Slavery

Last Sunday I preached on the book of Philemon.  Philemon lived in Colosse and had a slave called Onesimus.  One day Onesimus ran away and went to Rome where he eventually met with Paul the apostle, now an old man.  Under Paul’s preaching Onesimus became a Christian.  Paul sent him back to Philemon as a brother in Christ, not a slave.

 We might be very critical of a slave owner but we are usually thinking of the particularly cruel slave trade when people from Africa were transported under horrific conditions to the Americas, many dying in transit.  Slaves in the Roman Empire often had very good conditions to live in and had responsible jobs and food and shelter. However a man’s freedom should always be highly regarded.  When we criticize Philemon for having slaves we forget that most of us are involved in modern day slavery.  The cheap clothes and shoes we buy are made for us by adults and children in sweat shops in foreign lands.  Their wages are a pittance and barely cover their needs.  A while ago a building housing sweat shops collapsed because the owners did not value their workers enough to inspect the building for safety and many died. There are no easy solutions to this problem.  Boycotting the chain stores here might lead to workers being laid off and then they would have no wages at all.  The world is full of terrible injustice and we cannot think about it too deeply for too long, or we would find life unbearable, but it is important to confront these problems and not to take refuge in denial all the time.