Rev. Tom Hathaway - November 9, 2025
Love with a Backbone
In this week’s message, we listen to the remarkable 1865 letter of Jourdon Anderson, a man formerly enslaved who answered his old enslaver’s request to “come back to work” with wit, grace, and moral clarity. Paired with Paul’s short letter to Philemon, it becomes a conversation across centuries about what real reconciliation looks like—not niceness, not denial, but love with a backbone: love that tells the truth, demands change, and holds us accountable to the healing it proclaims.
Scripture References: Philemon 1:1-25
From Series: "Philemon: Reconciliation in Christ"
Two people have a history between them that is painful and unresolved, and Paul writes right into that tension. He does not scold, and he does not command, but he calls everyone involved to remember who they really are in Christ and what love looks like when it is costly. This little letter shows how faith is not just belief but a way of treating one another when forgiveness feels impossible. It asks us to imagine a community where no one is written off and no one is treated as less than family. Over these two weeks we will explore what happens when love grows a spine and decides to do something bold. This is reconciliation with teeth.
