Today we meet together at Olivet Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth. The service is at 9:45am and will include Holy Communion followed by a time of fellowship.
Worship
Service for September 7, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Look around. What wonders we behold!
P: We see others, gathered here to worship
and praise God.
L: Each person here is a unique, beloved
creation of God.
P: Each person here is given special gifts
and talents by God.
L: Come, let us worship God who has blessed
us so mightily.
P: Let us praise God with our whole hearts,
souls, minds, and spirits. AMEN
Opening Hymn – All People That on Earth Do Dwell #220
4 vs. Blue
Prayer of Confession
Forgiving God, we have messed
up in so many ways. You gave us a
wonderful world, filled with beauty, power, and majesty, and we have ravaged it
- tearing away at its gifts with our own greed and cowardice. We have not treated this world or one another
with compassionate love. We have turned
our backs on situations of need in which we could have been instruments of
help, healing, and peace. We have
neglected service to others and have focused our lives on accumulating things
and status. We have chased after false
gods - greed, power, fame. You are the potter,
O Lord. You fashioned us, but we focused
on developing our flaws rather than working with our strengths. Please forgive us, Lord. Refashion us to be Your people, celebrating Your
love in service to others. For we ask
this in the name of Jesus Christ. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: God’s loving choice for us is peace and
hope. God has fashioned us to be God’s
people.
P: Because
of this we rejoice! For God is with us,
reaching out to heal and care for us. AMEN!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
We are
broken vessels, O God. You have watched
us. You have called to us. You have blessed us and yet we have chosen
our own flawed ways. Throughout the ages
You have sent Your prophets to help us return to You. Some people heeded Your call and turned again
to lives of love and witness. But others
chose not to listen. Please help us tune
our ears and our hearts to You, O God.
Help us seek peace and justice rather than greed and complacency. As we have gathered here this morning to
listen to Your word, to sing praise, to offer our prayers, help us to remember
that You hold us dearly in Your hands.
You cherish our lives and listen to our cries. You respond to our needs. Enable us to place our trust in You totally,
that we may faithfully serve You all of our days.
We pray
this morning for our loved ones, especially…
In this
time of silence we ask that You also hear the prayers of our hearts.
Trusting
in Your loving and healing presence we pray together saying, …Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed by Thy
name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give
us this day our daily bread. Forgive us
our debts as we forgive our debtors. And
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord #441/405
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Jeremiah 18:1-11
Second Scripture Reading – Philemon
1:1-21
Sermon
Philemon
and Onesimus
(based
on the Letter to Philemon)
I was in eighth grade when my school
switched from having a course of study called History to something somewhat
equivalent but not quite the same called Social Studies. In the previous course we had pretty much
studied some of the major world events throughout history and had studied a
significant portion of US history, leading up to and including the Civil
War. But I guess the genius of the age
felt that now we were diverging from strict history to more of a social
structure of that history and therefore, Social Studies.
In my first conscious remembrance of
that course, we began studying slavery as the important catalyst that led to
the Civil War. It was 1977 and the TV
Series, Roots, was just beginning to air and it became a major factor in our
lessons throughout the course. My family
had taken many trips south to Florida over the years and we often stopped at
historical sites. Some of them had been
the plantation homes of the deep south and I remembered quite a lot of history
about those homes and the living conditions of slaves that worked the fields in
the south, that served the families in those big houses. Many of the docents and volunteers that
explained the different social structures of the southern plantations often
downplayed the atrocities that these slaves endured and rather spoke about
slaves being well-treated and how their well-being; food, shelter, clothes, and
education was all paid for by the plantation owners. When Roots hit TV, the dichotomy between what
I’d learned as a young child and what was being shown on TV didn’t make sense
to me.
Ever
since I was young, I had turned to the Bible when life in the real world didn’t
make sense, or I’d turn to the real world when the Bible didn’t make
sense. So, as we watched Roots and
learned about slavery in our Social Studies course, I wondered what the Bible had
to say about slavery.
There was a lot, actually. Even the Hebrews had once been slaves. The Bible, in most of the scripture passages
I could find at 13 years old, treated slavery as if it was just part of
life. That there were always a class of
people that other people owned. The
Bible and stories in the Bible mentioned slaves all the time as being part of a
household’s property. And in various
scripture passages it mentioned how a slave ought to treat his master and how a
master ought to treat his slaves.
If
you look through all of history, the institution of slavery was universal. It was a tradition that nearly everyone grew
up with in nearly every culture since the beginning of time. In our Social Studies class we were learning
that it seemed essential to the social and economic life of nearly every
community, and most cultures throughout history were never troubled much by it. And when you look back through that history,
a slave’s skin color might be of any type – white, black, yellow, brown,
red. It didn’t really seem to
matter. What mattered was, who was the
dominant culture and who was being subjugated.
Our
world has only recently (in less than two hundred years) been rid of slavery,
for the most part. Unfortunately, there
are still pockets around the globe that justify a form of slavery here and
there, and there is still the issue of sex trafficking that continues. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but
in the US, the consequences of those years of slavery are still being
felt. Blacks in the US are still
marginalized, disregarded, have laws that hinder their advancement or make it
more difficult to achieve the same level of success that other races receive in
the US. Systemic racism and generational
wealth are all still very much woven into the fabric of American Culture for the
division between white and black people.
We may see some of that shift slightly, but only because we have a new
target. Again, history is replete with
one dominating culture subjugating another culture. For us, that new subjugated culture is
Hispanic immigrants to the US.
Back
to 8th grade, in our textbook there was a sidebar that included a
copy of a public notice printed on paper and distributed to the local community
about a runaway slave. It read like a
notice about a runaway, disobedient dog.
And the chapter in the textbook justified slavery from that period
because African Slaves were not really human, but were rather a subhuman
species. The textbook read that Science
and the Bible both proved this to be true.
As we watched Roots and talked about slavery in our classroom, we had
already learned that most of the black people in our community could trace
their roots back to those African Slaves.
I looked around the room when we read this part of the textbook. I looked at Alfie, my friend since 2nd
grade. I looked at Christine, who lived
on the same street I did just closer to town.
I looked at Janelle, who I’d always had a slight crush on and thought
that these black friends of mine were not a subhuman species. What did they feel and think when they read
that about themselves, their ancestors? That
at one time in our history, they were considered subhuman. Just the thought of that bothered me. They were just as smart as I was; Alfie, probably
even smarter than me.
Again,
I turned to the Bible. The textbook said
that even the Bible proved this to be true.
Yes, stories in the Bible were replete with references to slaves. But were Black people subhuman? There was no reference to such a claim and
the treatment we were seeing on TV of African slaves was horrible.
If
there was ever a time in history for God to single out a practice so abhorrent
to us now regarding slavery, you would have thought that when Jesus arrived on
the scene he would have said something against slavery. Does he?
I looked. There was nothing. In fact, Jesus talks about slavery quite
often in his parables. Many of his
stories feature slaves who have done both good and bad things. But does Jesus ever, even once, say that
slavery, itself, was a bad thing?
Nope. Not even a hint of it.
Do
you know who does? Paul – twice. Paul doesn’t actually make any direct
reference to the abolition of slavery, but in Galatians 3:28, he says “There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither
male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Meaning that in the eyes of God, we are all
equals. Paul does something similar in
the Letter to Philemon that we read this morning. Onesimus was a runaway slave, who was owned by
Philemon. He ran away and lived with Paul, and according to the letter,
ministered to Paul in many ways during Paul’s imprisonment, and was
strengthened in the Christian faith by Paul.
We don’t know if
Onesimus was an indentured servant to Philemon – who owed some kind of debt to
the man, and thus sold himself into servanthood to pay off the debt for himself
or his family. We don’t know if Onesimus was sold into slavery, as
many were in the Roman world – especially because they were of a different
ethnic background or from a different country.
However, the names: Philemon and Onesimus, would lead us to believe that
they are both of Greek origin.
So, whatever the
case, Onesimus was a slave, and Philemon was his master. And so now, Paul writes to the master about
his slave. Boldly, Paul is sending this
letter to Philemon. And who is the one
delivering the letter? ONESIMUS, THE
“FORMER” SLAVE. Paul acknowledges that
Philemon holds the power over Onesimus, and that “he was useless to you” in the
past – whatever that might mean. But now
is of use to both Paul and Philemon.
Paul asks and
encourages Philemon to receive his former slave Onesimus, not as a slave, but
as a brother in Christ. He says that,
given that Paul is the spiritual Father of Philemon, he could command him to do
this. But he appeals to him, on the
basis of love – not just the love that Paul has for Philemon and for Onesimus,
but the LOVE THAT CHRIST JESUS HAS FOR EACH OF THEM, AND IN FACT ALL OF US.
So here, in this
tiny letter preserved in our Bible is really the only reference that we have that
Christianity does not advocate for slavery.
It is antithetical to God’s nature.
So, Paul uses this relationship to show that God advocates harmony. Unity. Because
of what Christ Jesus has done for all of us.
He has shown us the way of love and the way toward a more perfect civilization. It’s not as blatant as I wish it would be;
striking down the entire nature of slavery and calling it an abomination, but
it is as close as we’re going to get in scripture.
Paul instructs
Philemon – WELCOME HIM AS YOU WOULD WELCOME ME.
Which is really the entire message in this letter. We ought to treat one another as equals, as a
brother or sister. As Christians we need
to work at a more just and equal society.
As sisters and
brothers in the faith, as followers of Jesus Christ, those who have let God
down by our sins, and yet been rescued by the death and resurrection of Christ –
we are called to be servants of each other, showing hospitality, care,
compassion, and love for each other.
And sometimes,
we are also called to seek change in our governmental situation – not for our
own benefit, but for those who are the voiceless and powerless. Remember our edict from the prophets and from
Christ – care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger in your land. Be the voice for the powerless. Serve one another.
If we are ever going
to make a true stand about Christianity to the world, we are going to have to
wake up to the fact that this is a cultural and political statement. That our definition to love everyone as
Christ has loved us is going to upend the world. To see one another as equals, as brothers and
sisters, is making a declaration of independence from our current culture that
is increasingly polarizing to one that looks more like the Kingdom of God. And this is never more true than at the
banquet feast of the Holy Table.
Today, you will
be invited to come to this table and although our table, within these walls, does
not reflect fully the heavenly banquet table of our Lord; if our hearts are a true
reflection of God, if our minds are set on the right things that Christ taught
us, and our spirits in line with the working of the Holy Spirit in our time and
place, then this Table is our beginning.
Thanks be to
God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Generous God, with joy we receive abundant
blessings. Now, also with joy, we
give. By this act of giving, we ask you
to work in us by your Spirit that this might be only the beginning of our
giving. In the days ahead, show us how
we might offer ourselves more fully to you and your ways. AMEN
Communion
Closing Hymn – I Have Decided to Follow Jesus #602 Brown
Benediction –
Let this day
of discipleship be a day of celebration as you go into the world to serve
God. Let the joy and love of the Lord
flood into your hearts and lives today.
Go in peace and joy in all that you do.
AMEN
Postlude
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