Prayer: Bless, O Lord, our speaking and our listening, so that your word may accomplish its purpose in our hearts.
Title: Life in the Spirit. Text: To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8.6)
Last week Roger Federer lost his Wimbledon title to Rafael Nadal, and a new king was crowned. Within weeks of Gordon Brown finally becoming Prime Minister, the papers were predicting his downfall. We may not care for the way the media appear to relish the process of building up and then knocking down the image and reputation of leading sportsmen, politicians, businessmen, fashion icons etc, but their banner headlines are a faithful if exaggerated reflection of the ethos of the society in which we live. Sport rather than religion is now said to be the opium of the people. Money, ambition, fame, success are all hugely fascinating. And our fascination is due, in part at least, to the way we see in others, in magnified form, our own hopes and fears. We are all winners or losers, on the way up or on the way down. We may like to think that we are unaffected by the worst excesses of the culture which surrounds us, but when we ask someone what they do, or where they live, are we not mentally calculating how we should rank them? Do we not respect most those who occupy the positions of greatest power and responsibility in our society? Do we not value success and the recognition that goes with it, both for ourselves and for our children? Of course we do, and it is entirely natural that we should do so.
Let me press this a little further. What harm is there in being ambitious? Did not Jesus himself encourage us to develop our talents to the full, for example in the parable of the talents? The servants who put their two or five talents to good use, doubling their master’s capital, were praised on his return, whereas the one who buried his one talent in a field was severely reprimanded. God gave to each one of us some talent, some potential, and I believe it gives him as much pleasure as any parent to see us grow as fully as possible into that potential. We are not meant to sit on our hands. The members of the St Michael’s School Choir, from Melbourne Australia, who are with us this morning, can be justly proud of their achievements. It takes a lot of hard work to do anything to the highest standard we can reach, and it is both natural and good to aspire to success, to stretch ourselves to attain it, and to be pleased when we have done well. The psalmist rejoices ‘as a strong man to run a race’, and you know what it means to rejoice when you have given a really good performance. It is at the heart of the Christian gospel that our God has not dismissed as worthless our lives and loves, our joys and indeed our sorrows. On the contrary, he loved the world so much that he entered into our life himself, giving it if you like the ultimate seal of approval. In St John’s gospel he is reported as saying: I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10.10). By his life as well as his words, Jesus has affirmed this world and our life in it. If we are to engage with the world around us, as we must, we should all give of our best, and be pleased for ourselves and for one another if our efforts are crowned with success.
So why is St Paul so dismissive of life in the flesh? Why does he draw such a sharp distinction between life in the flesh and life in the spirit? What does he mean? A few months ago I read a disturbing and depressing contemporary French novel – I can’t now remember who it was by – which told the life story of someone whose career, sex life, family relationships, financial security, and health all deteriorated, inexorably, step by step over a period of years, till the point was reached where the only rational, logical outcome was suicide. Unlike the Stravinsky / Auden interpretation of Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress, there was not even an Anne Truelove to offer a glimpse of hope through the power of her redemptive love. Here was someone who had set their mind on the things of the flesh – not just sexual fulfilment, but all the things which our society appears to value most – and when it all turned sour, as it so often does, there was nothing to live for. The picture may have been in some respects extreme, in the sense that most people can cling onto some shred of comfort or self-esteem from the good life that has deserted them, but we can all think of stars of yesteryear whose lives have spiralled down into a hell of drink and drugs and depression when their moment of fame and fortune has passed. And there are many, many more whose achievements were less glorious, their decline less dramatic, but their misery no less profound. To set the mind on the things of the flesh is death (Rom 8.6). But of course St Paul goes on to proclaim that to set the mind on the life of the Spirit is life and peace, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8.2).
What is it that makes possible such a dramatic transformation of our prospects? The secret lies in his reference to those who are ‘in Christ Jesus’. This is not a piece of obscure Pauline theology, but the very stuff of life. Let us go back for a moment to that wonderful passage of Isaiah’s poetry about the rain and the snow coming down from heaven and not returning there until they have watered the earth, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Isaiah draws on that familiar and beautiful image of providence and fertility to proclaim the same certainty for God’s word; ‘it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it’ (Isaiah 55.10-11).
The prophets who gave us the book of Isaiah were men of deep insight into the mind and heart of God, but they knew only the word of prophecy. We who live by the light of Christ know that the final and complete expression of the word of God came to dwell among us in the person of Jesus. Isaiah knew that God’s word could never fail in its purpose, and in Jesus the Word of God in its fullest sense accomplished his purpose. By his life and death He broke forever the destructive power of sin, the canker of ultimate defeat, despair and death which is otherwise present in every moment of worldly triumph and victory. By his resurrection, his Spirit lives on in the church, and in all who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord. In our Gospel reading, the parable of the sower acknowledges that not every seed will fall into fertile ground. We can stifle or ignore the word of God when it comes in our direction. But we cannot frustrate his loving purpose for ever. Year after year after year, enough of the seed will find fertile ground in which to grow and produce next year’s seed, so that eventually God’s word will prevail, and all his children will at last find life and peace as the word finds its way into their hearts, sooner or later, perhaps even by his mercy beyond the world we know.
As we live ‘in Christ’, setting our mind on the things of the Spirit, we begin to see our own lives in a new context. We humbly grasp the truth that what matters more than anything else is to know that, loved by God, and welcomed into his family circle of love, our lives are caught up into his life. In that context, we have the assurance that all we do in his name, and all that we offer to him when it happens to us, the flourishing and the falling away of our mental and physical powers, our failures as well as our successes, our sorrows as well as our joys, can somehow find their place in his purpose. Therein lies the ground of our hope in this world and the next. In Christ we know that to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.