Reflection 7th September 2025 Onesimus  

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai

How many of you here have been to the museum of Transatlantic slavery in Liverpool UK? I remember visiting it some years ago. It’s currently under reconstruction and renovation.  You could enter into the hull of the ship see artists impression of what it would have looked like where the slaves were chained up and hear the groaning of voices, the waves crashing against the ship and feel the seasick rocking of the boat.  It was a frightening and sickening experience and made you wonder how one human being could do this to another?  When you dehumanise people it doesn’t matter it’s easily justified.   

This little letter of Philemon is easily missed — but it carries a world of meaning. Paul writes on behalf of Onesimus, a man enslaved in the household of Philemon. In the Roman world, Onesimus had no rights, no protection, and was regarded as property. Yet Paul, from his prison cell, dares to call him “my son” and urges Philemon to welcome him back “no longer as a slave, but as a beloved brother.”
It is as if Paul were taking the chains from Onesimus’s wrists and placing them on the conscience of the church. 

Onesimus was a slave who had run away from his master Philemon, a Christian in Colossae. By some mysterious providence, Onesimus found himself in the company of Paul, who was in prison. There, under Paul’s ministry, Onesimus became a Christian. Paul writes of him: “I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment” (Philemon 1:10).
Paul sends Onesimus back, but not as he left. He writes to Philemon: “Receive him no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother” (v. 16). In the Roman world, where slavery was taken for granted, Paul’s words planted a seed — a seed of equality, of dignity, of brotherhood.

But the story doesn’t end there. That seed has had a complicated journey. 

For centuries, the church struggled with how to understand slavery. Many accepted it as simply part of society. Later, in the era of colonial expansion, churches and missionaries often aligned themselves with empire, defending the transatlantic slave trade with Scripture twisted for the purpose. Slave owners pointed to Onesimus and Paul’s letter to Philemon as proof that the Bible approved of keeping slaves. This is part of our history, part of our shame.
And yet — the same story of Onesimus also inspired abolition. Christian abolitionists, from the Quakers to William Wilberforce, from John Wesley to African American preachers in the fields, read Philemon very differently. If Onesimus could be Paul’s son in Christ, if he could be welcomed not as property but as brother, then how could slavery ever be justified? 

The Rev Dr Peter Crutchley a dear friend and colleague has recently died and his memorial service is in Geneva at WCC on Tuesday.  He headed up the establishment of the Onesimus Project known as TOP as a result of his research on CWM’S involvement in the slave trade.  This is the painful truth the Onesimus Project of the Council for World Mission is naming: that the church must confess its complicity in slavery, repent of its silence, and commit to reparative justice 

John Wesley, in his final letter to Wilberforce, wrote: “Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery shall vanish away.” Earlier, Wesley had called the slave trade “that execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature.”
William Wilberforce himself, after decades of struggle in Parliament, declared: “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.” His persistence led to the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1833.
So in Onesimus’ story we see both the church’s deep sin — its complicity in slavery — and its courageous faithfulness — its role in abolition. 

What does this mean for us today? Slavery may be abolished in law, but we know new forms of bondage persist. Human trafficking, migrant exploitation, poverty wages — all these keep God’s children trapped in cycles of oppression. 

For centuries, however, the global church often failed to hear that radical word. Instead of breaking chains, it too often condoned them. Mission societies and Christian traders were deeply entangled in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Wealth extracted from enslaved labour built institutions — including churches, schools, and seminaries — while theology was twisted to justify dehumanisation. 

The Onesimus Project gives us a mirror to look into:
Legacies of Slavery – telling the truth about history, engaging in reparations, and remembering those whose voices were silenced. 

It also looks at modern-Day Slavery – confronting human trafficking, migrant worker exploitation, and racial injustice that persist today.
Education for Liberation – re-reading scripture with the eyes of the oppressed, and equipping new generations with theology that liberates. 

Transformative Ecumenism – building church relationships no longer on colonial power, but on mutuality, solidarity, and equality. 

Each pillar is a call to action. Each is a way of living Paul’s command: to see one another as siblings in Christ, not as property or tools. 

The call of Philemon is not simply to free Onesimus — it is to embrace him as brother. True justice is not charity; it is restored relationship, restored dignity, restored community. 

So today, as we remember Onesimus, let us also remember:
The seed of equality that Paul planted. In this particular instance as we all know his view or those of wrote under his name view on the role and place of women in the church. 

The church’s history of both complicity and courage.
And our calling now to stand against modern forms of slavery and exploitation.  Slavery is not just history. Today, men and women are trapped in sweatshops, children work in mines to produce the minerals in our phones, and migrant workers labour for less than a living wage. Some in our own city live in poverty despite working full-time. 

That is why movements like the Living Wage Campaign matter so deeply. They echo Paul’s plea: “Receive him no longer as a slave, but as a beloved brother.” To pay someone fairly, to restore dignity to work, to honour the image of God in each person — this is how we live Onesimus’s story today. 

At its launch in South Africa in 2022, the Onesimus Project included an Act of Confession — acknowledging that our spiritual ancestors blessed chains rather than broke them. Confession is never the end; it is the beginning of transformation. 

When we confess, we are set free to act differently:
To remember honestly.
To pay fairly.
To welcome all as kin.
To walk humbly and justly with God. 

Here at St Andrew’s on The Terrace, we have tried to live into that call by being a Living Wage Church. We have committed to ensuring that those who work here — whether in cleaning, administration, hospitality, or other roles — are paid fairly, not just the minimum required by law, but enough to live in dignity. 

When we pay the Living Wage, when we stand with workers, when we advocate for justice, we are not doing something new — we are carrying forward the gospel of Christ, who calls each of us not servant, not property, but friend.
As Wilberforce said: “Let it not be said that I was silent when they needed me.” And as Wesley urged: “Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till every chain is broken.” 

The letter to Philemon was short — but it changed a life. What might happen if we, like Paul, stood alongside the Onesimus figures of our day? The migrant worker. The underpaid cleaner. The child caught in forced labour.
If we dared to say: “No longer as a slave. No longer as invisible. No longer as expendable. But as a beloved brother, a beloved sister.” 

The story of Onesimus challenges us to examine where we, too, may be complicit in systems of inequality. Are there products we buy made by modern slaves? Are there workers in our community who are unseen and undervalued? Are there voices silenced because of poverty, race, gender, or status? 

The call of Philemon is not simply to free Onesimus — it is to embrace him as brother. True justice is not charity; it is restored relationship, restored dignity, restored community.
So today, as we remember Onesimus, let us also remember:
The seed of equality that Paul planted.
The church’s history of both complicity and courage.
And our calling now to stand against modern forms of slavery and exploitation. 

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