There have been times during this chancel renovation project when it feels like nothing is happening. Every morning I come in and open the sanctuary door with anticipation. And there have been days when I would see – well, nothing new. Day after day it looked the same. Like nothing was happening.
But something was happening, actually: the wiring. All kinds of work was going on under the surface to wire us for power.
We have electrical outlets, and audio connections for speakers and microphones. We have special outlets for the organ to be plugged in when it arrives. And wiring that will all be needed for the organ to play. So much was happening under the surface. As it happens in life, many critical works are hidden from our eyes.
Such as the work of the Spirit.
We don’t see the Spirit of God. We hardly know what to say about this third person of the Trinity. We think of her as breath, as wind – and I say her because the Hebrew word for spirit, ruach, is feminine. The Spirit blows where she will. As Jesus says to the Pharisee Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
In the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans, Paul conveys to us that it is the presence of the Spirit of God that marks us as Christ’s own. Because where the Spirit is, Christ is also.
And just as we can see the effect of the wiring by the sounds that it will enable, we can see the effect of the Spirit by the life she enables.
Paul contrasts the life of the Spirit with the life of the flesh, using language that, unfortunately, is easy to misunderstand. You might infer from it that anything that gives pleasure is sinful. Eating good food, dancing to beautiful music, playing games – and throughout history there have been faith communities that have drawn that line, saying bodily pleasure is, by definition, sinful. Some Christian communities have banned dancing. Some have prohibited singing anything other than the Psalms. Some have even tried to ban enjoyment of food, by making food so bland and tasteless, who could enjoy it?
But that’s not what Paul is talking about. What Paul means here is something a bit more nuanced. When he speaks of the flesh, he is not referring to our physical bodies, but rather our orientation to the world, to life. The life of the flesh is a life turned inward so that the self becomes the center of everything, and the central priority is consuming pleasure. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,” Paul writes. The life of the flesh is a life of idolatry, where one’s own pleasure takes the place of God.
It sounds kind of crazy, extreme, and it certainly can be. For that reason, it is a real danger. It is important for people of faith to examine ourselves for signs that we may be turning inward in these ways.
Even Christians sometimes choose the flesh – that is, choose to trade in God’s care over us for sin’s control – which is choosing a kind of spiritual death.
God did not make us for the life of the flesh, as Paul sees it. God offers us new life in the Spirit.
The life in the Spirit, in contrast, is to be set free from bondage to sin and self. To be in Christ and to receive the Spirit is to turn your life over to God, and to turn your life over to God is a freedom unlike anything else. Because we understand here that we are not doing any of this under our own power – it is the power of the Spirit.
The transforming work of the Spirit changes us, allowing us to live according to the Spirit, set our mind on things of the Spirit. And perhaps surprisingly, this reorientation connects us with our world in a deeper way. For to live in the Spirit is to live not only for ourselves but for the community, for the world God created.
Through Christ, God offers us this different kind of life – to live at peace with God and our neighbors. And that is a powerful thing.
The writer Walker Percy wrote a story that illuminates these ideas Paul is presenting. It is called The Thanatos Syndrome. It was the last book he wrote before he died. It’s a strange sort of sci-fi story where residents of a small town start changing, all in essentially the same ways. They are becoming duller. Their language becomes much simpler, with short, abrupt sentences, and an apparent inability to follow a logical flow of thought. Their speech is flat, lacking any emotional resonance.
They appear to be losing their ability to care about anything other than base appetites. They are losing some of the essential qualities that make them human, regressing to a less-than-human state. And, it turns out, there is an enemy who is doing this to them.
It is, literally, something in the water. Chemicals are being added to the town’s water supply that are having these dulling effects. The intention is to create a more subdued and controllable populace. A people who are, as Paul might say, living in the flesh rather than the spirit.
What happens when we turn from the power of the Spirit? We become dull, thick. Not less intelligent, per se. Just less interested in the fullness of life that God offers. Maybe bored. And boredom can lead to more regression.
This turning away from the Spirit and toward the life of the flesh causes the people in the story to be more placid about anything that is happening in their world. But the Spirit leads us in the opposite direction. The Spirit gives us power to rejoice in beauty and goodness, and power to reject evil, to resist evil in all its forms. Life in the Spirit gives us power to care for all life.
For a person who is in the Spirit, it can be very disturbing to see signs of this kind of regression in the ones who lead us. Such as -
When our leadership presents a view of the world God made that we may not recognize, a world that is only “dog eat dog,” lethal competition.
When our leaders speak and act as though there is no reason to care for someone who cannot do something for you, that everything in life is transactional.
When our leaders prioritize self-interest at the expense of others, particularly when it comes at the expense of those they are entrusted with leading.
A life powered by the Spirit enables one to speak against these things, to resist these forms of evil. Our baptismal vows call upon us to renounce these and all forms of evil.
Here is a beautiful thing: A life powered by the Spirit enables us to see a different way, to live a different way. And in that living, to show others a different way.
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