” But Roman law said a runaway slave must be returned. What was Paul to do?

Paul is a prisoner at the time he writes the letter. He may have been in Rome, waiting to plead his case before Nero. So he can't plead Onesimus' case in person. Instead he sends this message in the form of a letter of recommendation. Usually this was sent to someone of equal or lower status, pleading the case of a person of lower rank. The person being recommended was to be treated as a representative of the writer of the letter. But you wouldn't write such a letter about a slave! And Paul is not Philemon's equal or superior, either socially or economically. So Paul reminds him that he is the man who brought Philemon to Christ. Paul is like a spiritual father to him.

As such Paul rather diplomatically asks Philemon to do him a favor. Paul says that he could be “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.” Paul is not above playing the sympathy card. Because Paul has no legal basis for asking Philemon to do what he wants him to do.

Paul continues, “I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.” Paul is calling the slave his son because he has become Onesimus' spiritual father as well. The implications of his saying that will come out a bit later.

Paul writes “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.” Paul is making a play on words here. The name Onesimus means “useful.”

“I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.” Remember, legally Paul has to do this. And notice again the emotional language Paul is using, calling Onesimus “my own heart.”

“I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel...” This is what Paul wants but cannot legally demand. He said earlier he could have commanded Philemon in Christ to do this “but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.” Love asks consent. It may try to persuade but it doesn't force people to do things. That's why Jesus gives us a choice of whether we want to change our minds and lives and follow him.

Paul then wonders if the reason that Onesimus ran away was “so that you may have him back forever, no longer a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” How is Philemon getting Onesimus back forever? As a brother. Here's where Paul being a spiritual father to both Philemon and Onesimus becomes relevant. As Christians, they are now brothers. Paul even includes himself as a brother to both men. Though Paul wants Philemon to send Onesimus back to help in his ministry, they will be brothers forever in Christ.

“So if you consider me your partner...” Paul is using a business term here. Paul is planting churches; Philemon is hosting a church in his house; they are both serving Jesus Christ. Paul continues “...welcome him as you would welcome me.” Philemon is to welcome his own slave as if he were Paul. Paul expects him to treat Onesimus as he would the man who brought him to Christ. This will take humility on Philemon's part.

Paul continues, “If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.” This is why many commentators think that Onesimus stole money from his master. And even if he didn't, slaves cost a lot. They were worth anywhere from hundreds to thousands of what the average person would make in a day. The average cost of a slave was 2000 denarii, or 2000 days' wages. Losing a slave was losing money.

And Paul is not just saying he owes Philemon this debt metaphorically. He goes on and says, “I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it.” By putting it in writing, Paul is making the debt legally his. Philemon could take Paul to court and demand the money.

As an aside, let's note that Paul didn't actually write his letters himself. He dictated them. In some cases we know who actually wrote his words down. (Romans 16:22) In others he includes a sentence written by his own hand to authenticate that it is a letter from him or to send a personal greeting. (1 Corinthians 16:21; Galatians 6:11; Colossians 4:18; 2 Thessalonians 3:17) I think he had ongoing vision problems. (Galatians 4:13-15) But Paul cares enough about Onesimus that he personally writes that he is taking on the slave's debt to his master.

But Paul adds, “I say nothing about you owing me even your own self.” If it hadn't been for Paul, Philemon would not have heard the gospel. Paul may owe Philemon money but Philemon owes Paul his new life in Christ.

Paul then says, “Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord!” Paul is again hinting that he wants Philemon to return Onesimus to him.

“Refresh my heart in Christ.” Paul is again engaging in word play. He called Onesimus “my own heart.” How can Philemon refresh Onesimus?

Paul says, “Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.” What is more than Paul is saying? The most obvious thing is for Philemon to not just refrain from punishing his slave and send him back to Paul but to free Onesimus. Legally Paul cannot demand this but he is basically arguing that Philemon should emancipate his new brother in Christ, so that he is a freeman, who can serve Jesus through continuing his work with Paul.

Paul has been criticized for not calling for the abolition of all slavery. But no one at that time was. The early Stoics did but then toned down their rhetoric on the topic as they became mainstream. The Essenes were for freeing slaves but not because of opposition to the institution. They wanted their monk-like disciples to give up all personal possessions when they came to live in their commune in the desert. They also encouraged their followers to give up their wives. But no one called for slave revolts, which were more common than you'd think and which the Romans viciously put down.

So Paul approached slavery in a different way. For instance, it is interesting how Paul subverted the household codes that were common back then. These were written to elite men on how to run their household. Paul uses these codes of conduct, however, to address not just men but their wives, children and slaves. Yes, he tells wives to submit to their husbands as part of the mutual submission all Christians should do to each other. He also tells husbands that they should love their wives, something no pagan would tell a man was his duty. Moreover they should love their wives like Christ loved the church—enough to die for her! He told children to obey their parents but also told fathers not to exasperate their children, again something unheard of in a culture where a father could legally kill disobedient children. He told slaves to obey their masters but told those masters to treat their slaves well. Specifically he says, “Masters, treat your slaves the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” (Ephesians 5:21- 6:9) Perhaps Paul was thinking of the passage where Job says, “If I denied justice to my male and female slaves when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” (Job 31:13-15) Paul famously wrote “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) And though he told Christians to retain the place in life in which God put them, he did say to slaves that if they could gain their freedom, they should do so. (1 Corinthians 7:21)

In fact, so much of the Bible does not justify slavery that an edited version of the scriptures was created in 1807 for use with slaves. This so-called Slave Bible removed 90% of the Old Testament and more than 50% of the New Testament. It was used by missionaries to convert and educate enslaved peoples and so it omitted all references to freedom and escape from slavery while emphasizing loyalty and submission to masters. You wouldn't be able to find most of the verses in this sermon in it, including the entire letter to Philemon.

What did Philemon do? I don't think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he must have freed Onesimus and sent him to Paul. If not, he would have destroyed the letter, and not shared it with his church and let them make copies to share with other churches around the empire, which is the reason we have it today. As evidence, in Paul's letter to the Colossians he says, about a fellow Christian named Tychicus, “I sent him with Onesimus, the faithful and dear brother, who is one of you.” (Colossians 4:9) Philemon was a member of the church at Colosse.

Perhaps because of the letter to Philemon, Christians became known for freeing their slaves and even making some of them bishops. And Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch who was martyred in Rome, mentioned that in the late first century there was a bishop of Ephesus, the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire, whose name was Onesimus. He said he was the same Onesimus for whom Paul pleaded and to whom Philemon gave freedom and whom he welcomed as a new brother in Christ.