"GOOD FOR SOMETHING"

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; Jeremiah 18:1-11; Philemon 1-21

I've always been amazed

at how churches collect things

and hold on to things long beyond their life expectancy.

You never know -

we might need thirty copies of curriculum from 1947

one of these days!

Or, where did that painting come from?

I don't know, but it's always been there

so we'd better leave it alone!

Before you ask how many Presbyterians it takes to change a light bulb,

you'd better find out

who gave that light bulb to the church to start with!

In the first church where I served,

there was this folding chair in the church office,

that always stayed folded up against the wall.

And if someone came in who wanted to use it,

like, to sit in,

and dared to unfold it,

they discovered why it was folded up all along:

the seat was coming out of the bottom of it!

Just to look at that chair in the wrong way

was enough to send it into collapse.

But no, we couldn't throw it out!

So the would-be sitter would fold it back up

and lean it back against the wall,

there to lie in wait for the next victim.

You would think that folding chair

was no use at all

because no one was able to sit in it.

But it must have had some use,

or it wouldn't have been left hanging around the church office.

Maybe it was to hold up the wall where it rested.

But I think its real use

was to provide us all with a laugh!

That chair, these pews, the sanctuary,

the place where you live,

the car that you drive,

the book that you read,

the music you listen to and the Ipod you play it on -

everything has a use.

Everything has some function,

some purpose, some reason for being.

If there is something which has NO function or purpose,

or something which has outlived its function or purpose,

we call it useless,

and we throw it out.

It's "survival of the fittest."

Only those things which continue to fulfill a purpose

get to stick around.

Only the employee who continues to produce gets a paycheck.

Only the student who makes passing grades stays in college.

Only the athlete who fulfills his or her role on the team

gets to do more than warm the bench.

Even to do something -

to fix a car, to make a phone call,

to try and settle an argument -

doing something is considered useful.

All of our scripture readings this morning

are talking about usefulness,

in one way or the other.

The Psalmist says that God had designed each one of us

for God's particular purposes.

Jeremiah says

that if we aren't doing that for which we were designed,

God reserves the right to rework us and reshape us -

not to destroy us or do away with us,

but bring us back into line

with God's good intentions for our lives.

And then there's Philemon.

Philemon was the friend that Paul was writing

in this morning's New Testament reading,

But the person that Paul was writing about

was Philemon's slave Onesimus,

whose name literally meant "useful."

Surely his name was accurate.

A slave or a servant WOULD be a useful thing to have,

to plow fields,

to cook and to clean house or whatever.

But right now, to Philemon,

Onesimus was about as much use

as that busted folding chair.

He was a runaway,

so he wasn't around to do the things that Philemon needed done.

What use was that?

And on top of that,

he had taken money from Philemon

so that he could afford to run away.

That means that Onesimus, old "useful,"

was a thief too.

But a funny thing happened on the way to his freedom.

Onesimus was arrested and thrown in jail,

where he shared a cell with a friend of Philemon's,

someone named Paul.

While they were there,

there wasn't much else for them to do but talk.

Paul told Onesimus that he himself had been incarcerated

because of his faith in Jesus,

and as "luck" would have it,

with Paul's help,

Onesimus became a Christian behind bars.

And in the process,

he became as close and as necessary to Paul

as Paul's own heart.

As far as Paul was concerned,

Onesimus had become useful.

But the usefulness of Onesimus to Paul

had nothing to do with the fact that Onesimus was a slave,

who had very little he could call his own

and was accustomed to doing for others.

No, Onesimus was useful to Paul

because he was now a brother.

He had worth to Paul

because he had worth to Jesus Christ.

Now Philemon, on the other hand, was wealthy.

If he had slaves,

then he most likely had a home and property that required tending.

A church group even met in his home,

which tells us that there was lots of room to spread out.

Philemon was ALSO useful to Paul,

but not because of his wealth or prominence.

Philemon was useful to Paul

because he too was a brother in Christ.

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So, what is our use?

What is it that makes us useful?

Maybe you find your worth

in the fact that you are able to work,

to earn money,

to provide for yourself and maybe for a family.

Or maybe the possessions for which you have worked

make you feel useful:

the house, the garden,

or the extras like the MP3 player or the leaf blower.

Maybe keeping your grades up and your room clean

make you feel useful.

Or perhaps you meet yourself coming

to and from work, school, meetings,

or volunteer boards -

because being busy is what makes you feel useful.

All of that may be true,

but none of that is the bottom line.

If you were told tomorrow

that you would never be able to work again,

if a disaster wiped out all your possessions,

you would still be useful. 

Your usefulness isn't just about how much you make

or how much you do.

Your ultimate usefulness, and mine, and all of ours,

is grounded in our baptisms.

The bottom line of our self-worth

is never found in those things

which will one day outlive their usefulness.

Our usefulness is found

in that which outlives and outshines ALL things:

in the God we profess,

who has found us useful enough to die for us.

In the words of Jeremiah,

our clay may indeed need to be re-worked.

But the Potter is not going to do away with the clay.

Clay that is placed in the Potter's hands

and dampened with the waters of baptism

will always be molded and shaped

into a thing of beauty

that is designed to serve a purpose.

So. If our baptism in Christ Jesus

is the place where we find our ultimate usefulness,

how can we go about living our baptism out?

The first thing that we may decide to do

is to continue being our unique selves:

to continue living where we are, as we are.

Each one of us is unique.

The things that make us different

are part of what it means to be human,

but as brothers and sisters in Christ,

we can assign those differences no value.

In light of God's kingdom,

the slave and prisoner Onesimus

is no better or worse

than the cashier or the teacher

or even the politician!

The blonde is no better than the brunette or the redhead.

The young person is just as valuable as the old.

In spite of all our inherent and undeniable differences,

the cross is the great equalizer between the sexes,

between races and heritages,

even between denominations.

And in most cases,

the most powerful witness to the God we serve

is made in normal, everyday conditions:

by being exactly who we are,

the one whom God knit together

while we were still in the womb.

In order to be useful,

the first thing that we must do

is to carry on

being the carefully-crafted pot that God has designed us to be,

with the particular blend of gifts and shortcomings

that make us who we are.

And then,

we must be intentional about drawing others into our fellowship,

just as we were drawn in.

Not only has our baptism given us our ultimate usefulness,

but also, while it changed nothing,

it has changed everything.

We may choose to continue as we are

in our vocation and in our social circles,

but the way that we relate to others

and are related to them

has been forever changed.

And along with changes in the way we relate

to our brothers and sisters in Christ

will come some necessary changes in our behavior.

And it starts right here.

The late Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

who was himself a prisoner to the Nazis during World War II,

didn't pull any punches. 

He wrote this in his book called The Cost of Discipleship:

"To allow a baptized brother [or sister]

to take part in the worship of the church,

but to refuse to have anything to do with [them] in everyday life,

is to subject [them] to abuse and contempt?

And if we grant the baptized brother [or sister ]

the right to the gifts of salvation,

but refuse [them] the gifts necessary to earthly life,

or knowingly leave [them] in material need and distress,

we are holding up the gifts of salvation to ridicule

and behaving as liars."

We cannot afford to live in such a way.

We must not only constantly draw others into our fellowship.

We must also stay in fellowship

with our brothers and sisters in this very room.

If we cannot, if we do not,

nothing that we say or do

will ring true for those we wish to include.

It's that simple.

Not only are "those people" out there useful to Christ,

but each one of us is useful to each other, too.

We have to do more than give lip service to that;

we have to live it out.

The best way to live it out?

The way that Paul did.

When he wrote to Philemon,

he used not one drop of anger and not one ounce of force.

He even left the final decision about Onesimus to Philemon.

All Paul did was simply to love Philemon,

and to appeal to that which was best and highest in him.

And that brand of love and respect,

straight from the heart of God,

has fueled a revolution that's been going on for two thousand years.

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No one is really sure whatever finally happened to Onesimus.

But some years after Paul wrote this letter,

and when Paul had long since died,

there was ANOTHER saint in jail named Ignatius.

The Bishop ofEphesus

had sent some of his friends to visit Ignatius,

and Ignatius wrote the Bishop to ask

if a couple of them could be allowed to stay.

In his letter,

Ignatius used a lot of the same language

that was used in Paul's letter to Philemon -

almost as if he was trying to remind the bishop of something.

And what was that Bishop's name?

Onesimus.

There's no absolute proof that this Bishop

was one and the same slave boy all grown up.

But if it's true,

then Paul could rejoice that a cellblock conversation

had turned a slave into a church leader.

And that very leader

had become more true to his name, "Useful,"

than Paul would ever know.

And so can you and I.

When you get right down to it,

"Onesimus" is the middle name of us all.

We are all useful,

much more useful than we might ever imagine,

and for none of the reasons we might expect.

We don't have to do one thing to earn our usefulness

or to deserve it,

but there's much that we can do to prove it.

Starting today.

Amen.