Spirit

Life Breathed Into Flesh

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Text:  Romans 8: 6-11 (Lent 5A)

6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

So many times, this Scripture is one of those that is read as if being “human”, being “flesh” is bad, as if somehow body and spirit are not compatible existing together in Creation.  That’s not the way it was intended.  After all, didn’t God create us as “flesh”?  For Paul, of the “flesh” is not “human”, per se, but rather a perversion of who we should be as humans. But it is the “way of the Spirit” that brings life.  Without the Spirit, the essence of Life breathed into the body ultimately dies.  The two belong together.  God’s Spirit brings breath and life.  Paul’s words are not mean to be dualistic, separating two unlike things, but, rather, transformational, depicting the salvific act of transforming sides of a whole that need each other.

We tend to get wrapped up in those things of the “flesh”—our needs, our desires, our fears. Paul is not saying that we dispense with them as bad. They are ours.  Paul is making the claim that the Spirit can breathe new life into them. There is no sense in fighting to sustain our identity apart and away from God. It will ultimately die. Paul has more of a “big picture” understanding than we usually let him have. He’s saying that the flesh in and of itself is not bad but the Spirit brings it to life. I don’t think he is drawing a dividing line between darkness and light, between mind and Spirit, between death and life; rather, he is claiming that God’s Spirit has the capability of crossing that line, of bringing the two together, infused by the breath of God. It is a spirituality that we need, one that embraces all of life. It is one that embraces the Spirit of Life that is incarnate in this world, even this world. I mean, really, what good would the notion of a disembodied Spirit really do us? Isn’t the whole point that life is breathed into the ordinary, even the mundane, so that it becomes holy and sacred, so that it becomes life?

And here’s the important part.  Verse 1 of this chapter from Romans says that there is “no condemnation”.  In other words, through Jesus Christ, we are more than flesh.  We are more than those things that we think “make us”.  We are more than the identity that the world inflicts upon us.  Through Christ, we are “flesh embodied”.  Our flesh and our spirit, our body and our soul, our humanness and that piece of the Godself that was so lovingly and graciously supplanted in us is one, undivided.  It is that total self that God loves–not just the Spirit, not just the things that are not of this “flesh”, but everything.  We are a package deal.  Don’t you love package deals?

In his book, Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr says that “in mature religion, the secular becomes the sacred. There are no longer two worlds. We no longer have to leave the secular world to find sacred space because they’ve come together.” In essence, our body and our spirit are one. That is what Paul was saying. Life in the Spirit is an embrace of our whole being. There are no parts that are elevated above the others. It is a new way of learning to see. It is a new way of learning to be. Everything becomes one in God. There are no good parts and bad parts. Everything is waiting to be transformed in the Spirit.

Here’s another way to illustrate it. How many of you like to eat raw eggs? How about a nice tasty tablespoon of flour? Or, perhaps you would rather have a wholesome cup of sickeningly sweet Karo syrup? Well, obviously, none of those things sound that appetizing. In fact, for most of us, they all sound downright disgusting. (I say “most” because I do know of someone (of blessed memory) that used to drink syrup when he thought no one was looking.  I so miss that!) But if you take those things and combine them, along with some other ingredients, you get my Grandmother’s pecan pie. Alone, they are worthless. But as a whole, they are wonderful.

We cannot pick and choose what parts of our lives we want to be with God. All of the mail is opened and read. For if one is to live a true life of holiness, there is nothing left out or hidden from sight. There is no secular. It is all sacred. There is no thought in our mind that is not part of the spirit. And there is not one of us that is of lesser importance than another in a true community of faith. Every part of us, no matter what it looks like, no matter what is tastes like, is necessary to make the recipe wonderful. Life in the spirit means that everything belongs in a perfectly balanced recipe for life that perfectly reflects and perfectly reveals all that there is and all that there is meant to be. That’s us–we’re a package deal.  Everything belongs! Thanks be to God!

So, for today, breathe out—breathe out that assumption that one’s humanity is bad, that those things “of the flesh” are things from which we are trying to run.  And, then, breathe in—all of it.  Breathe in everything in your life and be open to God’s way of breathing Spirit into it all.

Perhaps if we are brave enough to accept our monsters, to love them, to kiss them, we will find that we are touching not the terrible dragon that we feared, but the loving Lord of all Creation.  And when we meet our Creator, we will be judged for all our turnings away, all our inhumanity to each other, but it will be the judgment of inexorable love, and in the end we will know the mercy of God which is beyond all comprehension. (Madeleine L’Engle)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Spirit-Poured

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Scripture Passage: Acts 2: 1-6, [7-11], 12-17, [18-21]

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each…” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 

I know it’s been too long since I did this.  But rather than beleaguering that point now, I’ll just let all the reasons why I have seemed to be missing in action drift into future writings.  So, over the years, I have often written in “high holy” seasons, those seasons that sort of burst in and interrupt our day-to-day ordinary lives.  They are the seasons, like Advent and Lent, that make us pay attention, perhaps even change what we are doing.

We often think the same thing of Pentecost.  It has been portrayed with images of winds and fires and brightly colored streamers that at the very least draw our attention to the day.  Some even refer to it as the “Church’s birthday”.  Truthfully, I hate that.  I don’t think it was the birth of the church (the organized church came along much later).  I also don’t think it was merely an awakening of a sleepy people (although that would be helpful even now).  And it is not merely a day filled with fire and winds.  (When I was young, I conjured up images of forest fires and hurricanes, which did not seem helpful to me at all.)  Instead, in my thoughts, this day is tied to the Sunday before.  The Ascension of Christ left what seemed to be an emptiness, a place that was once filled but is now an uncomfortable gaping hole in the story.  And we are told to wait.  (Have you noticed there’s a lot of waiting in this life?)

And then, we are told, a wind comes upon us and the Spirit pours into us, filling that emptiness with the piece of God that is meant just for us.  And it is like tongues of fire, all-consuming, burning away those things around the edges of our lives onto which we hold a little too tightly.  The Hebrew for it is “Ruah”, more than wind, more than Spirit, but the very breath of God breathed into us.  It does not interrupt our ordinary lives; it makes them what they are meant to be; it makes them holy.

This “high holy” day is different from the rest.  Because it brings our ordinariness along with it.  It is now the norm.  And if we are open to being Spirit-poured, we can never go back to the old ways again.  So, what part of God’s Spirit is yours?  What part of Jesus life is yours to carry? And what will you do with your newfound ordinariness?

Without Pentecost, the Christ-event–the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus–remains imprisoned in history as something to remember, think about, and reflect on.  The Spirit of Jesus comes to dwell within us, so that we can become living Christs here and now. (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli