Reflection by Frances Flatman on the Readings for September 4th
Most of us like to think we are in control of events and aspects of our lives, and we tend to get upset when things don’t turn out as we would have wished. Events such as an epidemic or a financial crisis, or on an individual scale loss of a job, or illness, can suddenly shake us not simply out of our certainty and secure self image but rock us to the core. How we deal with these breaches in our personal walls of independence and ego will be very significant in shaping us for the future; whether we view these things as disasters or opportunities, and sometimes it’s only retrospectively that we can actually come to terms with such situations. Ancient people, aware of the appalling fragility of human life even among the wealthy, may well have struggled with this dilemma as earthquakes or pandemics or wars smashed their seemingly well ordered worlds to bits. Many in the centuries around Jesus turned to Stoicism as a means to get them through life, with its focus on sustaining a calm way of living come what may.
Our reading from Wisdom, (9:13-18) and a work of the mid 1st Century BCE, purports to be the prayer of Solomon asking God for wisdom as he becomes ruler of Israel. Since that event had taken place some 800 years previously and as we know that Solomon, far from being the wise calm man of this prayer, was in fact an expansionist warrior and known for his vast harem, (and ultimately at his demise the kingdom was divided into the northern Samaria and the southern Judah) we might want to conclude that any notion of his being such a calm sorted man was mere propaganda, harking back to his so called ‘glory-age’.
Paul’s Letter to Philemon (9-10.12-17) gives us a much more down to earth approach of a real situation in which a master discovers what it is like to lose control of a slave. Paul is imprisoned in Ephesus, and somehow during his time in the city had come to know Onesimus the trusted slave and business rep of Philemon a highly respected businessman in Colossae, up the Meander River from Ephesus, who also happened to be a Christian and clearly one of the leaders of the Church there. It appears that as Paul’s movements had become restricted, he had persuaded Onesimus to shelve his duties to his master’s business and work for him and the Church. Since Onesimus was a slave, and therefore the ‘property’ of Philemon, this was theft and a serious criminal offence, as Paul seems to have neglected to consult Philemon beforehand, and the latter was considerably put out. How Paul gets out of the hole he has dug for himself is a masterclass in manipulation, as he deliberately plays off the fact of his own imprisonment for the faith they all share as a radical subversion of ordinary world events. By right, Philemon should have added this offence to the list of Paul’s crimes; Onesimus as a runaway should have been executed and his owner vindicated as a stalwart upholder of Roman property law. But Paul, despite his reduced circumstances, plays them for all they are worth; for he is actually the prisoner of ‘Christ Jesus’, the reason for his arrest, and frequently describes himself as ‘God’s slave’, and therefore himself obligated to a far superior ‘master’. He insists that he has become as a father to Onesimus, described in the Jerusalem Bible as ‘A part of my own self’, or in Greek ‘My bowels’, or the root of emotion and love, since Onesimus is standing in as a surrogate for the ‘beloved’ Philemon in all this work! All one in Christ, and thus holding all things in common Paul points out, Philemon is honour bound to welcome the returnee back, as he would Paul’ himself. Thoroughly routed, Philemon would have to give way with good grace, God the super patron’s needs must come first.
Our Gospel (Luke 14:25-33)is part of Jesus’ great teaching en route for Jerusalem and his passion. Last week we had the last of his three meals with Pharisees, and there are healings and numerous parables about kingdom life. In our Reading today, Jesus speaks of the need for radical conversion of allegiance as his followers face what would often become fatal challenges to their very identities in the service of the cross. He therefore speaks of situations in which converts to the faith might have to face bitter rejection by and of their own families, as we know actually happened in times of persecution of Christians in Carthage, or still does when those of Islamic faith convert to Christianity today. Jesus is really pushing things here, and when we remember that his followers deserted him to a man at the cross, we get some picture of the drama being played out here. But he then alters tack, and relates this required mind-shift to those of considerable wealth, those who might well have thought their status and power would protect them from these really testing times, men like Theophilus, Luke’s patron; and he compares the faith to the building of a tower, or of a king preparing for battle. Just think of the loss of face if you were unable to finish your tower due to a shortage of funds, or if your battle plans failed to consider the size of your opponent’s forces, and you were forced to surrender in utter humiliation! Pictures such as these required even those most protected by their wealth and power to consider a complete change of direction. So Jesus is asking each of us to take on board the actual demands of our faith; for so often we just take it all for granted and don’t ever expect it to become a real challenge which will stretch us to the limits – but it does for Nigerian Christians – the new martyr fields of today, and there is no telling that suddenly similar situations may face us too.
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