Break Down Walls (Part 2) "The Work Clothes of Love"
In this latest series of blogs called, “Break Down Walls," I'm looking at the New Testament book of Philemon, a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to his friend whose name was Philemon. Take a moment and read this one chapter letter. Here’s a link to Paul’s letter:
Paul had led Philemon to faith in Jesus several years before he wrote the letter. At the time, Philemon was living in the city of Colossae and was the pastor of a house church that met in his home. He also had a number of slaves working for him—an acceptable cultural practice in those days. One of his slaves, Onesimus, ran away and fled to Rome. By Roman law, Philemon could have forced Onesimus to come back and suffer harsh punishment. The story takes a twist, however. Through God’s perfect plan and will, Onesimus was led to the Apostle Paul who at the time was under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial before Caesar (for teaching and preaching Christ). Paul led Onesimus to faith in Jesus. In today's blog, I want to probe the bold request Paul makes to Philemon. Here's what Paul wrote in vv. 6-10… “I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ. Your love has given me much joy and comfort, my brother, for your kindness has often refreshed the hearts of God’s people. That is why I am boldly asking a favor of you. I could demand it in the name of Christ because it is the right thing for you to do. But because of our love, I prefer simply to ask you. Consider this as a request from me—Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus. I appeal to you to show kindness to my child, Onesimus. I became his father in the faith while here in prison.” The Hard Work of Love and Forgiveness Paul acknowledges Philemon's track record as a humble servant of Christ. And then invites Philemon to humbly receive Onesimus as a brother in Christ. To be worth anything, love must be demonstrated. Demonstrative Love in your home has to put on “work clothes.” It's the work of sacrifice, love, humility, and selflessness. Many times love must be demonstrated by the work of forgiveness. I call it “work” because when it comes to family conflict, the easy road is to allow your feelings of anger to dictate action. You may know at an intellectual level what you ought to do to resolve conflict, but knowledge is worthless unless you set aside the negative dimensions of your feelings in order to take positive, healing action. In the last blog, I introduced Paul’s teaching about love from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. It's quite telling when you place God's form of love alongside what is often our response when conflict arises in our relationships:
God’s Form of Love: Negative Feelings:
v. 4—patient and kind impatient, intolerant, animosity, cruel, harsh
v. 4, 5—not jealous, boastful, proud or rude mistrustful, arrogant, disrespectful, offensive
v. 5—does not demand its own way insistent, demanding, self-centered, defiance
v. 5—not irritable short-tempered, ill-tempered, prickly, grouchy
v. 5—keeps no record of being wronged unforgiving, merciless, vindictive, callous
v. 6—does not rejoice about injustice unfair, inequality, bias, discrimination
v. 6—truth wins out dishonest, deception, falsehood, lies
As you can see above, God’s form of love in the home takes work. It’s pretty easy to allow negative feelings to sabotage God's characteristics of love. So, in Paul's letter to Philemon, Paul was saying he had confidence in Philemon's spiritual maturity; his willingness to fight off human feelings of anger and betrayal and instead honor Jesus by forgiving and restoring Onesimus to the household. If you're a follower of Jesus, you're equally called to put on the work clothes of love in your home.
A mom was putting her autistic son Micah to bed. She asked him, “How many kisses do you want?” Micah loved this game. Sometimes it's just one kiss; sometimes it's a hundred. On that night he asked for one kiss. Then suddenly he sat up in bed and announced: “We need a record of kisses!” He jumped out of bed and went to the small chalkboard in his room. Taking a piece of chalk, he printed out KISSES on the top. Then he recorded one small mark. “There,” he said. “We have a record of kisses.” He was so cute that Mom had to give him another kiss—he promptly responded by adding another tally to his record, saying, “We can have records and records of kisses.” Those words reminded her of 1 Corinthians 13:5 “Love keeps no record of wrong." "True," she thought, "Love keeps a record of kisses.”
Homes where family members remember offenses against them, as though written in a book and tallied, will suffer greatly. If you keep a record of wrongs you will end up bitter and resentful. You will hurt the very people you love. God's form of love makes allowances for flaws; it makes the decision to forget wrongs. When mistakes are made, love overlooks them.
Yes, this is hard work. Fighting the feeling to lash out, get even, hold grudges, build up walls of resentment, give the silent treatment, or not forgive is the all hard work!
Don't Minimize Kindness in the Home
Paul wrote in v. 10, "I appeal to you to show kindness to my child, Onesimus." Go back to the graph above and see that, the opposite of kindness and patience is impatience, intolerance, animosity, cruelty, and harshness. How about your home, what traits are most present, most often?
Paul Pastor in his book, "Mothering Beyond the Stereotypes" writes about actress Sarah Drew (she has appeared on Grey's Anatomy and in the film Mom's Night Out). Sarah had this to say about her role as a mother: The stay-at-home mom [or any mom] has the terrifying, holy charge of raising up little eternal beings into people who will encounter the world either through kindness and grace, or with malice and indifference. I cannot think of a more important job. And yet, our culture rolls our eyes at these women. Our culture says they've "given up" on doing anything [important] with their lives. The greatest thing motherhood is teaching me is how to be present … It's very easy for me to get buried in my phone. To check emails and texts and my Twitter feed … When I am not present in my life, I miss out on the beauty that is surrounding me. I forget to be grateful, and instead whine and complain about how things aren't going according to plan. Meanwhile, my son, who is fully present, is busy laughing with glee at the leaves he's chasing and at the game he has invented.
Next Step
So, let me ask you, is your commitment to Jesus Christ reflected in the quality of your love for those in your family? Today, begin working on this: 1. Commit to wearing the work clothes of love in your home instead of allowing run-away feelings to dictate how you address conflict. 2. Take another look at the graph above. On the right side under “Negative Dimensions of Feelings” identify those negative feelings that are surfacing in your marriage or parenting and specifically begin doing the hard work of love in that area. Where do you need to make your adjustments? Today, put on the work clothes of love.
