Hope in the Time of Corona

In yesterday’s second reading, we encountered Onesimus who has clearly become Paul’s right-hand man. But Onesimus is a different companion to Paul than the co-preachers Barnabas or Silas. We learn that he is an escaped slave. His master, Philemon, Paul had also evangelized and baptized in a very different context.

Paul issues a beautiful appeal on behalf of Onesimus that illustrates a powerful tool Christians have—a powerfully disruptive or, equally, constructive tool. It is the power to see as God sees. Philemon might otherwise consider slavery a social structure that is a given--there is no other way relationships can be in his society at that time. Paul offers a deceptively simple (but not easy) corrective: Look at Onesimus not as your property. Now that he has been baptized, see him as your brother. What a challenge for a slaveowner to accept! Once Paul lays bare the implications for their relationship that baptism manifests, neither man can unsee this vision.