Last Friday we found ourselves in
Paul’s extraordinary chapter 8 of the Letter to the Romans… and the theme was… No
condemnation! The way of Christ is
not about sin and guilt – it is about love and mercy. Back to chapter 8 now, and to where Paul
writes about us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the
Spirit. For those who live according to
the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live
according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to
set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (vv.4-6).
We are, I think, intelligent
Christians and we prefer our expressions of faith to be intelligent. So this passage could be bothersome… until we
can tell Paul’s truth, not now in the terms of his culture of the 1st
century, but in terms of our times, our ways of thinking, our experience of
life and of God. For one thing, wisdom
has taught us to hesitate about stark mutually exclusive alternatives – good or
bad, black or white, all or nothing, one or the other, yes or no… or that
ridiculous expression, It’s as simple as that… which it almost certainly
never is. But Paul does make an
irreconcilable difference between what he calls flesh and the Spirit… you can
live either way, but, he writes: To set the mind on the flesh is death, but
to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. He thinks you can’t swither from one to
the other… although we might think that most of us do. Those who are in Christ Jesus, he
says… that is to say, those of us who have entered a life-changing bond with
the risen Lord, and his people… it may have been a dramatic change, as it was with
Paul, or it may have been a more gradual, gentler growth into Christ… the point
is, we now feel alienated if that bond is set aside or in any way denied, even
compromised. There are important ways in
which we do live one way or the other, in the flesh, or in the Spirit.
It is true, I think, in our day,
that life in the flesh is hugely popular and plenty would say inevitable. It is not that it’s bad… any more than life
in the Spirit is all milk and honey. Life
in the flesh is the life in which I myself, my ego, my interests, many of which
are worthy, or it may be me and my whanau, come first, have priority, are
paramount. Life in the Spirit is life which
we receive day by day from God, in gratitude and love, the loving source of
life… in Jesus’s words, the Way, the Truth and the Life[1]. Contemplative life and prayer is a way into
this life in the Spirit. Ego, as we
constantly say, is never obliterated – we need our egos – but is given its
proper place which is not the place of God, and in that place comes to be
understood better, becomes more merciful, more compassionate, gentler with
self, a lighter drain on creation and the environment. I live, says Paul, yet not I but
Christ lives in me…[2]
Now, if you read the passionate
expressions of Romans 8, then the way I have described it may seem anaemic and
timid by comparison. Paul overflows with
enthusiasm and he loves hyperbole. None of
that needs blind us to the wonder that he is describing. In contemplative life and prayer, learning the
sounds of silence, being fully present and paying attention in stillness… then
these great truths do seem to open up.
And in Paul’s words, It is God’s Spirit now bearing witness
with our spirit that we are children of God…
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