Maturing Faith: In the Flesh

3rd Sunday of Easter

1st John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48

It comes from one of the earliest scenes of one of my favorite movies – Dead Poet’s Society. Robin Williams stars as John Keating, an English teacher returning to his alma mater, Welton Prep School for boys. At the beginning of his first class, Keating takes the boys out into the foyer of the main building, and has them gather in front of the trophy cabinets – filled with memorabilia from decades of Welton history. He is attempting to prod them in a direction they have never traveled, as he says to them:

They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

This week I have been thinking a lot about my Dad. Yesterday was the first anniversary of his death, and I can hardly believe it. I didn’t tell anyone when this happened to me last year, but there was a night when I awoke with a start – my mind had drifted to Dad, lying in a coffin in the ground, and that image of his physical body beginning the process of returning to dust startled me awake. Mom visited Dad’s grave yesterday, and she said to me on the phone, “Of course, he’s not there. He’s not there - he’s someplace else.”

The gospel and epistle writers let us in on the details of what happens when we die, only enough to suggest that the remnants of our earthly bodies will be united with our heavenly souls at the return of Christ, and we shall inherit a new, heavenly body. John says it this way – “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” None of us know what that will look like, and none of us, I suspect, can truly imagine what that will really be like. But it is our promise.

In the meantime, we are here, living what the early Greeks identified as the dichotomy of flesh and spirit. Sarx and pneuma, to use the Greek words. As my 49 year old body can testify, and to use Dad’s words, “Aging isn’t for the faint of heart.”

The apostle Paul addressed this dichotomy of flesh and spirit, at least enough to draw some pretty ominous conclusions – spirit is good, flesh is a problem – at least for most of us. From the day we are born until the day we die, we grapple with the flesh. We are caught up in the struggle of giving in to the flesh vs. taming the flesh.

It takes on so many different forms, this struggle. When we are small children, we are learning mastery over our physical bodies. Discovery of our flesh, developing mobility, achieving agility – these are the tasks of our infancy. When we arrive at adolescence, the struggle becomes one of balancing pleasure with wisdom and patience. As we reach adulthood, we begin the long battle with maintenance and health, and if we live long enough, we begin battling deterioration and disease. This is a lifelong battle – this struggle between flesh and spirit.

I was blessed to be reared in a church where we had a Youth Minister. Don Sims was my Youth Minister from the time I reached the seventh grade until I graduated from High School. Don was wonderful for the boys in our youth group. He recognized something very important, and he helped us understand the nature of the struggle. He helped frame the struggle for us – it was best considered to be a struggle “in the flesh,” and not one “from the flesh.” I was reared in south Texas – the Houston area. When I went to children’s camp as a child, I remember being “unimpressed” that we were required to swim in separate facilities – the boys had a pool, and the girls had a pool. I asked the leaders of that camp about this, and they said that we didn’t participate in “mixed bathing.” That part didn’t surprise me, but I thought we were talking about swimming. When Don came along, and we went to our own youth camp, he realized the seeming hypocrisy of the situation, and our youth swam in the same pool. I say hypocrisy, because during the summers, when we weren’t on youth outings, we went to the beach together – boys and girls – and so a decision to ask us to swim in separate facilities just seemed downright hypocritical.

Don helped me with a spiritual principle. We do not strive to serve God “apart from the flesh.” We strive to serve God “in the flesh.”

Jesus Christ lived in the flesh. In fact, we are taught that Christ was fully human, even as He was fully divine. Our gospel passage from this morning reminds us how important the physical was to Christ, and in an effort to help His disciples make the transition from His physical body to His spiritual body – you know, the body that could walk through walls – He asked for and ate a piece of fish. That may tell us something. Then, the first experiences of temptation for him included physical temptations. The scriptures tell us that He was tempted in all ways, as are we. The difference between Christ and us was that He did not succumb to temptation – even physical temptation.

Now, that may be a difficult concept for some. Isn’t physical gratification a sin? Isn’t it a sin to “give into the flesh?” The answer begins to speak to satisfaction, moderation, and exception. When we are hungry, it is not sin to satisfy our hunger. Moderation is key to our physical yearnings. I am often humorously struck by the rotund, gluttonous Baptist preachers of the south who preach against “all manner of sin.” That word “hypocrisy” comes to mind again. But then, I do have my own hypocrisies – so grace is certainly warranted. And then occasionally, exception is called for – we make exception to our moderation for the sake of illness, celebration, or perhaps fasting.

John has a word for us – He says, “All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” In that short sentence, we come to realize that God desires faith maturity, not “apart” from our flesh, but “in” our flesh. We are admonished to “purify” ourselves.

Well, just what does that mean? You may have read this last week that William Sloane Coffin died. William Sloane Coffin served as chaplain of Yale University from 1958-1976. Coffin initially became famous at Yale University in the 60's for his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was jailed (the first of many times) as a civil rights Freedom Rider," indicted by the government in the Benjamin Spock conspiracy trial, and was president emeritus of SANE/FREEZE: Campaign for Global Security. He fought in World War II, worked for the CIA for three years, and has been immortalized as Reverend Sloan in the Doonesbury comic strip.[1] He loved to quote one of the early church fathers: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

When we seek to understand what John meant by calling us to “purity,” we do well to measure our calling by the yardstick of Sloane’s statement – “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Our call to purity is not a call to avoid the pleasures of the flesh. To the contrary – our call to purity is to embrace the inherent goodness of what God has created – the pinnacle of God’s creation – mankind. God pronounced that part of His creation “good” as well.

I could offer to you a myriad of illustrations today, but as I said earlier, I’ve been thinking a lot about my Dad this week, and I think I’ll let his life be something of an illustration for us. At sister Tracy’s church this morning are blue flowers – in a vase that says “Blue Bell Ice Cream.” I come by my addiction to Blue Bell honestly. From the time I was a small boy, Dad would eat a little ice cream at night – two or three scoops – usually Blue Bell. Dad was a good eater – understanding the value of moderation. He never really struggled with weight, probably because he knew the value of doing “push-aways” right along with his “push-ups.” On the other hand, it took him longer – well into his fifties – to learn that jalapeños at dinner made for a long night.

Dad was something of a health nut before it came into such vogue. He played handball during his college days, and I remember him jogging when we were small children. When the weather was bad, and sometimes when it wasn’t, he would jog in the house. Then he would have one of us hold his legs down for him while he did his sit-ups. That was a sweaty job!! When his back told him to stop jogging, he took up golf and tennis. He introduced his boys and his daughter to those sports. We played tennis with Dad until he was in his late sixties, and golf until he was in his mid seventies.

When we lived on Cardinal Circle in Pasadena, Texas, Dad became the unofficial sports prompter for the entire neighborhood. One day, on a whim, he took a tape measure and measured off 100 yards on the street, and then painted a line for the start and finish. Then he would time us in the 100 yard dash – not just my brothers and sister – no, he would race against us, and he would encourage us to race against our friends in the neighborhood.

One of his most endearing qualities was his penchant for strangeness – well, at least to a son. Dad loved his cars, and he tried to take good care of them. So, when we would go to the store, Dad would park at the far reaches of the parking lot, so that people wouldn’t “ding” his car doors. I suspect, though, that part of his purpose was to teach us that walking was good for us, and you could often see us “race” back to the car when we left the store. Dad eventually became the gracious loser to his “speedier” sons – but he would still race, nonetheless.

The flesh of my father finally succumbed to his disease, and now he is experiencing his “glorified” body. But he taught me some things about faith maturation “in the flesh.” He taught me about moderation. He taught me stewardship of the flesh. He taught me how to stretch toward my potential. And I think the words of William Sloane Coffin are appropriate – for Dad’s life, and as an example to me – and to us.

“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Richard W. Dunn, PhD.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/now/society/coffin.html