Philemon

Philemon is honestly one of those books that I have to seriously ask the question: What made the early Christians endeared to this letter? If they weren't we'd never have it as one of our New Testament documents. If I was Philemon I have to wonder how this letter even became public knowledge to the Colossi church since it was a personal letter to him from Paul. I know that today if I have a dispute with someone I have a hard time making it public for all to see how silly me and my retractors are behaving. The only time we hear about disputes between people today is usually when it politically benefits the person telling the tale. We see this all the time in the public arena of politics, especially around election times. Candidates will trot out in front of the media to tell all the faults of their opponents in order to sway the public in their favor. We do the same thing only in more childish ways. The way I see it at least the politicians are being honest about their motives: they want you to vote for them. We on the other hand are usually bent on some personal vendetta to destroy someone. We get our feelings hurt because we don't see eye to eye on the way communion should be run or what the preacher should be saying or what we should do with our money and decide the only solution is that if there are no detractors then there are no disputes meaning a high body count in the process and the most important part: you get your way. It seems that when Paul sends his correspondence to Philemon that he is writing a letter of recommendation for Onisimus. It's as if Paul writes to Philemon knowing he has maliciously spoken ill of Onisimus. Since the Church there was meeting in Philemons home it would have been fairly obvious that Onisimus was no longer serving there and obviously church members would be asking "where is your slave Onisimus?" (church folk love good gossip in case you didn't know...). Funny thing when I'm in an awkward situation like that and the other person isn't there to defend themselves, the story of what happened doesn't always fall in their favor. I'm usually the hero with moral superiority and they are the evil nemesis that I defeated, thus their absence. We can't be certain this is the case but we do know our own human nature and when Paul writes he writes contrary to our nature in this exact situation. He tells Philemon, " I could demand your behavior based on my authority but instead I appeal to you on the basis of love". Paul doesn't demand forgiveness, grace or even an apology from anyone. He asks for love and acceptance, not just from Philemon but the entire church when he asks him to accept Onisimus as a brother. Heres the rub, imagine telling all of your friends how awful and horrible a person is because of a litany of reasons that you have previously elaborated on and then after they are all on your side, sitting in your corner ready to blacklist this person for eternity, you turn and say we need to welcome that person back with open arms and tell them we love them and are so happy they are part of the body of Christ. Ouch! I have several names on my list that I couldn't even imagine having to go through this process for. Isn't that who we are though? Gods vessel of reconciliation? This is where I believe the Church became endeared to this letter. I whole heartedly believe that this was for the Church of the time a modern day prodigal son who returned home. Paul mentions in Colossians how famous the word of their faith has become to other churches. This story of unity and love would have spread like wildfire. I can see other churches taking this letter and telling the tale of Onisimus and Philemon and wanting to have that happen for their church family. "How do we do it?", well what did Paul say to do? Lets see that letter! Imagine if our churches today began taking Paul's word and applying it in a counter cultural way today like he asks for in Philemon. We may not get to win and our church may not end up looking just like we think it ought to but at least we'd be doing it together.