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Today, as on every Sunday, we come here both to remember the past and to anticipate the future. We gather to celebrate both God's gifts of the past and his promise of hope for the future. And one thing is certain: we must deal with both, with the future as well as the past, with the changing and unknown as well as the known. Today still holds some promise of summer, but we know with certainty that frost, and then snow, are just around the corner. Four years go, Wall Street was flying as high as the flag, but today it's fluttering like a fibrillating heart. And the streets of Baghdad and Moscow and London and Washington and Colorado Springs, like Wall Street and lots of other streets around the world, are anxious with concern for the future. Change, it has been observed, is the only constant in life. "You can never step into the same river twice," said the old philosopher Heraclitus thousands of years ago, because the next time you step into the river it is different water, a different river. Life is like that. Change is neither bad nor good. It just is. The goodness or badness that accompanies change depends upon what we make of it. Will we take from it life or death, meaninglessness or meaning, despair or hope? In a lecture at my seminary, Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, provided a view on change that I have never forgotten. It was in a lecture on transfiguration. "Transfiguration," he said, "is that which takes place when a person's present situation is brought into a larger context, so that his life, and the situation in which he finds himself, take on new meaning." And that is what St. Paul offered his friend Philemon - transfiguration, a larger context to consider, a new meaning for life and death - if he would accept it. You heard the story. One of Philemon's slaves, a man named Onesimus, had run away, which was an offense punishable by death. If Philemon ever caught Onesimus, he had the legal right to brand him, to mistreat him, to work him to death. Literally. Even to crucify him. Literally. Well, somehow the slave Onesimus found his way to Rome, where he became a Christian and spent much time with Paul. Onesimus worked for Paul, so he was useful to him, which is what his name, Onesimus, meant: useful. But with the letter we heard this morning in Onesimus's pocket, Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon, asking Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a disobedient fugitive slave, but as a brother in Christ. Why did Paul do this? Why did he take such a risk with Onesimus's useful life? Why didn't Paul simply use his authority as an apostle to order Onesimus to set Onesimus free? Or why didn't Paul simply keep Onesimus with him in Rome, which it seems both he and Onesimus would have been happy enough to do? Paul didn't handle Onesimus's situation like that because the context of life, for both Onesimus and Philemon, had changed, and because Paul wanted to give Philemon a chance to consider what the new context meant for Philemon's life, so that Philemon might find new meaning in his own life and might, of his own free will might, provide Onesimus with new hope for the future as well. Paul had once lived in Philemon's world, a world of slave and free. He knew the world of Roman law, and he knew how bound to that world Philemon might be. It was a world in which distinctions between Jew and Gentile, between men and women, between slave and free, meant a great deal, a world in which the most important decisions and the most favorable benefits were based on those distinctions, decisions and benefits of wealth and property and taxes, of life and death. In the context of Roman law, to allow a slave to run away and not do anything about it carried economic and social consequences as great in that day as allowing Wall Street and the world economy to go down the tubes today. Slavery was a staple of the Roman Empire; three-quarters of the population of the empire were slaves. What would it mean if slaves were allowed simply to run away and not be punished? Onesimus was property, and Philemon, if he ever got his hands on Onesimus again, had a right, even a duty, to see that Onesimus paid for his actions. But Christ had changed everything for Paul, and Paul wanted to share this change with Philemon. Christ had brought a larger context into Paul's consciousness, the context of the love of God for all men and women. This new context led Paul to reconsider everything he had thought important in life up to that point. It had given him a new meaning to live for and, if necessary, to die for. Above all else, the slave, like the Gentile, was now seen by Paul as a child of God for whom Christ had died. Christ, crucified and raised, led Paul to value all without distinction - Gentile as well as Jew, slave as well as free, the poor as well as the rich, the sinner as well as the righteous - because he now saw them as Christ sees them, not as persons all marked up with distinctions of one kind or another, but as brothers and sisters of Christ himself, redeemed children of God. Paul wanted to help Philemon see this new context as well, so Paul writes Philemon to ask him if he's ready to consider the implications of this new context for his own life. Are you ready, Philemon, to stop living as one bound to Roman law and to start living as a man who has been redeemed by Christ? Are you ready to receive Onesimus back, not as your slave, which is your right under the law, but as your beloved brother in Christ, which is your new possibility by the grace of Christ's redeeming love for you? So I write you, Philemon, and send Onesimus back to you, appealing not to your rights, but to your love instead. You have a choice. In the world you live in, Philemon, you have a right to punish Onesimus, even to kill him. And the world would understand and support you, even applaud you. Law and order, and all that. But you also have an opportunity to receive Onesimus back and forgive him as Christ has received you back and forgiven you, an opportunity to live with him as your brother. What does life mean to you, Philemon, Onesimus's life as well as your own? It's your choice. It's your future, your meaning, Philemon. What will you do, choose life or choose death? Not only for yourself, but also for Onesimus. That's what the Cross, Christ crucified and raised, offers all of us - a new and larger context, a change, a different perspective on life - so that our lives and the situations in which we find ourselves might take on new meaning and new hope. "Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple," says Jesus. In our day, the cross has become a symbol of religion. But that's not what it was in Jesus' day. The cross, in the context of Jesus' day, was a sign of death, and to carry one's own cross was to carry the sign of one's own death. That's what it meant for Jesus as he carried his cross up the hill to Calvary, and that's what it meant to the crowds who were listening to Jesus teach in today's Gospel reading. So it's this context that Jesus speaks to us about today, the context of life and death, a context we know something about, a context in which Jesus offers the possibility of change, the possibility of new meaning and hope. Is there any change in life more radical than death? In this year of 2004 alone we have buried several of our own beloved. There is no context, no situation in life, like it. It is the overarching context of every life, because the mortality rate for human beings remains at one hundred per cent. This is the situation we find ourselves in. But it is a context we stow away in the deep corners of life until something - a war on terror or a hostage standoff at a school or the death of a friend - forces it once again into our consciousness. Or until Jesus reminds us of it on Sundays, if the preacher will let him. Or until someone gently, even humorously, reminds us of it, as Russell Baker does in a column he once wrote in the form of diary entries: "Out of bed," began his entry for one day. "Legs working O. K. Not like when they were running the quarter-mile in high school, but good enough to carry the whole structure all the way to the pills." But for how much longer? How much longer will the pills keep death at bay? What good news is possible for those of us in this situation? Can hope be found in a different perspective, in a perspective that puts our human situation, as we ourselves now participate in it, in a larger context that gives it new meaning? For one facing death, you know, euphoria on Wall Street and tranquility on Main Street provide only temporary relief, only remission, not a cure. For one facing death, neither slave nor free, neither Jew nor Gentile, neither male nor female, neither the god of the Dow nor the god of the Nasdaq means a damned thing. In the context of death the only possible good news is change, the change we pray for at every burial: for life "through Jesus Christ our Lord, who rose victorious from the dead, and comforts us with the blessed hope of everlasting life. For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal bodies lie in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens." There is prepared for us, in other words, a new context, resurrection, a transfigured life with its assurance of love and its promise of hope. "No one can be my disciple," says Jesus, "unless he takes up the sign of his own death and follows me. And let's see, if you want to come with me, if it's life you want, it will cost your father, your mother, your wife and children, brothers and sisters, and, oh, yes, you'll have to throw in your own life as well." "That seems an awful lot, doesn't it?" observes Robert Capon. "But isn't 'your whole life' what you'll end up paying anyway," he then asks, "whether you pay it to Jesus or to someone else. Because, in the end, it will be the end for each of us when, in the end, we must let go of mother, father, brother, sister, everything we've got, including Calvin Klein and the BMW. In short, we must let go of life itself." We're talking life and death here. In the end, as Capon reminds us, we are all empty-handed, dead duck losers, whether we take up our cross with Jesus or not. So it isn't a question of whether or not we'll eventually have to pay the piper. It's only a question of which piper we want to pay. The ones that can deliver only death? Or the Lord of the Cross who promises life, transfiguration, a larger context, a change with transfigured meaning and new hope? We can choose which piper we want to pay: life or death. Paul's letter to Philemon reminds us that the context of our life in Christ does not require us to wait until the death of this mortal body to choose life. Paul's question to Philemon is the ultimate stewardship question. Not just a question of what we believe about life after death, but a question as well, for us as it was for Philemon, of the life or the death we choose to begin now. We don't have to wait for the power of the pills to run out in order to choose resurrection and life. As Frederick Buechner says, "We think of eternal life as something that happens when life ends. We would do better to think of it as something that happens when life begins." That's St. Paul's offer to Philemon, and to us today: consider the transfigured meaning, the new hope, of the life we already have, beginning now. It's the ultimate stewardship question. But we're not talking about an hour a week on Sunday when the weather is good and ten per cent after taxes. We're talking about life and death. We're talking about faith. About Jesus' faith, and ours; about Jesus' cross, and ours; about Jesus' hope, and ours. Well, "there's nothing worth dying for," the young man said as he considered his difficult options for the future, which means that in the end, unless that young man experiences a conversion, he faces the unhappy prospect of dying for nothing. And there are no pills that can save him from that. Only faith, and the Cross, can do it. As Capon reminds us, Jesus saves only losers. Jesus came to seek and save only the lost and the losing. And the only people God raises from the dead are dead people. In short, Jesus has come for us, for Philemon and Paul, and for you and me. Because, whether we admit it or not - and how hard it is to admit! - we are all born losers, because we are all born to die. The only question, ultimately, is how and for what? For God? Or for nothing? Many of us here are in excellent shape now: great jobs, wonderful children, splendid retirement benefits, the world at our feet. Can't imagine even heartburn, much less senility. But life isn't done with you yet. Life, this life, will, in the end, cost every one of us everything we've got. And that bad news is, from the faithful perspective of Jesus, very good news, because "everything you've got" just happens to be the exact cost of discipleship, the exact cost of following Jesus into the kingdom and life. Like Philemon, you and I already have everything it takes for Jesus to cut us in on his deal. All it costs is one life, and fortunately one life is exactly what you've got. And the choice is yours. The future is yours. The meaning is yours. The hope is yours. William Willimon tells about an encounter he had when he was chaplain at Duke University that pretty much wraps it all up. The parent of a student came to see him. It was a young woman's father, and he was very upset. "I hold you personally responsible for this!" the man shouted. "Me?" Willimon asked. "Responsible for what?" The father was angry because his formerly graduate-school-bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to chuck it all - "throw it all away" was how the father described it - and go instead to Haiti to do construction work with the Episcopalians. "Isn't that absurd!" barked the father. "A BS degree in mechanical engineering from Duke, offers from graduate programs at MIT, Cal Tech, and Princeton, the prospects of jobs that pay handsomely, and she's going to dig ditches in Haiti." "Well," Willimon replied sarcastically, "I doubt she received much training for that kind of work in the Engineering Department here, but she's a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months." "Look," insisted the father, "this is no laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her in her decision to do this. I hold you personally responsible." "Me? What have I done?" asked Willimon "You? You have filled her head with all that religion stuff, and she likes you. That's why she's doing this foolishness." "Now look, mister," Willimon finally pulled himself up to say, "who is it who introduced her to Jesus? Who is it who had her baptized? You're the one, not me, who promised on her behalf to lead her to know and accept Jesus as her Savior and to follow and obey him as her Lord. You're the one, not me, who promised to teach her to take up her own cross and follow Jesus and to put her Lord above even father and mother and brother and sister. You're the one, not me, who promised to teach her to strive for justice and peace among all people and 'all that religion stuff,' as you put it. And didn't you read her Bible stories when she was a little girl, and take her to church and Sunday School, and let her go on mission trips with the youth group?" "Well, yes, but..." said the father. "Don't 'yes-but' me," said Willimon. "It's your fault, not mine, that she believed all that stuff and has gone and thrown it all away on Jesus. You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me." "Yes," said the father, "but we just wanted her to be a good Episcopalian." "Sorry," said Willimon. "It looks like you messed up and made a disciple." In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |