The Eighth Sunday After Trinity Sunday '23
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity | 2023 By Fr. Hayden A. Butler
In today’s Epistle lesson, St. Paul addresses the conflict between what he calls 'the flesh' and 'the Spirit.' As with many terms in the Scriptures, it can be easy for us to hear these words for years, and go right along with only a partial idea of what they mean. The more weighty the terms, the more problematic it is when we don’t get them quite right. Throughout the Church's history, Christians have faced the particular challenge of not immediately equating ‘flesh and spirit’ with 'body' and 'soul.' And yet this error introduces another often-confused set of terms. Far from being unique to our own time or culture, people in many ages have also struggled to understand the relationship of body and soul, attempting to resolve this confusion by denying one or the other as being real, or by pitting them against each other as enemies. The whole conversation changes though with the coming of Jesus. The Incarnation of Christ and the illumination of the Holy Spirit reveal that these answers are insufficient. To grasp St. Paul's idea of spirit and flesh accurately, we must start by taking one step back and returning to a fully Christian theology of the body and soul, which will then aid us in understanding what is meant by flesh and spirit.
As the Catholic writer Christopher West so helpfully put it, God made us on purpose and out of love. God did not make us via trial and error, but rather from deliberate, loving intention. He formed us from the dust of the earth and then gave us His own breath of life to make us alive in a way that was like how He lives. As the Genesis story observes and as the Gospel confirms, we are our bodies and we are our souls, together. They are not opposites but rather ways of describing the inward and outward dimensions of a person; both can truly be said to be what we are. Together, they describe a complete person. What we do with our bodies affects our souls, and what we do with our souls affects our bodies. Everything we do affects every other aspect of who we are. We are integrated, personal beings. We are incarnational and spiritual, all at once. We are made by the Spirit, the love of the Father and the Son; and we are made for the end of knowing that love.
St. Paul’s language of ‘flesh’ and ‘spirit’ does not equate to body and soul. Instead, ‘flesh’ represents an unnatural condition that affects both body and soul since the Fall, passed on through the generations. It embodies the power of sin, manifesting as inner corruption, outward decay, and ultimately leading to death - the separation of body and soul. The ‘flesh’ becomes evident in our external selves through visceral urges, wicked actions, stubbornness against love's demands, and the frailty of our bodies. It opposes God's purpose and creates inward frailty, leading us towards disordered lives. Like an overripe spot on fruit, the ‘flesh’ leaves us vulnerable to the world's ambitions and the devil's temptations, causing increasing corruption. Ultimately, ‘flesh’ represents death's power to dismantle what God intended to be a unified peace with itself, the world, and Him.
By contrast, ‘Spirit’ represents the Holy Spirit's active presence, bestowed as a gift, signifying God’s eternal loving communion wherever the Holy Spirit dwells. Spirit reunites us with God after the alienation of sin, shaping us into integrated, personal beings again and restoring the purpose of love for which we were created. When received, ‘Spirit’ works inwardly and outwardly, freeing us from the grip of ‘flesh’ and bringing forth new life in once afflicted areas. It heals us from the effects of ‘flesh’ by purging its corruption and creating new life. ‘Spirit’ operates primarily in our inward life, renewing our desires, will, and knowledge, forming a new foundation for actions and relationships. The work of ‘Spirit,’ though, will be completed in the redeeming of our bodies and in the perfecting of our communion with God and our brethren. This transformative experience offers a glimpse of the life to come in the Resurrection, already present and manifested through Jesus Christ.
Our Lessons for today call our attention to two practical realities concerning flesh and spirit. In the Epistle Lesson, St. Paul reminds us that a life spent in service to ‘flesh’ is one that can only result in death of body and soul. This is a reiteration of our lesson from last week. The wages of sin, of service to the flesh, will always be death. That is not the main point here. What is the main point is that much of the Christian life is spent feeling the terrible sense of conflict between flesh and spirit. The coming of the Holy Spirit that ignites the work of ‘spirit’ within us immediately inspires hope that God is at work but also that there is much more in us that needs his help than we ever previously imagined. In pastoral meetings, this comes up more than just about anything. It is hard to understand why we want to love God and show it so poorly in our thoughts, words, and deeds. But the truth is that the felt presence of the interior conflict reveals that there are two sides to the fight, and that means the spirit is warring with the flesh and thus, the Holy Spirit is doing His work. In this way, the Spirit’s presence testifies to the part of our mind that is uncertain and scared that we are in fact God’s beloved children.
In the Gospel, Jesus warns us not to be like those who try to sidestep this difficult interior transformation by attempting to live like it is unnecessary. His words are stern: not everyone that says to Him “Lord Lord” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is easy to mimic the wise words of monastics, the charitable acts of reformers, and the arguments of theologians, without actually knowing our Lord through the Spirit who alone makes that knowledge possible. To do the will of God is not just to pay outward service while retaining our private life. We must never divide body and soul, and we must not imagine a spiritual life that attempts to preserve the enjoyments of the flesh. There is no such thing as partial Resurrection; what is not dead is not raised. We cannot allow the power of the flesh within us to pretend to be dead. The flesh must be nailed to the Cross, and it will not die without a fight. Part of us will resist to the end the fact that we must be crucified with Christ through the trials and temptations of life, of coming up short and having to be received again with mercy by a God who loves us.
A mentor once taught me that the true Gospel always afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted, and that is where we find ourselves this morning. If we are the kind of person who is pretty satisfied with life as it is and who isn’t too keen to open the doors of their heart to the comforting but not always comfortable scrutiny of God, if we are resistant to the demands of His Love, then we must hear again Jesus’ warning and beware the idol of a partial salvation. It is possible to do all the so-called right things and to miss out on the presence of God who gives them life. We cannot settle for a cross-less Christianity; the flesh must die in us. We must let the Spirit kill that thing that is killing us. We will experience it as loss, perhaps even as shame, but in its place the Spirit will create more and better than we are willing to settle for.
On the other hand, we may be gravely and scrupulously concerned about whether we are growing in the Spirit; we may be grieved that there remains such a conflict within us and that we so imperfectly love God and others. Remember that there are only two states in which this conflict is absent: when we are consumed by the flesh and dead in our sins and when we are perfected in the Resurrection. Every other moment is spent in the combat of death and life within us. The conflict is a symptom of our panicked flesh, but also the clarion call of the Spirit’s impending rescue.
As St. John says, “Beloved, if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and He knows all things.” It can become difficult to actually hear and receive that we are loved as much as our Father truly loves us. The voice of shame and fear can be deafening. But if we are worried that God cannot love us in the midst of so much conflict, then we need to be confronted again by St. Paul’s reminder that God indeed loves us very much and looks on us as the beloved children. As the essayist Anne Lamott once quipped: “God loves you just the way you are...and loves you too much to let you stay there.” Or, in the words of St. Paul: “you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”
