Useless or Useful?

I've said in other places that one thing I appreciate about the Salvation Army is that there are no "inactive" members. If you "join" the Army, you put on the uniform and go to work--there's no place for pew sitters, or "Christmas and Easter" members, or inactives.

Yet many churches have and continue to add to long lists of inactive members, seemingly fearful or incapable either of letting them go or insisting that they meet and maintain some reasonable level of participation. In one church I pastored for a while the minimum requirements for being maintained on the "active" list was contributing at least one cent per year OR attending one worship service per year OR in being elected (or appointed) to some office in a given year (no requirement to actually discharge the duties of that office). Someone once said that if we expect the minimum, we shouldn't be surprised when we achieve the minimum.

(Here, let me make it clear that I'm NOT referring to those who are unwillingly absent and/or inactive due to age, illness, or injury, but to those who can participate fully, but won't.)

Yesterday's second reading (Sep 9, 23d Sunday of the Year, Philemon 1-21) is built around the character of the slave "Onesimus" (which translated, means "Useful" or "Benefit") and the pun Paul (which translated, means "Pee-wee," and Phlemon, translated might mean "Sweetie" or "Kissy-face") uses to contrast how and when Onesimus has been "useful" or "useless" and how Paul desires his continued usefulness in service to the gospel of Christ.

And a principal part of Paul's appeal to Philemon is that Philemon not inhibit Onesimus, but allow him to continue to be of maximum usefulness--thus living out the meaning of his name.

Each of us who have taken the name "Christian" at our baptism is daily confronted with the choice to be and to remain useful; we, too, must decide to be "Onesimus" or someone else; we, too, must determine if hanging out on a church's inactive list is the best place to be.

(The notes in this post about the punned translations of names is to point up the fact that nearly every page of the Bible includes some joke or humorous item--most often a pun of some sort. Unfortunately, most of these are lost in translation and/or not translated, so we miss a lot of the joy and jolity of those who wrote the Scriptures. And, of course, the whole text of the letter to Philemon is a pun on "Onesimus.")