A man enslaved

A man enslaved, called "Useful,"

In bondage toiled for naught.

He might have been called "Useless"

If his work went all wrong.

But Paul called out his master

And in Christ's love he taught

To call this slave his brother,

Invite him to belong.

 

Our world still sees enslavement

For cruel profit's gain,

Inhuman treatment practiced

For products sold dirt cheap.

Have we no moral center,

To profit from such pain? 

Can we not call out evil? 

Can we not make that leap?

 

In other ways we mangle

Those God has called God's own;

We call them dirty, vagrants,

Or even "useless" too. 

Do we speak such debasement

To those whose hope is gone?

Good God, rebuke us ever

When we such damage do.

 

Dehumanizing others

Who do not look like us,

And yet Christ calls his family;

Have we so lost our way?

Now we must do Christ's bidding,

With nothing to discuss; 

To welcome all around us

Both now and every day.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, September 2025.

MUSIC: Tune LLANFYLLIN, Welsh melody.

Apparently that lectionary reading from Philemon stayed with me beyond the hymn written for it about a month ago. Here Onesimus ("Useful") becomes the starting point for facing the ways such dehumanization is still part of our world today and how the church has not faced up to that.