Onesimus

Scripture Lesson: Jeremiah 18: 1-11 and Philemon Sermon Title: Onesimus Preached on September 8, 2019 Truthfully, this is just an incredible day. I look forward to this day all year. I love hearing the bagpipes and the drums. I even love wearing this kilt and especially I love seeing the tartans come in. The Tartans are the centerpiece of this annual worship service. By all these tartans you can see that this service is a symbol that names matter and that all families are blessed by God. This Kirkin or “Blessing” of the Tartans tradition emerged at a time when only those families who had pledged themselves to British rule had the right to wear their plaid publicly. Only those who had kneeled to the crown were allowed to wear their kilts or to hear their clan’s name acknowledged. So, when the Church invites every family to come and be recognized in a worship service, it’s a radically defiant thing to do, for the tartans, publicly displayed, loudly proclaim that we all matter, we all stand as equals, and even if the Buchanan’s haven’t paid their taxes to the crown or the Macintoshes have been organizing a rebellion, they still matter to God. Even if some have been rendered invisible to the Monarchy, God sees them. God calls them by name. They are his. The statement made by this service, all the tartans that processed in and the clans they represent, proclaim the truth that all families matter, all people matter to God. And that word “all” applies even those who don’t have a tartan to hold up. There’s no Evans tartan. Not an official one anyway. That’s OK. I’m not upset about it. I don’t feel ignored. As the Senior Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, GA, I don’t feel ignored basically ever. I was at dinner with two leaders of our church. We ordered drinks, and I ordered something fancy from the bar. I didn’t know how fancy it was, until the waiter brought it out on a tray, with a glass dome over it filled with hickory smoke. As the waiter made his way over to our table, grandly removing the dome, everyone in the restaurant was looking at me, and that’s when Jessi Allers, our youth ministry consultant says to Tom Clarke, “Like he doesn’t get enough attention already!” That’s true. Last Thursday I walked our daughter Lily across the street to drop her off at school. On my way back to the car there was a fair amount of traffic. A lot of parents were dropping off their kids, then rushing to work or to run errands. I was just standing there waiting when one woman stopped her car and waved her hand toward me and bowed her head like I was the King. I smiled and waved, but what came to me in this moment was a memory from my commute to the church last Monday morning. I was crossing the Harris Hines Bridge and I heard a whistle blow. The woman in the cross walk, right over there on Kennesaw Avenue is so used to cars ignoring her as she crosses the road that she’s taken to wearing a whistle around her neck that she blows at people who don’t stop for her. This is something that she has to do for her own safety, even in the cross walk. Indeed, I heard her blow it and saw a car narrowly pass her by. This morning, while so many families have been named and recognized by their tartans, we can’t forget that in this world, some are still fighting to be seen. Take Onesimus for example. Our Second Scripture Lesson for today was an entire book of the Bible. It’s just one chapter, a short letter written by Paul the Apostle to Philemon, a slave owner who hosted a church in his home, regarding his slave Onesimus, who, according to the law of the land was Philemon’s property, but Paul calls Philemon to remember that by the new order established by Jesus Christ, Onesimus is also his brother. Paul names Onesimus and defends him in this letter but consider the ways of the world. Imagine those many dinner parties when the guests treated him like a fixture of the dining room. How many people walked by him without greeting him as a fellow human being? To what extent did his owner treat him like a piece of his property, and when he ran away, was Philemon more concerned with the wellbeing of his brother or the investment he’d just lost? By calling him brother Paul calls all of us to a level of equality still needed in this world, but by simply naming him in this letter, the Apostle Paul has already done something radical, for how many names have been forgotten? Last Sunday I read an article by the great Judy Elliott who remembered a man named Antoine who discovered and propagated what became known as the “Centennial” pecan. Celebrated at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, held in Philadelphia. This new variety was praised for size and sweetness, yet horticultural tomes never mention the one who discovered it by name. Why? Because racism has rendered some invisible. The same story is retold when it comes to the greatest of hymns, “Amazing Grace,” which we’ll sing to end this worship service. We know John Newton wrote the words, but today historians speculate that the tune was one he heard slaves sing for comfort in the belly of the slave ships which he captained. We’ve forgotten their names and so many others. Our nation’s history is not always unlike the section of the cemetery where generations of men and women are only represented by one marker, not granted a stone bearing their name. Meanwhile, Paul remembers the name Onesimus. “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me” he wrote to Philemon and urges that he might welcome him “back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother.” Here we are, so close to the 400th anniversary of the date when the first slaves were brought to this country, and yet some figures are still hidden. Nearly 300 years after the words were written, “All men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, we have yet to live up to our ideals. And we must continue to rise to them, that like clay in the potter’s hand, rooted in who we have been, we might be continually “reworked into another vessel;” a more perfect vessel. Today, as we celebrate tradition, history, heritage, roots, looking back on the past let us celebrate what is good: the tartans, the bag pipes, the kilts, but can we leave the haggis behind? Considering history, we don’t need to be confined to all of what once was, for reshaped by the Gospel we can become who Christ intends us to be. We must leave behind blindness to our brother, for still in our world, some are called doctor and others patient. A good friend of mine, Dr. Jim Goodlet, told me that “patient” is the perfect word, because that’s what’s required, profound patience as you wait in the waiting room, wait for test results, wait to hear if the cancer’s really gone. Maybe you saw the comic strip last Thursday. The doctor asked, “How are you sleeping?” Crankshaft responded, “I’m sleeping great Doc. I just dozed off for about two hours in your waiting room.” That may just be the way that it is, but have you ever had a doctor who saw you as a person? Isn’t that just as healing as whatever medicine she prescribed? See your brother then. That’s what Paul writes to Philemon. He’s calling on him to see Onesimus as his brother, and he’s calling on us to see each other with that same clarity of vision. This past week a Marietta man faced felony charges after police say he purposely struck the driver of a garbage truck with his car after spitting in his face. Are we not all worth stopping for? Are we not all deserving of respect? That’s what this worship service I all about. These Tartans are not unlike those great placards carried by the striking Memphis sanitation workers. They said so simply: “I am a man.” That’s what this worship service is about. Yes, you are. All of you are. And God sees you, we see you. In this place you can hold your head up high with your humanity intact. You matter here, and that’s regardless of what you do for a living or the color of your skin. That’s regardless of the amount of money in your pocket book and the birthdate on your driver’s license. That’s regardless of who you love. That’s regardless of how you sing. That’s regardless of the test results or the labels the world puts on you. Raise your head up high as we’ve raised up the Tartans, because you matter. You matter to God. The road to a better future may be potholed with the indifference of the past but it can be repaved by our empathy. Like clay in the hands of the potter, be reshaped by the Gospel today. Recognize your worthy and the worth of your brother, your sister, your own flesh, there before you. And let us all look forward to the moment when we will arise at the sound of God calling our name. He knows it too, for we all matter to Him. Thanks be to God. Amen.