Word to the Wise
Sunday, July 1, 2007 - Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
[1 Kings 19:16B, 19-21; Galatians 5:13-18; Luke 9:51-62]I say then: live by the Spirit and you wil certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. for the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want.
These words of St. Paul echo similar words he uses in his Letter to the Romans (Romans 7:14-23), in which he speaks of the struggle he has within himself to remain faithful to Christ and not to allow other things to be more attractive. We in the West with the tremendous influence of Greek philosophy in our cultural background, tend to see St. Paul's words as expressing a sort of Platonic dualism which posits a world of perfect forms that is "above" and a less than perfect physical world on earth. Spiritually we tend to divide the human person into flesh and spirit or soul/body. The upshot of this is often a disdain for the physical or a total rejection of the reality of the soul. St. Paul was not talking about any of this. St. Paul's "anthropology" is Hebrew. In this view, the human person is not a composite of body/soul as in Platonic or Aristotelean philosophy, but a "whole." When St. Paul speaks of the "flesh" (sarx in Greek) he is speaking about the entire person who is unredeemed by Christ (or acting in that way). When he speaks of living according to the Spirit, he means living in a manner consistent with one's commitment to Christ - the redeemed person. The Galatians were allowing their newfound freedom from the Mosaic Law to reason themselves into an "anything goes" lifestyle - a problem the Corinthians also had. This philosophical/anthropological background has an impact on us in our efforts to live as good Christians. How do we see ourselves as human persons? Are we a soul "trapped" in a cage called "the body?" Are we a person of free will, created in the image of God, that Christ has redeemed and challenged to live according to his example in the scriptures? In today's scripture, St. Paul writes: For you were called for freedom, brothers and sisters. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love. Catholic tradition allows for a number of ways of understanding human nature, but I find St. Paul's approach appealing. To despise one's body as some lesser reality seems counter to Genesis or even to Jesus' own healing ministry. We all tend to put these kinds of questions in the background, leaving them to theologians and philosophers but it's something that impacts the whole way we live our lives. AMEN
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