May 10, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Find out what pleases the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect, fear, and a sincerity of heart just as you would obey Christ..” (Ephesians 5.10; Ephesians 6.5)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

There is little doubt in my mind as I read, reread and study the works of Paul that Philemon was written before the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians (that is, the Community of Faith in Jesus as the Christ which was in Ephesus.) It is the inclusion of the word to slaves in the Ephesian letter that counterbalances the word to slave owners, in particular Philemon, which was the thrust of Paul’s letter to the same. It stands well within the context of Paul’s encouragement of all believers to live in community one with another showing love, respect and submission. Such community-mindedness in the faith imaged for all the world the righteous relationship which is called to exist between the Church and Christ before God the Father Almighty. Even in the Letters to the Churches of Rome, Paul speaks of slavery as a worthy place in life because it emulates how we are slaves, bond servants, to Christ and doing His will throughout the world. So there is little doubt for me that there was a double-emphasis to Philemon for Onesimus’ sake. How Philemon would respond to Paul’s spiritual admonition and take Onesimus back into his household speaks in my mind of The Prodigal Son in regard to the Prodigal’s Father, the restoration of Zaccheus into a community of faith to be loved and served by him and the message to the Church which was being added to daily by those who had strayed away from a faith in God and was bound in sin to live out all their days with death and dying. Mulling this over in my mind as the Spirit speaks to me of this singular verse, I have no need to dwell on the identity of slaves and bondservants because in faith we know it is us. What is important for me is not our place as slaves and bondservants to Christ accomplishing the will of God but our service as a community of believers. Paul offers three characteristics to define this service: respect, fear and sincerity of heart.

RESPECT: In Greek, the word used throughout Ephesians is phobeomai. English translations for this word fit visually in the shepherds’ response to the appearance of the Angel of the Lord along with the accompanying heavenly host as they watched their flocks by night on the outskirts of Bethlehem when Jesus was born. They fell to the ground and lay prostrate imagining that such an appearance was of the Lord Almighty Himself. It was not death itself they anticipated. Rather, knowing that angels of the Lord were known to appear to men and women of value and worth to receive a word from God to enact for the people of Israel, they expressed great “respect” while knowing they did not deserve the same. Why not? Because they were lowly shepherds. They themselves were “bond servants” of a sort caring for sheep that were not their own flock. They had a master who entrusted them with the duty and responsibility of shepherding. Mind you, this was not just any flock or flocks of sheep. Those under their care actually belonged to the Temple and, by extension, to the Chief High Priest. They were sheep intended for sacrifice on high holy days especially on Passover (which I believe was the season in which Jesus was born.) So, while these sheep were not their own, they loved them as if they most certainly were. These sheep already knew their voices and the shepherds had already begun to call them by name. So, the in-depth meaning of phobeomai, though translated out as “terrified, awe and being sore afraid” in English, carried the sweeter but more terrifying to some recognition of “authentic love.” Such love was best demonstrated as mutual respect and the collaborative efforts without expectation or reward to accomplish the given task at hand from the true Master, Yahweh Elohim.

FEAR: In Greek, the word used in Ephesians 6.5 and elsewhere, is phobos. You will recognize it as the base understanding for assigning things we are afraid of as “phobias.” You can also see it as the root of the word respect above which is phobeomai. In this sense, Paul connects the words together for extended and intense alignment. But, I have chosen to reflect upon them separately to offer that powerful message of “reverance and awe.” How many of us love doing something because we are afraid of not doing it. We frame our entire thinking from a negative and “fear-driven” perspective of loss, losing and death. Satan introduced this negative connotation in the Garden. If you wonder why I continue to return to that moment in time, it is because that experience was the “genesis” of human failure to grasp God’s design for our lives. Satan tempted Eve, and thus Adam, with the concept that they were missing out on something. They had no “fear of death” because there was no experience of death within their sphere of understanding. What they knew is that it existed as a consequence for doing something God warned them not to do. What it was remained a mystery but that it existed was without question. When we think of this reverent call to live “in fear” let us turn to the wisdom of Solomon who wrote, as we have numbered it, Proverbs 1.7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That kind of “fear” is a call to worship and serve the Lord with gladness, humility, indebtedness, joy and a true sense of liberation that allows one’s God-given purpose to be understood and enacted. All that we do should carry this sense of fear which points us in the positive direction of “Trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding.” (Also, from the Wisdom of Solomon: too bad he lost that sense of fear and respect and became himself the victim of self-importance to make his way for Israel in the world instead of heeding God’s call.)

SINCERITY OF HEART: In Greek, the word used in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and in Ephesians is haplotes. It is a call to humility in and a simplicity for life. We might understand it as without pretense and without extravagance. In a call to “trust in the Lord,” there ought to be a sense of trusting God to provide for all things, but not free as there is no work to be done for it. We do experience such “grace” in the expression of God’s love for us in salvation. We do experience “grace” when others may gift us without expecting anything in return. But haplotes gives us a sense that the work we do is done out of an understanding of not only “doing what is right” but “doing because there is a rightness which comes from doing it.” Without question within the community of faith in Christ, those who are Christians, or as in the designation for the believers in Damascus- “little Christs” or “little ones in Christ,” live in such mutuality of goodness that it indeed “takes a village to raise a community…not just children.” The give and take without extravagance or a pursuit of riches but to ensure that everyone has what is needed gives us a sense of “manna from heaven” as the Hebrews experienced in the wilderness. Jesus calls Himself “the manna from Heaven come down to earth.” (John 6.51) Indeed, the tenor of the Acts 4.21 community was “…and they were all in one accord.” No, not a Honda Accord! But, that they shared from what they had with one another. We get that sense of response to the call of discipleship as the antiphonal reality of the Rich Young Ruler who found it impossible to divest himself of his great wealth which provided for a sufficient worldly future in order to invest in an abundant spiritual kingdom future. What is the measure of one’s heart for Jesus and for one another? Is it not “authentic love”?

So, mighty ones of God, now the call to submission which pleases God extends outward in virtual concentric circles to demonstrate the love of God for all people. The intention is to build that mentality of “right relationship” so that all will see, believe and come to accept Jesus as the Christ as well as the invitation to come and dwell in the midst of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.