Slaving for Jesus

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Prof. Sir Moses Finley of the University of Cambridge speaks of "the ghosts of Seneca and St. Paul, demanding obedience in the name of some higher value." And then he adds, "Not everyone will rank the creation of honourable and decent servants as one of the higher moral goals of humanity, or accommodation to enslavement as a moral virtue." It's clear that Finley would include himself in the category of those who think it downright evil to urge accomodation to enslavement in the name of some higher value. Yet the teaching of our passage is clear enough, and it makes us all very uncomfortable. To my knowledge, of course, no one in this room is enslaved or ever has been enslaved. Yet whatever your background, it is undeniable that the scope and strength of Christian ethics come to one of their fullest expressions in the passage before us. Precisely because this passage is so radically contrary to our baseline cultural defaults and assumptions, it can help us to understand the message of Jesus Christ better. Brothers and sisters, with God's help I want to show you this evening that for an enslaved person, to love like Christ means giving up your life for your master.