09/07/2025 ~ Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost~ Proper 18 ~ Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33 ~ YOUTUBE VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSor7DkTdqA
VIDEO OF FULL SERVICE: https://vimeo.com/1117495587

A Prisoner for Christ Jesus?

“Grace and peace from Abba, God, and our Savior, Jesus, the Christ.” — Philemon 1:3.

You have heard me say this before. I’m a baseball fan. But I don’t root for any team since my team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, died in 1957. And no, the West Coast version of the Dodgers does not count. (Slight pause.)

Now, back in the mid-50s, my family had a television and the games I saw broadcast from Ebbets Field by Red Barber and Vince Scully were in black and white. Hence, a sensory perception forever seared into my brain is from the first time I went to Ebbets Field to see Robinson, Reese, Furillo, Hodges and Campanella play in person.

I remember holding my Father’s hand as we came up a ramp and out of the shadows into the bright sunlight of the second deck. I was taken aback by the brilliant green of the grass, the clay tones of the infield, the dazzling white and blue of the home team uniforms, the colorful advertising on the outfield walls.

After seeing the reality of all those colors when I looked at a game on a black-and-white television it was disappointing. The experience changed how I thought about what I saw on the screen, even changed how I saw the world. To use a word a youngster would not have used, this changed the paradigm of my understanding. (Slight pause.)

In the essay Defining the Church for Our Time, the Rev. Dr. Peter Schmiechen discusses structures and practices that describe church. The list ranges from worship to sacraments to music to creeds to marriage to fellowship to stewardship to governance.

Then the Rev. Dr. Schmiechen states that we may love all of these practices, all of these structures, but these structures and practices are not the foundation of the church. The true foundation of church is the new life of Christ and the Spirit— the new life of Christ and the Spirit. (Slight pause.)

This is what we hear in the work known as Philemon: “Grace and peace from Abba, God, and our Savior, Jesus, the Christ.” (Slight pause.)

I have often said this. We need to understand New Testament times in order to comprehend what’s being said in the writings of that era. So let’s look at that.

We know Paul was imprisoned several times. But what offense warranted incarceration? There are several levels here but one key is the Jewish understanding of God.

For the Jews God is One. But this is a polytheistic world. The normal understanding of the culture, a paradigm of the time, said there are many gods.

Hence, to say there is one God was a radical proclamation. However, the Romans— polytheistic but devout— saw Judaism as an ancient religion. Therefore, for them the idea of One God was old but it was quaint. So they allowed for it and did not force the Jews to worship their Roman gods.

Another thing we don’t understand today is in New Testament times most people, other than the Jews, thought of Caesar as a divine being, one god among many gods.

Given that, here’s a probable reason Paul is in shackles: treason. After all, Paul proclaims the kin-ship— that’s k-i-n-s-h-i-p— kin-ship, the relationship of God and Jesus and proclaims Jesus lives. Thus, Paul proclaims someone of this era other than Caesar is divine. That’s a treasonous message if there ever was one. (Slight pause.)

I think all these facts should bring us to ask what are the foundations of a church, our church? The reality of God who walks among us is what Paul claims. Given that, the next thing to unpack here is what Paul says about slavery within this ancient context.

In our civilization today, slavery— the owning of another human being— is clearly immoral. But it was not immoral in New Testament times.

However, every commentary today says while Paul is being diplomatic the Apostle addresses the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity. Paul does not directly request that Philemon, a slave holder, set Onesimus, a slave, free. But Paul suggests the ties that bind people together in Christ transforms and changes assumed cultural patterns, current paradigms.

The whole premise of this letter is that Christians live in profound connection to Christ so one’s behavior must reflect that connection. Belonging to God through Christ changes paradigms.

This new paradigm is a totally different way of thinking for this time and place where slavery is a given. The love God shows through Christ says the dignity and the integrity of each person counts, no exceptions. (Slight pause.)

So, what is the foundation of the church? It’s not its structures and practices which too often tend to be simply current paradigms. The first Congregationalists, for instance, did not sing hymns. We do. The foundation of the church is that we are one in Christ.

Schmiechen says in the church we find the new life of Christ and the Spirit. Paul puts it this way (quote): “Grace and peace from Abba, God, and our Savior, Jesus, the Christ.”

In short, we need to strip away the cultural baggage of the Roman Empire in the New Testament writings. Then we need to strip away the cultural baggage of Twenty-first Century society, something which may be even harder to do. At that point we can see our true paradigm: in Christ, through Christ, we are loved by God. (Slight pause.)

When I saw the reality of the colors at Ebbets Field I could never see baseball the same way again. It was a paradigm shift.

We need a paradigm shift in our time. Our relationship with God must not be based on cultural baggage, the cultural baggage of Rome, the baggage of our times or even the cultural baggage of the church. Our paradigm needs to be that our relationship with God is based on the love God offers to each of us and all of us as that love is illuminated for us in Christ. Amen.

09/07/2025
Elijah Kellogg Church, Harpswell, Maine

ENDPIECE— It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Congregational Response and Benediction. This is a précis of what was said: “Just like New Testament times, perhaps our biggest impediment to a relationship with God is the cultural baggage our times imposes on us. Our culture says, for instance, the poor cause their own poverty but the economic system in which we live carries absolutely no culpability in creating poverty. Really? Wow! Then there must be a whole lot of people who really want to live in poverty. They must be lining up to volunteer to live that way. I don’t think so. The idea that the poor cause their own poverty is, my friends, a definition of cultural blindness.”

BENEDICTION: O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our striving for justice and truth, to confront one another in love, and to work together with mutual patience, acceptance and respect. Send us out, sure in Your grace and Your peace with surpasses understanding, to live faithfully. And may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much. May we be so in awe of God, that we are in awe of no one else and nothing else. Amen.