The flesh and the Spirit

Homily for Sunday, June 26, 2022
Third Sunday After Pentecost
Galatians 5:1, 13–25

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh.”—Galatians 5:16–17

This morning I will speak about “the flesh” and “the Spirit” and why Paul in this morning’s lesson from Galatians might say the two are opposed.  And I want to approach Paul’s “the flesh” and “the Spirit” by first consulting Leviticus.  I realize that to consult Leviticus may seem akin to consulting Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito, but consulting Leviticus in regards to Galatians is precisely what Thomas Aquinas did at the beginning his lectures on Galatians at the University of Paris in the mid 13th century.  Speaking of the abundant harvest the Hebrews would experience were they to keep God’s commandments, the author of Leviticus writes (and Aquinas quotes (from Leviticus 26:10)), “You shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new.”

By the way—speaking of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—I will share at announcement time what our Bishops wrote in response to Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health.  But now: “the flesh,” “the Spirit,” and Leviticus…

I realize I may be a bit of an outlier, but I have great confidence in the book of Leviticus.  I have great confidence in the book of Leviticus for at least five reasons.  (Ready?)

• First, the author understands God to be present in every aspect of our lives—every aspect, including our sexuality.  Though Leviticus might not get all the details “right” according to our present understanding of human sexuality, what Leviticus does get right is that God is present to us in every aspect of our lives, including our sexuality.
• Second, I have confidence in Leviticus because in Leviticus everyone and everything has a place in God’s universe: the Hebrew, the non-Hebrew; the clean, the unclean; fish, shellfish; the tent of meeting, the camp; inside the camp, outside the camp.  In Leviticus, in God’s universe everyone and everything has a place.
• Third, I have confidence in the book of Leviticus because in Leviticus for almost anything a person could do to separate themselves from the community, there was something that person could do to get back in.  No matter how much somebody had sinned, in Leviticus chances are there was a sacrifice, a ritual, or simply waiting until sundown, that that person could do to be welcomed back into the community.
• Fourth, I have confidence in Leviticus because the author imagines the bulk of Leviticus to have been whispered by God into Moses’ ear, as it were, God speaking to Moses “as one speaks to a friend” (Ex 33:11) in the holy of holies in the innermost part of the tent.  That God spoke to Moses in such a close, intimate way suggests that God might also speak to us in a close, intimate way.
• And lastly and perhaps most importantly, I have confidence in Leviticus because Leviticus has confidence in us.  Leviticus believes that we have the capacity to change and to grow, not merely as individuals but as a whole, as a society.  Leviticus brims with confidence that we can be transformed into a community, a culture, in which all people—indeed, in which all creation—has the opportunity to know abundant blessings in relationship with God.

“You shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new.”  By introducing his lectures with this passage, Aquinas signals that what Paul does in Galatians is similar to what the author of Leviticus does in Leviticus.  The similarities are striking.  (Again, there are five, connected to the five reasons just listed:)

• First, if in Leviticus God spoke to Moses directly, so, too, in Galatians does Jesus speak to Paul directly: “I want you to know,” Paul writes in chapter 1, “that the gospel… proclaimed by me is not of human origin, for I did not receive it from a human source… but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:11–12).
• Second, if the author of Leviticus understands God to inhabit all aspects of our lives, so, too, does Paul in Galatians understand Jesus to inhabit all aspects of his life, to the extent that, “it is no longer I who live,” writes Paul in chapter 2, “but Christ who lives in me” (2:20).
• Third, if in Leviticus everyone has a place in God’s universe, so, too, in Galatians does everyone has a place in Jesus: “there is no longer Jew or Greek,” Paul writes in chapter 3, “there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (3:28).
• Fourth, if Leviticus makes provision for one who has transgressed to be restored to the community, so, too, in Galatians does Paul make provision for one who has transgressed to be restored: “If anyone is detected in a transgression,” Paul writes in chapter 6, “you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one” (6:1).
• Lastly and perhaps most importantly, if Leviticus is brimming with confidence that the Hebrews can grow and be transformed, so, too, is Paul brimming with confidence that the Galatians can grow and be transformed, and not merely as individuals, but as a whole, as a new people.

To look more closely at this last similarity—that Paul is brimming with confidence that the Galatians can grow and be transformed—I want to turn to the context of, “what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh.”  To interpret Paul’s words as a kind of Puritanical warning against the body and physical pleasure would be inconsistent with the passage’s context, not only in Galatians, but in Paul’s other letters:

• For example, of Paul’s list of fifteen vices in today’s reading, only one and at most three have to do with sex: “fornication,” clearly; “impurity,” probably; and “licentiousness,” possibly.  And to consider today’s “vice list” in the context of Paul’s best-known vice list (and “vice lists” are what scholars call these lists of vices), of the 21 vices listed in Romans chapter 1 (1:29–31), none have to do with sex.
• Also, given how much Paul in the rest of Galatians writes about the Law (e.g., Gal 2:15–21), and given how the verses omitted by today’s epistle—today’s reading skips from chapter 5 verse 1 to verse 13—[given how the verses omitted by today’s epistle] tell of Paul’s opposition to circumcision, it seems that for Paul, “the flesh” is connected to the Law.
• Further, in other letters (such as 1 Thessalonians and Philippians) Paul expresses how he longs for the physical presence of fellow believers (e.g., 1 Thess 2:17, Phil 1:8, 4:1).  For today’s passage about “the flesh” to be in any way a judgment about our physical bodies would be inconsistent with those passages in which Paul expresses a longing for the physical presence of fellow believers.

Given these contexts, it seems that when Paul says “what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh,” Paul is making no moral judgment about our bodies or physical pleasure or sexuality.  Rather, in Galatians Paul expresses confidence that the Galatians, as they are willing to “clear out the old to make way for the new”—that is, as they are willing to see beyond an exclusively Jewish community formed around the Law and to imagine rather a Jewish and Gentile community formed around the Holy Spirit—the Galatians will indeed be transformed into a new people, or a “new creation,” as Paul puts it, where “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything,” Paul writes in chapter 6, “but a new creation,” he writes, “is everything” (6:15).

We human beings are embodied; we can no more set aside our bodies or physicality or sexuality than we could set aside our need to eat.  In Galatians I hear Paul making no moral judgment about our bodies or physicality or sexuality, but simply and without judgment issuing an invitation to “clear out the old to make way for the new,” to set aside whatever may be keeping us from being more fully a people formed, not by “law,” but by the Holy Spirit.  For it is possible, as we “clear out the old to make way for the new,” that Jesus will speak to us closely and intimately, “as one speaks to a friend”; it is possible that Jesus will inhabit us to the extent that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” And it is possible, as we clear out the old and make way for the new, that we will be part of God’s “new creation,” a community, a people who are blessed, and through whom all—indeed all creation—may know abundant blessings in relationship with God.

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