The God Of "Good Ole Slavery”

Sermon: The God of “Good Ole Slavery”

Scripture: Philemon 1:15–16 – “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…”

Introduction: Wrestling with Paul and Our Present

Beloved, today we wrestle with Paul. We wrestle with his letter to Philemon — a short note, just one page in your Bible, but heavy with centuries of chains. Paul sends Onesimus, a runaway enslaved man, back to his master. Paul sends him back. And even though Paul whispers freedom between the lines — “receive him no longer as a slave, but as a brother” — the echo of that act has haunted the church. Because too many masters, too many preachers, too many politicians have taken Paul’s silence on abolition as permission for slavery to live on.

And if we’re honest this morning, slavery is not gone. It has changed uniforms. It has changed names. It has traded plantations for prisons, whips for wages that cannot feed a family, overseers for ICE raids, and chains for green cards and deportation orders.

So I want to preach this morning from the subject: “The God of Good Ole Slavery” — and why that God is not the God of Jesus Christ.

Church, can I be real with you today?

Paul sends Onesimus back. Back to Philemon. Back to the house he ran from. Back to the chains he escaped.

Now Paul writes sweet words — “Receive him no longer as a slave, but as a brother.” But let’s be honest: he still sends him back.

And I don’t know about you, but I wrestle with Paul.

I wrestle because slaveholders took those words and turned them into whips. I wrestle because preachers twisted those words and used them to bless plantations. And I wrestle because, in 2025, folk still try to sanctify slavery in new clothes.

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Move 1: Paul’s Dilemma and Our Discomfort

Paul believed Jesus was coming back soon. So he told folk to endure the system they were in. He sends Onesimus back, but not empty-handed. He writes Philemon and says, “Treat him like you’d treat me.” That’s a subversive word in Rome — but not enough to set Onesimus free.

And here’s the tension: Paul planted a seed of liberation, but he still watered it with compromise. That same seed gave rise to abolitionists who declared, “Let my people go.” But it also gave cover to white slaveholders who quoted Paul while buying and selling Black bodies.

James Cone told us straight: the myth of the “good master” is a lie. There is no such thing as good slavery. There is no such thing as humane chains. A gilded cage is still a cage.

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Move 2: ICE, Wages, and Modern-Day Chains

Fast forward to today. We live in the land of the free, but millions are still bound. They may not call it slavery, but when a man picks onions in Georgia for pennies, while the company pockets millions — that’s slavery. When a woman cleans houses in Carolina, but lives in fear of an ICE raid — that’s slavery. When corporations invite immigrants to work their factories, then call the government to arrest them when the cameras are gone — that’s slavery.

Senator Raphael Warnock said it plain: you cannot build an economy on exploitation. And yet America keeps finding new Onesimuses to send back, new Philemons to appease, new Pauls willing to compromise.

But the God of Jesus Christ — the God who brought Israel out of Egypt, the God who raised Jesus from the grave — is not the God of “good ole slavery.” That false god blesses ICE raids, underpaid wages, and mass incarceration. The true God breaks chains.

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Move 3: The Gospel of Liberation, Not Compromise

Here is the good news: Paul may have sent Onesimus back, but Jesus never sent anybody back to chains. Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, release to the captives, freedom to the oppressed.”

Beloved, if your gospel does not break chains, it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. If your theology justifies ICE camps, it is not the theology of Jesus Christ. If your Christianity can bless slavery, then it is not Christianity at all — it is idolatry wearing a cross.

The call for us today is not to send people back, but to stand with them. Not to excuse unfair labor, but to demand justice. Not to compromise with Pharaoh, but to march until every Pharaoh falls.

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Closing Illustration: The Chain and the Cross

I close with this image. Imagine a heavy chain. Every link is a story — one link is the Middle Passage, another is the cotton field, another is the prison cell, another is the ICE detention center. That chain stretches from Onesimus to us.