St. Paul wrote….

Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God. (From the Daily Office Readings, Mar. 10, 2012, 1 Cor. 7:21-24)

This is a troubling text. Paul seems to be telling slaves to remain in their slavery, not to be concerned about their condition of servitude; this would say to others that they should not struggle for the liberation of slaves. Of course, Paul believed the end of this world was right around the corner and such earthly conditions as slavery or mastership would be abolished in his lifetime. He was wrong … so how does his text speak to us today? ~ Paul’s counsel to remain “in whatever condition you were called” should not be used as a justification for not seeking better circumstances for oneself and an improvement of one’s circumstances. Indeed, it is debatable that Paul even gave that advice to stay in one’s “condition” or “situation”. It is rather more probable, it seems to me, that his counsel is to remain steadfast in one’s conversion (Greek kalesis = calling) to Christian faith and brotherhood resisting the pressures of one’s prior status – slave or master, Jew or Greek, married or single, whatever that condition or status may be – and this might even mean a change in that circumstance. I am so persuaded by the arguments of S. Scott Bartchy, Professor of Christian Origins and the History of Religion, Department of History, UCLA. He has examined how the Greek word kalesis meaning “calling”, “invitation” or “summons” – correctly translated as vocatione by St. Jerome in the Vulgate and as “calling” (or “called”) in the Authorized Version – came to be translated in later English versions as “condition”. His surprising (and probably correct) conclusion is to blame Martin Luther and the influence of his German translation! Bartchy has argued that it is certain that Paul did not teach enslaved Christ-followers to “stay in slavery.” Rather, he exhorted them (and us) to “remain in the calling in Christ by which you were called.” Quite the opposite of a passive quietism accepting of unjust social institutions, Paul’s exhortation is to an active faith repenting our own “blindness to human need and suffering and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.” (From the American BCP’s Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence, p. 268)