{"id":238,"date":"2012-11-15T06:59:30","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T11:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=238"},"modified":"2012-12-18T07:06:41","modified_gmt":"2012-12-18T12:06:41","slug":"accepting-changes-in-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=238","title":{"rendered":"Accepting Changes in Status"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the 32nd<\/sup> \u00a0Week in Ordinary Time<\/h2>\n

Phil 7-20: Luke 17: 20-25<\/h2>\n

By Deacon Larry Brockman<\/h2>\n

It can be very difficult; yes, very difficult indeed for us to accept changes in someone\u2019s status, especially if it turns the social order upside down.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what happened in the story of Philemon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You see, Onesimus was a slave in the Philemon household.\u00a0 Then he escaped; and after that he somehow became a companion to Paul.\u00a0 Converted, and now accepted by Paul as a brother in Christ, Onesimus was sent back to Philemon\u2019s household, and Paul is sending this letter along with him as a sort of credential.\u00a0 Paul is asking Philemon to accept Onesimus as a brother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, as you can just imagine, that is asking a whole lot.\u00a0 An escaped slave would be considered a significant \u201cproperty\u201d loss.\u00a0 So anger, resentment, gall, thoughts of reprisal- all these things probably came to Philemon\u2019s mind; and probably pressure from Philemon\u2019s wife Apphia as well!\u00a0 After all, it would have been Apphia who lost the actual help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now even though Paul has some standing in the community as a founder of the Church there, standing which gives him the right to \u201corder\u201d rather than \u201cask\u201d this favor; Paul is not ordering but asking- asking for Onesimus to be accepted as a brother out of love.\u00a0 Paul is asking for a huge adjustment from Philemon out of the goodness of his heart.\u00a0 And that would be difficult, very difficult.\u00a0 Because he is being challenged to let go of his biases and feelings and personal interests, and to accept everyone, even this renegade, as a brother in Christ without strings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All of us are challenged to do the same, accept our neighbors with respect and love, even when status changes between us, and in some cases, the pecking order even flips. \u00a0\u00a0But this kind of challenge happens all the time doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Someone else gets the promotion at work, maybe someone who worked for you;\u00a0 someone else is chosen as head of the ladies group- maybe even the person you introduced;\u00a0 someone else is chosen as the team captain at school; or even someone you knew from the past who all of a sudden is in a position of authority over you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And why is it so important to accept them as a brother in Christ?\u00a0 Because stature in this world is not where our ultimate happiness or stature lies.\u00a0 That is one of the main points of the Gospel.\u00a0 The Kingdom of God just is- it is among us.\u00a0 And whatever the order of things, we are called to love our neighbor.\u00a0 All will eventually be made known to us.\u00a0 But for now, love is the answer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the 32nd \u00a0Week in Ordinary Time Phil 7-20: Luke 17: 20-25 By Deacon Larry Brockman It can be very difficult; yes, very difficult indeed for us to accept changes in someone\u2019s status, especially if it turns the social order upside down.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what happened in the story of Philemon.   You see, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[164,165],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}