September 7, 2025

Altered Paths

I remember well a trip some years ago that Dadgie and I took back to Rochester, New York to visit with her family. While there we had an amazing day of journeying back in time. It was like diving into a deep pool of memory. We began by going back to the seminary from which we both graduated, Colgate Rochester Divinity School. The school, like most liberal, Protestant institutions is failing. In fact, they were selling the entire campus with its awe-inspiring central building whose gothic spires rise high over the hill on which it sits. It has all been unloaded because they have insufficient enrollment to make it viable. This is heartbreaking for us, so we took quite a bit of time to walk through the halls, talk with people, and remember. We then drove to the house Dadgie grew up in and saw the streets she walked, the grade school and high school she attended. Then we drove out to the towns on the outskirts of Rochester where we were each pastoring churches when we were married (the towns were about thirty miles or so apart, and we both stayed in our pastorates after our marriage; so for three years lived in one town half the week and the other town the other half of the week). While there, we saw the houses we lived in and the church buildings where we served. Needless to say it was a day of rich and even overwhelming memories. But one of the things that struck me most was the sense of how our individual paths through life and our merged path through life followed a course that neither of us would ever have imagined early on. Wonderful and fulfilling as it has been, it has also all seemed amazingly unlikely.

How many here this morning would have predicted thirty, forty, fifty years ago what our lives would be like today? It seems for many of us, at least, altered paths have been the norm rather than the exception. But how many of us would revise those courses through life if we had the opportunity? Not many, I imagine.

Maybe the prime example of an altered path through life is the remarkable story of Onesemus. He was mentioned in the reading you heard this morning from Paul’s letter to Philemon. From the text of this letter to Paul’s friend, it’s clear that Onesimus had at one time been Philemon’s slave, but somehow, he ended up living and working with Paul while Paul was in prison. We really don’t know how Onesimus came to leave the service of Philemon or how he ended up with Paul. But it’s quite likely that he ran away and found Paul, having known of him through his master, Philemon. Paul writes that “Formerly he was useless to you . . .” and “If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.” These words imply that the slave, Onesimus, had in some way “wronged” Philemon and become “useless” to him. It certainly sounds like he had run away.

And it also sounds like Paul is trying to get Philemon to release Onesimus to him. He writes, “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.” Paul wants Onesimus to keep working with him as a free man. He writes, “Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother – especially to me but how much more to you.” And in this letter Paul refers to Onesimus as “my own heart,” and says that he, Paul, has become a “father” to him, and then refers to Onesimus as a “beloved brother . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord.” “A brother . . . in the Lord” is code for one who has converted to Christianity. Onesimus, the slave, has been working with Paul as a sort of a Christian protégé.

And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.” For that we look at a letter not found in the Bible. It was written by Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch in Syria. Ignatius had been arrested as a Christian, and was being sent to Rome for trial. The guards halted the journey for a time at the city of Smyrna. While they were there, Christians of the region knew of their presence, and of their prominent prisoner, the Bishop of Antioch. So they sent a delegation to visit the prisoner. And what we learn from Bishop Ignatius’ letter to the church of Ephesus, is that the head of this delegation was none other than the Bishop of Ephesus himself. And his name? His name was Onesimus. Here is evidence of a path in life altered by the power of the Spirit: the slave who became Bishop.

How many such remarkable stories are there of people whose lives were transformed in ways they never could have dreamed of? There are probably many such tales that could be related among those of you gathered here this morning. It seems that life keeps presenting new paths, and those paths frequently lead to greater things – particularly the less traveled ones. This is one good definition of grace.

But, as always, there is a caution. It comes from our other reading for this morning. The Prophet Jeremiah is commanded to go down to the potter’s house where he watches a potter refashioning a work of clay at the wheel. And the inspiration comes to him that the Lord Almighty can refashion his plans and remake his people. Those nations who have been presumed to have no hope can be lifted to new heights, and those who have assumed their privilege or righteousness can be brought to ruin. It’s all a matter of how faithful each nation of people is to the ways of justice and mercy. Another way of putting this is: what goes around comes around. This is a cautionary tale for individuals as well as nations. Those who traffic in injustice will ultimately receive a sentence greater than their crime; those who live by mercy and loving-kindness will, in the end, find an overabundance of good friends. This should give us pause when you and I ignore the needs of others because our agendas are too full or our personal concerns are too weighty. It should also give any nation pause when it goes to bed with ruthless dictators out of a sense of expediency or narrow national interests. In truth, many of us Western nations have seen the sad consequences of such past decisions.

In short, as was the case for the slave, Onesimus, Divine grace can change our lives in dramatic ways, but only if we are prepared to live as people of grace. That grace, offered to us in a thousand ways, becomes imbedded in our hearts if we let it, so that we ourselves become instruments of transformation and hope.

I’m sure most of you know the story of the song, Amazing Grace, but it bears repeating. John Newton was a slave ship captain who, through a gradual process of conversion became an ardent abolitionist. His life was turned around by his commitment to follow Christ. Thirty-four years after giving up the slave trade, he wrote, “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.”1 He wrote the hymn we often sing and hold dear to our hearts today. Before our communion hymn, I’d like us to all sing the first verse of his hymn together (the words are in your bulletin), but with a twist (you may notice the change to the words in your buletin). With apologies to John Newton, who understandably was revulsed by his having trafficked in the slave trade, I’d like us to not refer to ourselves as wretches. I like to think that it is grace that sets us free – free, in fact to go home. Another line in the hymn says “grace will lead me home.” It is grace that affords us the opportunity to be “at home” with ourselves no matter where we are, or in what circumstances we find ourselves. And then, when we encounter another person we can have the grace to metaphorically welcome them into our “home” and share all that we have with them – ultimately, that means we can have the grace to be free to share ourselves, truly and honestly. So, reflecting on the power of the Spirit at work in our lives, and the way in which, if our hearts are open to it, our paths are altered by that “Amazing Grace,”

let’s sing it together:

[Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved and set me free!
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.]

I would suggest that this be our keynote as we begin another church year. May we continue to be people of grace, agents of mercy, and therefore have our own paths altered and lives transformed and surprised by the Spirit of Holiness.