Avoding Both-Sidesism--September 11, 2025

Avoding Both-Sidesism--September 11, 2025

"Formerly [Onesimus] was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me so that he might minister 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. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for the long term, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to me.  I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask. One thing more: prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you." (Philemon v.11-22)

There is a dreadful rhetorical game played daily by a great many of the talking heads and pundits on television, and today I have caught myself noticing for the first time that the Apostle Paul doesn't play it, as tempting as it might have been.  

It's that sneaky little trick of oratorical sleight-of-hand sometimes referred to as "both-sides-ism," and it is a dandy little mechanism to take attention off the thing you don't want to deal with by making "the other side" seem worse than your own.  And it is typically used in order to avoid having to face clear-cut right and wrong determinations by insisting that everything is so utterly complicated, so muddy, and so messy that we can never actually change things for the better.  It's a way of basically saying, "You can't accuse me of doing something bad, because those people over there are doing their own bad thing, and therefore I am untouchable."

As a bit of verbal razzle-dazzle, it works something like this: let's say that Politician A is accused of something unsavory--maybe receiving money from someone who then benefits from a decision that Politician A makes, so it looks like there is a conflict of interest.  Well, when the news reporters come to ask Politician A (or the lucky press secretary who gets to play spin-doctor on their behalf) about the situation, Politician A just says, "Well, as we all know, Politician B--on the OTHER side of the aisle--had a similar scandal ten years ago, and they got re-elected, so you can't hold me accountable now."  Then they dust off their hands, hoping that the press will go to Politician B's office to get a statement.  The bottom line of the game is to say, "Both sides do this bad thing, so we can't take a side on the question at hand. This person right here did something bad, but to make it sound like we are being 'fair' we need to say that the person over there also did something comparable."  And all of it is a clever way of never having to actually come down on a side at all, or to say that there is a clear difference between A and B.  Sometimes we are so used to the rhythm of both-sides-ism that we expect that every situation has to have a volley of "On the one hand, this side did this thing badly, but on the other hand, that side must have also done something equally bad." And honestly, I suspect that actually suits us just fine sometimes, because it gives us a valid (in our eyes) reason to throw up our hands and say, "Well, I guess there's nothing to be done about this situation, because everyone's hands are a little dirty. So nobody can say anything definitive about anybody else." And then we go home so we can complain on social media about how nothing ever gets done to improve the world. We go back to "the way it was" because we can't saying anything clearly about who is in the wrong.

I have more than a hunch you have seen that game played before, and beyond that, I bet you've played it, too, maybe without even realizing it.  I know I have.  It's a hard habit to kick.

And that's why, for as many times as I have read the book of Philemon over the years, including this past Sunday when many of us heard it in worship, I find myself particularly struck this time around at how Paul doesn't succumb to playing "both-sides" between Philemon, who had owned Onesimus as a slave, on the one hand, and the escaped Onesimus on the other.  As we saw yesterday, Paul has ended up crossing paths with Onesimus, who apparently had run away from enslavement to Philemon and subsequently come to faith in Jesus.  Paul is now sending Onesimus back to Philemon, in the full expectation ("confident of your obedience," the apostle says to him) that he will set Onesimus free and receive him back as a brother in Christ rather than as human property.  And what astounds me here is that Paul doesn't try to set these two up as equally in the wrong, even though that might have been easier on Philemon's ears.  Paul doesn't say, "Ya know, Phil, it was wrong of you to own a slave, but on the other hand, it was wrong of Onesimus to run away, so how about those wrongs cancel each other out, and he can go back to being your slave (no changes there!) as long as you promise not to beat or whip him as punishment for running away?"  Paul doesn't say to Onesimus, "Now, we might be mad that Philemon deemed it acceptable to own another human being, but you did after all run away and now he's lost all he sunk into that investment (ahem, in you, that is), so maybe you should just go back to him as a slave because both sides have taken advantage of each other--whaddayasay?"  Paul doesn't try to equate Onesimus' act of going to freedom with the wrong of Philemon owning him as a slave--even though that surely would have been the conventional wisdom.  And if Paul were only concerned with smoothing over a source of division between Philemon and Onesimus, that kind of compromise would have been appealing in that culture.

Paul, in other words, isn't afraid to say that the right course of action leans in one direction rather than the other, and even rather than straight-down-the-middle in some sort of "not-taking-sides centrism."  Paul's response to the situation, as amazingly tactful as it is, clearly pushes in the particular direction of setting free those who had been enslaved, rather than blaming the victim who had been enslaved or suggesting that he was "part of the problem, too."  He doesn't resort to being a jerk to Philemon, and he doesn't threaten him with hellfire or damnation, but he does very clearly say to Philemon what the right--and more specifically, gospel-informed--course of action is. Paul is convinced that Philemon should release Onesimus from enslavement, hold no grudges, accept whatever financial losses came with it, and treat him as a brother in Christ.  Full stop.  There is no "other hand" of something that lets Philemon off the hook or casts aspersions on Onesimus.  Paul, in other words, has the clarity to say, "This is not really a matter of shades of gray, or both sides having a point.  This is a situation in which the person on the margins--the formerly enslaved Onesimus--needs to be lifted up, treated as an equal, and no longer regarded as property."

I find these verses both convicting and refreshing, to be honest.  In our time, we can sometimes feel so jaded by shortcomings all around, or so tired by the extreme partisanship around us, that we can feel as if there is never a time and never a circumstance where we can really and honestly say, "No--this is not a matter of mere opinion; this is the Christ-like course of action, and that is not."  We may be conditioned to assume that everyone who calls out bad action from one corner must have also done the same, and therefore has lost credibility to speak.  We may be so used to hearing ,"Well, both sides have done some wrong things, so nothing can be said now," that we end up always retreating to "the way things are" rather than changing things for the better.  And to see Paul here just cut through all those rhetorical hoops to get to a clear path forward is a bit jarring, but also freeing.  It is freeing to hear voices like Paul's from the New Testament saying clearly, "The way of Jesus has a certain trajectory to it--it looks like freedom, rather than keeping others in bondage.  It looks like compassion for the person who is most on the margins rather than erring on the side of the person with status who can do you favors."  It is a relief, honestly, to see that Paul had the moral clarity to say, "Onesimus should be set free, so that's what I'm telling you to do," rather than writing, "I don't want to offend any other slaveowners who might be members of my church, so I can't really speak up about this issue with Onesimus.  Gotta keep my job, after all."

Now, again, it is worth noting that Paul finds a way to speak with clarity without being a jerk, without punching down, and without backing Philemon into a corner that would make him get defensive.  Paul has offered Philemon a way of doing the right thing without losing face, without being shamed into it, and without being permanently branded a terrible person.  But he has done all those things without backing down on the claim that Onesimus needs to be freed, and that he is not in the wrong here.  This is not a matter of "both sides are at fault here," and yet there is hope for both the former oppressor and the formerly oppressed to begin again.  The fact that Paul threaded that needle and was able to speak a clear word of liberation for the formerly enslaved and a clear word of grace to start over for the former slaveholder is a wonder.  But that's the vision here in this passage.  It is possible to speak with clarity in a way that still makes it possible for all to be pulled along into the way of Jesus.  And it is possible to take a stand with the folks on the margins, unabashedly and unapologetically, without leaving anybody else behind.

That's what Jesus has made possible--a clarity to speak and act in ways that especially lift up the folks who have been stepped on or pushed out, while also making room for all of us who have been pretty settled in our comfort zones to go along with Jesus out to the margins.  Here in his letter to Philemon, Paul shows us what that might have looked like in one real-life scenario twenty centuries ago.  What could it look like for us today?

Lord Jesus, give us the clarity of your way in the world, the humility to be open to correction, and the grace to welcome along former adversaries for the journey you are taking us on.