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Even though the West has moved light years beyond the master-slave relationship that served as the economic cornerstone of the Roman Empire, Paul's words to slaves and masters are directly applicable to employers and workers in today's capitalist context. Since most of us spend the majority of our life at work, whether at home or in the office, spiritual maturity rises and falls based on our ability to follow Jesus well through an average day.

 

If we imagine our eight-month expedition through the book of Ephesians to be like taking a single lap around a long track, we’re just coming out of the fourth turn and entering the homestretch. But now we come face to face with what modern readers would consider one of the toughest sections of Paul’s letter. This morning’s text presents us with both a Big Problem and a Big Opportunity.

We cannot duck the Big Problem. People who are on the outside of Christian faith looking in need to know what to make of the words that we’re about to read. And we must not dodge the Big Opportunity. Obedience to this text, if we’re willing to do it, turns out to be one of the most important evidences of authentic spiritual maturity.

Please reach for your own copy of Scripture, and let’s turn together to Ephesians 6:5-9. This morning let’s speak, or read, or recite these words slowly – pondering carefully everything that Paul has written – and let’s shake things up a bit today by remaining seated! Let’s together join in proclaiming the Word of God:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.  

What is the Big Problem in this text? It is slavery. Slavery is mentioned in one third of the books of the New Testament. Yet I have never preached on this subject before, nor have I ever heard a single sermon on slavery. The forced enslavement of human beings by other human beings is one of history’s most grievous realities. Yet we must not fool ourselves. Slavery is still alive and well in China, India, and many parts of the developing world. In recent years human beings have been bought and sold in Sudan for just $45. Incredibly, slavery was not officially abolished in Saudi Arabia until 1963, nor in the state of Mississippi until 1995.

In light of such profound violations of human rights, what all of us want to find in God’s Word is God’s own emancipation declaration. We want Paul to say to slave owners, “Let your slaves go – right now!” But that’s not what we find in Paul’s letters. In I Corinthians, Colossians, I Timothy, Titus, and Ephesians, Paul essentially tells slaves, “Be content in your bondage.”

This was music to the ears of American slave owners during the 250 years leading up to the Civil War. Pastors in Southern pulpits assured their congregants that God was on their side. Brian J. Dodd writes, “We have to admit that Paul’s letters were the favorite texts to which American proslavery preachers turned most often to justify their position. We cannot escape this historical tragedy. These texts haunt us as they echo across the graves of dead slaves, maimed soldiers, and assassinated civil rights leaders.”

This is a Very Big Problem. If God is the author of Scripture – and since the first book of the Bible, Genesis, assures us that every human being is an equal bearer of the image of the Creator – how can Paul endorse the master-slave relationship? Why didn’t the early church do the right thing and call for an end to the institution of slavery?

As we frequently discover in Bible study when trying to build bridges of understanding from the first century to the 21^st century, unwrapping certain perspectives and details can make all the difference in the world. At least four observations help us understand why Paul wrote what he wrote in Ephesians 6.

First, there were monumental differences between the kind of slavery that was widespread in New Testament times and the chattel slavery that took root here in the New World. The American enslavement of Africans was built on subjugation, oppression, and race. Almost without exception, American slaves were slaves for life. They were explicitly denied equal justice and basic respect as human beings. Most of them were prohibited from receiving an education.

In the Greco-Roman world, however, slavery was more like a tossed salad. For some slaves, life was undoubtedly cruel – especially for convicted criminals who were forced to do slave labor in the silver mines or, like the fictional character Ben Hur, wound up rowing imperial boats.

But for many others, slavery actually provided an opportunity for personal or family advancement. Numerous men became slaves voluntarily in order to work alongside an influential master. Slaves were sometimes better educated than their owners, and frequently held high positions in business and leadership. They might become trusted mentors and advisors in the master’s household. Furthermore, Greco-Roman slavery was never a matter of race. Slaves could own their own property and even save money to purchase their own freedom. On average, a slave could expect to be liberated within 10 to 20 years.

Here’s a second important observation: Slavery in the ancient world was never seriously questioned as a pillar of the Mediterranean economy. Slavery was considered just as much a part of society as marriage and parenthood. Approximately a third of those living in the Roman Empire during the time of Paul were slaves, and another third were ex-slaves. As incredible as it seems, it quite simply never occurred to anyone that slavery ought to disappear.

Third, Christianity openly embraced the language of slavery. What phrase does Paul use more than any other to describe himself? He calls himself “a slave of Christ” – meaning that Jesus is the Master to whom he owes unquestioned obedience. In Philippians 2:7 Paul says that Jesus “made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant” – except the Greek word doulos is just as accurately translated “slave.” Ted Turner once snorted, “Christianity is a religion for losers.” Well, if our own Messiah chooses to identify with the lowest rung of the social order – essentially saying that losers can become winners if they choose to trust in him – then you have to admit that Ted Turner actually said something theologically profound…even if he didn’t mean to.

Fourth – and this is perhaps most interesting – slaves found the message about Jesus incredibly appealing. They converted to Christianity in droves. Even if we happen to look at Paul’s words through the lens of our present-day experience and find them lacking, those who were actually slaves understood that a spiritual and social revolution was taking place…and they were being set free.

When the earliest groups of Christians got together and someone would read a copy of Ephesians out loud, what would a slave tend to hear? A slave would hear that he and his Christian master were equal, in that they both were accountable to the same Messiah. A slave would hear that her highest allegiance was not to her master on earth, but to her Master in heaven. A slave would hear that he was really serving Jesus when he was doing his work, and that Jesus was commanding his master – as verse eight, incredibly, tells us – to treat him with the same kind of respect that he was supposed to give to the master. Statements like this had never been heard before. No wonder slaves fell in love with Christ.

Even if Paul did not openly call for a transformation of the existing social order, he himself planted the seeds that would bring it about. In Galatians 3:28 he writes that for those who are “in Christ” – that is, who have surrendered their lives to Jesus as Master – “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The church was the only organization in ancient times to propose that all the walls between people ought to come down – whether based on race, gender, or economic standing.

It took a long, long time for Christians in Europe and America to work that out in reality, especially when it came to slavery. And the latent impulses of racism that are still found in the Body of Christ in this country, and in this very sanctuary, are deeply shameful. Today there are Christian ministries that are actively committed to eliminating human slavery in every corner of the world. You can become part of their efforts. But make no mistake: It was the writings of the same apostle Paul who seems, on the surface of things, to hang on to the institution of slavery that finally brought Western slavery to an end. As we come to understand that kind of background, it becomes plain that we don’t really have such a Big Problem embedded in this text after all.  

But we do have a Big Opportunity. Substitute the words “employer and employee” for “master and slave” – and some of you have actually been doing that in your present job for quite a while, without any prompting at all – and what we have here is one of the Bible’s most important instructions concerning work.  What is our opportunity? It is to grasp that every job we undertake is in fact a spiritual calling. How we relate to God through our work will go a long way toward shaping our spiritual maturity.

God loves work. He ordained work for humanity in the Garden of Eden. And God himself is a working God. Sometimes we overlook the fact that Jesus spent almost all of his adult life as a carpenter – a blue collar worker. Most of us will spend half of our life’s waking hours invested in some kind of labor. It makes sense therefore that work is either a vast opportunity for discipleship, or – depending on how we approach it – an extraordinary waste of time. Now even though it may seem that every pastor you’ve ever heard is always scolding you for your work habits – and just last week we talked about the way that our work schedules tend to compromise our parenting – there is nevertheless not a single place in the Bible where God speaks against the goodness of honest, hard work.

In his book Habits of the Heart sociologist Robert Bellah points out that people, whether they trust God or not, generally assume one of three orientations toward their work. The most common may be described as “this is my job.” I need to work to make money so I can pay my bills. Studies show that as many as seven out of ten people who will be driving toward work tomorrow morning wish they were going somewhere else. They’re tired or bored or resentful or unfulfilled with regard to their labor.

The second approach may be described as “this is my career.” Now we’re talking about personal development and reputation. People who consider their work to be a career tend to be deeply concerned about being successful, and may often feel anxious as to how things are working out.

The third orientation toward work leads us to say “this is my calling.” Whatever I am doing I am doing for the Lord. According to this perspective, no job – however mundane – is “just work.” It is an opportunity to serve Christ. This is hands down how the Bible encourages us to approach every kind of labor. But it hasn’t been easy for followers of Jesus to get that message.

That’s because during the Middle Ages the idea of being called – to receive what is in Latin a vocare or a true vocation – came to mean hearing God’s voice which was leading one out of the world, away from non-Christian influences. That could only mean one thing. You had to become a priest – someone who commits the rest of his life to doing the kind of sacred work that most pleases the Lord. Everybody else – the so-called ordinary people – were judged incapable of having jobs that might actually make God happy.

It was further understood that God's work would best be accomplished through the fulfillment of three lifelong vows: poverty, chastity and obedience. Poverty meant the surrender of personal possessions and the drive for profit. Chastity meant the renunciation of marriage and family life. Obedience meant full-time accountability to spiritual authorities instead of the entrepreneurial impulse. It became increasingly difficult to imagine a capitalist with a spouse who could actually accomplish things for God.

As one might expect, the vast majority of rank-and-file Christians didn't feel drawn to the rigors of poverty, chastity and obedience. They stayed in the world and performed its work: secular work, it was called, a category distinct from the sacred, higher kind of work performed by the clergy. And that's how things might have stayed except for one man who in 1519 began to turn the whole notion of vocation on its head.

That man was Martin Luther, and he was convinced that in the Bible there is no such thing as a distinction between the secular and the sacred. Any Christian's work may bring delight and honor to God, Luther said, whether it be farming, or washing dishes, or balancing bank statements, or changing diapers, or ruling a country, or teaching children.

We are not called out of the world but into the world. Every job is a spiritual calling, not just those that are related to the work of the church. The work of the church, in fact – as we saw back in Ephesians 4 – is to equip and release its members to go do housework and road work and schoolwork as if Jesus were your direct supervisor. That’s what it means to do work in his name.

Look again at verses seven and eight: “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.” That is our Big Opportunity. Whether we serve Christ in all that we do is the ultimate measurement of spiritual maturity. This requires a fundamental change in perspective: in how we see our work, in how we see others, and in who we’re really working for.

It’s typical of human nature for us to adjust our behavior depending on who we think might be watching. People work harder when the boss comes into the room. We tend to dress better and speak more carefully when we assume that a supervisor will be nearby. Paul says to slaves in verse six, “Obey [your masters] not only to win their favor when their eye is on you but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.” Jesus is our true boss. He is present at every moment, and he knows exactly what is in our heart.

Look at the last phrase in verse nine, which is Paul’s instruction to slave owners. He says concerning God, “there is no favoritism with him.” The word translated “favoritism” is the Greek word prosopolemphia, which literally means “face-changing.” There is no face-changing with God. That means God doesn’t look one way at one person, but then change his expression or his countenance when he looks at someone else, as if to grant them special favors.

Unfortunately there is a great deal of face-changing amongst us. Perhaps we show deference to the rich and powerful, or to those whom we think might advance our cause. When ZPC was just getting started, a local wealthy CEO dropped in to our worship. I found myself thinking how much he could bless our fledgling church. By paying undue attention to him, I displayed deep immaturity. The fact is that God is no respecter of credentials. God judges the heart. He has great love for those who appear to have little or nothing to offer, and he can build his church any way he wants. That CEO, by the way, only worshipped with us a couple of times and as far as I know has never made a spiritual commitment of any kind.  

God calls us not to make human judgments about this person or that person, or to evaluate circumstances according to our own wisdom, but to understand that he is quite simply behind everything. Whatever we do, no matter whose presence we find ourselves in, we are actually working for him.

Therefore God calls postal workers to deliver the mail the way Jesus would deliver the mail. God calls eighth graders to treat other kids the way Jesus would treat them. God calls salespeople to work with the excellence and integrity that Jesus would bring to that job. We should do insurance estimates, paint someone’s house, repair a fuel pump, perform an operation, manage a restaurant, or deliver a State of the Union address as if Jesus were our direct supervisor.

Carl Wilson, a young man who grew up here at ZPC, is currently doing grass roots mission work in eleven countries over a period of eleven months in a program called Adventures in Mission. This week Carl is living with a family in eastern Europe. A few days ago it was time for the family to dig a new outhouse. And that is what Carl did. His blog describes this as a spiritual experience – an opportunity to work alongside these new friends, doing something entirely practical and necessary – with their young son “helping” them dig, sometimes putting more dirt into the hole than he was taking out – all as a way to express his love for Christ and his desire to serve others. 

John Newton, the British pastor who 200 years ago wrote the words to Amazing Grace – incidentally, after he had left behind a tragic life as a slave trader – once said that if two angels in heaven were given assignments by God at the same instant, one of them to go and rule over the greatest nation on earth and the other to sweep the streets of the dirtiest village, each angel would be completely indifferent as to which one got which assignment. Why? It’s because real joy isn’t found so much in the work that lies before us, as in the opportunity to be obedient to God.

No matter where your career stands this morning; no matter what prospects you are facing in finding work; no matter how long you think you can stick with a job that is leaving you feeling empty; regardless of whether you are a student or a retiree; an expert or an apprentice; a supervisor or a worker on the line; God is calling you to trust him. God has work for you to do. Jesus is your true Master. Our call is to keep our eyes on him and him alone.