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Live
Letters Fourteenth Sunday
in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
July 5, 2002We are still in the section of Romans that speaks of how we are saved and that outlines the major outcomes or results of salvation. One of salvation’s major effects is liberation from the obligation to observe the law that God had given to the Jews. In chapter seven and the beginning of chapter eight, Paul describes how the law, though good in itself, really served to raise the consciousness of sin in those who tried to follow it, although it was not able to free them from sin. It is only through the saving action of Christ that we are freed from our state of sinfulness and freed from the law that made us aware of our sinfulness. This comes about by our sharing in the Spirit of Christ.
As chapter eight proceeds, we hear more about the influence of Christ’s spirit in the lives of Christian believers. This is an important chapter in Romans, and the Lectionary gives us no fewer than five readings in a row from it. (As we begin our reflections on the action of Christ’s Spirit in the justification of the believer, it is important to note that some scholars find that the term "Spirit" in this context does not seem always to mean the third Person of the Blessed Trinity. Until Christian Trinitarian terminology reached its final state of clarity and precision, the word "Spirit" could sometimes mean the dynamic presence of God in the justified Christian, i.e., the power that enlivened Christ Himself. Consequently, the terms "God’s Spirit" and "Christ’s Spirit" could be interchangeable.)
As this Sunday’s reading begins, Paul is drawing a contrast between being in the flesh and being in the Spirit. (Note that "flesh" here does not mean the physical material that forms our bodies, but a state of selfishness and consequent hostility toward God.) He reminds the Romans that they are freed from being in the flesh, but only if they have been enlivened by the Spirit of Christ. You have to have the Spirit of Christ if you are going to be Christ’s.
This new life in Christ, the Spirit of God dwelling in the believer through grace, will give a new life even to our mortal, physical bodies at the end of time, even as it gave a new life to the dead body of Jesus.
If that is so, then we need have nothing more to do with "the flesh." We have no obligation to pay it any attention whatsoever. As a matter of fact, if we do continue to pay attention to "the flesh," we will revert to a state of being dead, whereas if we suppress the claims of the flesh ("the body") through the energy of the Spirit, we will live.
Implicit in what Paul says here is the awareness that God lets us make choices. We can choose to accept the salvation that Christ offers us, or we can choose to reject it. Once we have accepted new life in Christ, we can choose to persevere in it or we can choose to return to the ways of sinfulness. If we persevere in the life that Christ’s Spirit gives us, we will enjoy the same kind of eternal risen life that He enjoys. If we choose to return to the ways of "the flesh" we will end up in detachment from God, i.e., in an ongoing state of death. Salvation depends totally on God’s loving initiative, but it also depends on how we choose to respond to that initiative.
It boils down to a matter of priorities, of what we determine as most important in our lives. We can embrace the way of immediate and consistent self-indulgence, the easy way, the comfortable way, or we can embrace faithfulness to the demands of the risen Christ, demands that are often difficult and not always immediately rewarding. The effects of these priorities will follow necessarily, automatically out of the choices we make.
It’s worth noting that most of the time we express our priorities in the context of small things. We very rarely find ourselves in a situation in which we are faced with a monumental choice of life-time importance. Most of the time it’s a choice between doing some little act of kindness for somebody else, or taking care of ourselves; of spending some time in prayer or watching more TV; of facing up to a difficult situation or getting out of it by telling a little lie. Our priorities express themselves in our choices, mostly little choices. But these choices add up. If our choices are consistently in the direction of greater openness to the Lord and to our neighbor, the goodness of Christ that God has bestowed on us will grow and flourish. If our choices are consistently in the direction of selfishness and comfort, we will find that we are gradually becoming inconsistent with the Spirit of Christ that is in us. It’s the little choices that count. It’s the little choices that express our basic priorities. It’s the little choices that lead us to big choices that ultimately determine whether we live according to the flesh or according to the spirit, whether we are going to have eternal death or eternal life.
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Conversation Questions.
Do I perceive the action of the Spirit of Christ in my life?
What are my priorities? How are they expressed?
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