“To Be Known” based on Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 and…

For
years now, the book of Philemon has tickled my funny bone.  That fact
is now making me squirm.  

It
made me laugh cause I read it from a logical perspective, and I was
amused by the choice of argument style.  I thought it was
manipulative, but brilliant.  From this angle, the line “For this
reason, though I am 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” is potent.  Paul points out his power, steps back from it,
but then adds layers of guilt about his age and his position as a
prisoner to strengthen his claim that what he wants should be given
to him “freely.”

Taken
from a pure logic perspective, it is a strong argument, and indeed
manipulative.

But
I wonder what made me take it from a logic perspective.

Because
when I read it now, it sounds like it is an honest emotional appeal.
The gist is that Paul has come to love and depend on Onesimus.  Paul
would like to have Onesimus with him, but decides that the right
thing to do is let Philemon make his own decision.  It is pretty
clear Paul isn’t enjoying doing the right thing, sending the letter
to Philemon with Onesimus and awaiting the response (hopefully coming
back with Onesimus) is hard.  He doesn’t want to be separated even
that long.

Paul
does the right thing, and he does it while making every appeal he can
to Philemon for the thing he needs.  

Now,
Paul’s request is not small.  Onesimus is a slave belonging to
Philemon, and Paul requests that Philemon free Onesimus, recognize
him as an equal in the Body of Christ, and then send him back to Paul
as a free person to serve the Body of Christ by accompanying Paul as
a companion and equal.

That’s
really living out the line Paul wrote in Galatians.  “There is no
longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no
longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
(3:28)  Paul says that now that Onesimus is in Christ, it doesn’t
make sense for him to be the slave of another person with whom he is
“one in Christ Jesus.”

This
is about as radical of a notion as one could have.  It upends the
entire economic, familial, and societal structure of Paul’s time.  It
is VERY Jesus like.  It is the reasonable extension of Jesus’s
teaching.  It simply disregards the known hierarchies of the world
and replaces them with the bonds of human affection and equality in
the eyes of God.

This
is ignoring everything but the love of God, and appealing on the
basis of that love for things to be different.

And
Paul actually asks for it.  He doesn’t just write about it, doesn’t
just indicate this would be an appropriate way to follow Jesus.  He
asks for it, in real time, because he both believes in it and because
he needs it to be true.

The
emotions and needs behind his request are what make me uncomfortable
with my prior interpretation.  I’ve been working on becoming more
attentive to my own feelings and needs, as well as learning to see
and name other people’s feelings and needs.  I’ve been working on
this for a decade and it makes a difference, but I still have plenty
of work to do.

Maybe
I’ve been in too many manipulative situations where people aren’t
honest about their needs, or I’ve felt backed into the corner, or
disregarded and unheard.  Maybe that’s why I’ve read this as if Paul
was trying to manipulate Philemon.  But right now, it really looks to
me like he is laying all his cards on the table, and yet making his
request one that Philemon gets to decide about.  He asks, he
explains, he offers what he can offer, but he makes space for
Philemon to do what Philemon will do.

He
makes a request of Philemon, not a demand.  Maybe because it seems
like it would be really hard to say no to this request, maybe that’s
why I read it as manipulative.  But Paul asks, and doesn’t demand.
Paul doesn’t use his authority to decree.  He ASKS.  It is almost as
if, despite his role as a church leader, he doesn’t hold himself
above other people of faith.  

You
know, this letter is making me love Paul a little more.

I
love his love for Onesimus, and I love his honesty in really needing
Onesimus with him.  I think I particularly love that last part
because it is so … not stoic.  Paul isn’t sitting in prison saying,
“I’m fine, no worries.”  He is sitting in prison saying, “this
is really much nicer with someone I love around, and I’d like to keep
having that.”  

Now,
maybe you are thinking to yourself, “well, sure, someone who is
confined to PRISON deserves
a little bit of comfort and support.”  If so, thank God!  I’m a
little bit tired of the narrative that people who get confined to
prisons somehow stop being human and stop needing basic human things
like edible food and human connection.

But,
anyway, if you were thinking to yourself that it was OK for Paul to
ask for some comfort in prison in his old age, then I’d invite you to
take the compassion and apply it to yourself.  You, too, have needs,
you too have the right to try to get them met.  Regardless of age or
imprisonment status.

When
I say needs I am saying things that could fall under categories like
autonomy, connection, meaning, peace, physical well-being, and play.
I’m not JUST talking about food, water, and shelter although those
are part of physical well-being.  The other categories are ALSO
universal human needs, ones we ALL have that impact everything about
our lives.

I’m
making the radical claim that in the letter to Philemon, Paul is
showing himself to be a human being with needs, and that reminds us
that we are human beings with needs too.  And we, too, have the right
to find ways to get those needs met.  I think that it may be true
that in our society claiming everyone has needs AND a right to seek
to meet those needs almost as radical as Paul saying that a slave
should be freed because of equality in Christ.

Now,
this brings me around to Psalm 139 which may or may not have made you
a little bit uncomfortable.  Someone asked me in late June what text
is used to claim that the Bible is against abortion, and my reply
was, “Huh, I don’t know.  Cause it isn’t there.  But maybe they use
Psalm 139?”  After all, verse 13 does refer to a human being known
by God even before birth when they say, “For it was you who formed
my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

However,
that doesn’t say what people say it says.  Psalm 139 also talks about
God knowing what we have to say before the words are on our tongues.
The idea that God knows us before we are born is a way of saying that
God us before we even ARE.  

When
I take away the ways Psalm 139 has been misused, I find it rather
comforting.  God knows us, sees us, is with us, AND LOVES us.  God’s
love isn’t some generic thing, nor based on how we preform.  God
knows AND love us as we are.  We have no secrets from God.  

That
is, God knows our feelings and our thoughts, and our needs.  God
doesn’t expect us to be able to pretend away our needs, or push away
our feelings.  God KNOWS them with us, and works with us to get our
needs met and our feelings acknowledged.

God
isn’t asking us to be perfect or stoic, cause God knows what it is
like to be us.  That’s comforting.

Now,
it is possible that some of you are wondering why this matters, and
why I’m making such a huge point about having needs, and it being OK,
and working to get them met.  Because these are not exactly the most
obvious points to make from our scriptures today.  One piece of this
is that discovering that I TOO was a human who also had needs and
that wasn’t WRONG was a pretty big deal to me.  I knew there were
universal human needs, sure, but for a very long time I still though
I was supposed to be exempt from that, and I’d like to help you let
that go too if you hold that idea.

But
also, I think there is a lot of fear around being human and having
needs and being “needy.”  There is a sense that it is weak or bad
or something.  And I think that does a whole lot of damage to the
world and the church.  And I think that if we are going to matter to
each other, if we are going to be a community who loves each other
and helps each other grow, if we are going to matter to the world, if
we are going to be people who meet others where they are – then
we need to get more comfortable with our humanity and our needs.  I
think this is a way TOWARDS God.

To
be specific, I hear in this church profound fear of talking about
conflict.  There is a sense that if we talk about things we’ve
disagreed about, everything may blow up and we will regret it.  

I
believe that if we brush aside our feelings and our needs, if we
pretend away our disagreements, if we sweep our history under the
rug, it will poison us from the inside.  I believe that the hardest
things about being a church are the ways that old conflicts never got
resolved and keep on bringing new hurts, and if we keep on doing that
we won’t be able to keep on functioning.

AND,
here is the good news in all of this.  If we can hold on to our own
needs, and make space for other people’s needs, conflict gets a whole
lot less scary!!  If I have a need for space, ease, and
self-expression while you have a need for connection, and efficacy
and closeness that could lead us to conflict pretty fast, right?
BUT, if instead of blaming me for my need for space or blaming you
for your need for connection we just took those as givens, we could
find some really cool ways to meet both of our needs.  

(Summary:
blame is not useful in conflict nor conflict resolutions, but needs
themselves are fine and can help us find win-wins.)

I
believe in a God of win-wins.  I believe in a God who knows us and
likes us and is at peace with our needs and would like us to be.  I
believe in a God who of equality and equity who has no commitment
whatsoever to the hierarchical systems of any age.  And I believe God
is with us, willing and able to work with us in this community and
this church.  We don’t need to throw our needs to get to God or
connect with each other.  Instead, like Paul, we can acknowledge what
we need and ask each other for help.  May God help us find the
strength to be so vulnerable!  Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

September 4, 2022