Harvest Festival and the Harvest of our Lives

 Sermon. 7 September 2025. St John the Evangelist’s, Ovington.

Harvest Festival.

Reading: Philemon 1.1-21

 

When was the last time you sat down and read through a whole book of the Bible?...

 

I have some news for you: in a sense, you just did it.

 

This morning’s first reading is the whole of the book of Philemon (there are diverse pronunciations of that word). We heard verses 1-21 of Philemon, but there is no verse zero (of course), and there is no verse 22. What we have is the whole of the book – by which we mean of course the whole of the letter – of Philemon. And by the letter of Philemon we of course mean Paul’s letter to Philemon. Philemon is the recipient; Paul is the writer. (And scholars do tend to agree that this is a letter than genuinely goes back to Paul, by the way.)

 

So, one thing you can harvest today, right away, is a certain satisfaction for having completed a whole book of the Bible. (But just a gentle note, if you ae tempted to move from satisfaction to smugness: there are at least – at least! - another 65 to go.)

 

The letter is short, but profoundly moving. Paul is writing to Philemon, because Philemon’s slave, Onesimus, has run away and ended up with Paul somehow, and Paul wants – no he really, really wants – he really wants Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a slave, but as a friend. So Paul tries to use all he has, to make the argument. He commands; but no, he resists commanding; he pleads; he reminds Philemon that he could command but doesn’t. So Paul is torn, but torn only about how to make the best case for his dear friend, Onesimus.

 

I suggest what we can harvest here is some real insight into Paul, Paul the man. Paul is often thought of as a “cold fish” (and worse than that). Yet here, here he pours he heart out. He does not hide his passionate, warm friendship, both with Philemon and with Onesimus.

 

As is typical, Paul begins with thanksgiving:

“When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love…”

I always thank my God.

What better harvest theme!

It is time to give thanks, it is time for thanksgiving, for, indeed, all good gifts around us, and for hard work by so many to bring us those gifts, and (frankly) for our peace and ease, freeing us to enjoy those gifts.

I always thank my God.

 

I have said it before and I will say it again: if you want the royal road to God, the swiftest road to God, the most direct, it is not hidden; it is the route that comes from thanksgiving.

I always thank my God.

 

There is something we need to note about how Paul describes Onesimus.

First a language lesson, for those who like such.

 

Onésimos [sic] is one word for “useful” in Greek. It comes from ónesis, meaning profit or gain. Paul hints at this, when he says that before The-One-Called-Useful (Onésimos) was useless, but now he is useful. Here he is using different words, it is true. He uses words related to chrestos which means “useful” yes, but “useful” already with a tendency moving towards more than that, towards meaning “good”. “Good and useful” we might say, in English.

 

Now Paul says that

Onesimos was a-chrestos, which means “useless”, “not fit for purpose”,

but has become eu-chrestos, which is stronger even than chrestos.

So we have a hierarchy:

onesimos - useful

chrestos – better than useful, actually good

euchrestos - better than that something or someone who is really good at whatever it is: “just the thing!” “just the person!”

 

Note, then, that

Onesimus was use-less when he was a slave,

and is profoundly use-full as a free man.

And that might seem the wrong way round.

If you could, just for a moment, bracket out all ethical concerns, if you could just think it terms of how it would help you – be honest now – wouldn’t a slave be useful for you?...

After all, they have to do exactly what you tell them to do, when you want them to do it.

Surely a friend is less useful, in that you have to encourage or persuade them to do what you’d like them to do, and even then they may not?

 

The wrong way round.

As a slave, useless;

as a free person, a freed person, useful

(more than useful, more than more than useful, very good, just right).

 

Brothers and sisters, there are harvest themes here.

 

How are we to sow the seed of the love of God, so that we reap the harvest?

 

Today we learn that we can only do it – as Christians, we can only do it – by accepting that we are not God’s slaves, to be bossed around, but God’s friends, God’s free friends, God’s freed friends. It is not that we deserve to be God’s friends. It is not that we have done good deed after good deed after good deed for so long that we cross some line, and God finally relents and says: You have earned your reward; I bestow on you the title of friend. Not that. It is that God has decided, by God’s own inscrutable will, to call us his friends, and to call us as his friends.

 

Not slaves, but friends.

As slaves, frankly useless; as friends, much better than useful.    

 

What kind of harvest are we letting grow to maturity in our own lives?

What kind of harvest are we?

I want to insist it is all right not to know!

Most of the time, we don’t know what harvest we are making possible in the people we meet.

And why should we know what harvest we are making possible in our own lives?

 

You know, from Psalm 23:

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me, all the days of my life”?

I have a friend who insisted strongly on this. He said: That is the point: the goodness and mercy follow you;

you don’t get to see them!

It is meant to be that way.

 

In short, do not worry what kind of harvest you are preparing out there, in the world. Don’t worry what kind of harvest you own life is yielding.

The best way to ask yourself if you are being useless or useful to God is to ask yourself:

Am I living out of a conviction

that I am a slave of God,

or am I living out of a conviction

that I am (I have been made) a friend of God?

 

Blessed harvest to you all.

Amen.