It is good to seek balance between the life of flesh and the life of spirit. Some people “live in their head,” as though physicality counted for little, and others seem to be so spiritually disconnected, so completely focused on the material, that they are neither very healthy nor very interesting.
As we come to the end of the “I am the bread of life” discussion between Jesus and people in his hometown synagogue, he more or less ends the argument by suggesting that the preoccupation with “flesh” – which he stirred up by saying people had to eat his flesh if they wanted to be part of the Life of God – is a distraction from what really matters.
He says, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Did Jesus really say that “the flesh” is useless. That quote might reflect the bias in John’s gospel toward Greek thought and ideas, which posited a greater distinction between flesh and spirit than would be common in Jewish thinking. Perhaps Jesus made a more nuanced statement like, “The flesh is useless in the long run.” For obviously God valued human flesh enough to take it on in Christ’s incarnate life.
St. Paul uses “the flesh” as short-hand for “the human nature without God’s influence.” Our merely human existence, I think we might agree, has a short run indeed. It is our spirits that connect with the Holy Spirit, who gives us the Life that transcends life, the Life we begin now, even as we still very much live the life of the flesh.
Our enfleshed life allows us to enjoy the gifts of God, to fully inhabit this world and its pains and blessings. And the life of the spirit in us allows us to hold all that lightly, to recognize it as transient and temporal. We need to nurture both in this life, for a full humanity makes for a healthier spirituality.
What do you do to balance the life of your spirit with the life of your body and mind? How might you invite someone who seemed “not to have a spiritual bone in her body” to open up that part of themselves? Every day we can invite the Holy Spirit to strengthen the life of our spirit.
The flesh is indeed useless once we no longer inhabit these bodies of ours. For now, though, it is our very flesh which enables us to have the feelings and emotions and relational connections by which our spiritual lives grow. The flesh sets up the life of the Spirit, which gives us Life forever.
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