Word to the Wise
Sunday, June 27, 2010 - Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
[1 Kings 19:16, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62]I say, then: live by the Spirit and you 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. But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Many of us can remember the comedian, Flip Wilson, who had a routine involving a character named Geraldine. Geraldine would refer to the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, each whispering in one of her ears. Her most famous line was: The devil made me buy that dress! I hear people quote that in regard to purchases or other decisions that they wish they could have resisted, especially purchases beyond their budget! It would be easy to see St. Paul's contrast of the "Spirit" and the "flesh" in terms of Geraldine's angel and devil, but Paul offers us something more profound. He is referring to a whole way of being in the world. Our Greco-Roman way of looking at human life has given us the notion that the "soul" is somehow a captive of "the body" and that the latter is the enemy of the former! When this way of thinking is taken to an extreme, the Incarnation is questioned (How could Christ truly become a physical human being?) and all material reality, including creation and sexuality, is devalued. Paul's view is not Greco-Roman but Hebrew. In the Middle Eastern culture that Paul lived in the human person was seen as a single reality. The "Spirit" and "the flesh" are not a reference to soul and body but rather to the entire person. A person who lives by the prompting of the Spirit is not going to live according to a system that says, "If there's no law against it, I can do it!" (The Mosaic Law) or according to a way of life that makes each person a law unto him- or herself. That is why, earlier in today's second scripture from Galatians, Paul says, "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. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, You shall love you neighbor as yourself. In short, just because one is no longer guided by the Law of Moses, that does not mean one is free to do whatever one wants. Christ has offered us a whole way of being in the world. Most of us spend our lives in a "more or less" state of being in regard to what Paul says. Even he points out in his Letter to the Romans, (7:14-25) how difficult it can be to live always according to the way of life that the Spirit summons us to live. It is truly only with God's help that we can succeed at all. Nevertheless, our baptism commits us to the effort to conform our entire lives to the example of Christ. If we live solely from decision to decision without some overarching way of seeing all of life, we will be subject to Flip Wilson's little voices. If we live according to the law of love, the Spirit way of life will prevail over the "flesh" way of life. AMEN
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