Mar 8, 2020                 Flesh and Spirit                                  

In his book, “Mere Christianity”, the evangelist C.S. Lewis writes a story about a man standing on the bank of a lake. There he sees a man  in the lake drowning. Now Lewis says that the man has three choices. The first is he can walk away and let the man drown. But for his example, Lewis says, what if that is not an option, maybe there are people watching from afar. What should the man do? The answer is to jump in and try to save the drowning man. But why should the man do this?

According to Lewis there might be two motivations. The first motivation may be a sense of empathy, compassion, self- sacrifice, a willingness for the man to risk himself to save the other. The second motivation may be to avoid the shame of being seen by others as not helping, as not making the effort, of being a coward. The first motivation comes from inside the person, about who he is, what his values are, how he will think of himself. The second motivation comes from outside himself, how others will see him, what they will think of him,

Lewis says that both motivations will move the men to jump in and try to save the man. But only one of these motivations is based on faith.

This morning, Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness, seeking to find out who Jesus is. And between them they have a very curious conversation about being born of the flesh, and being born of the spirit. In the light of our reading from Romans this morning about Abraham’s righteousness coming from his faith in the God who could bring forth life form his dying body, rather than from his adherence to the law, we can see that this conversation is not some much about flesh and spirit, and salvation according to the law, or salvation through the Spirit of God that comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ.

In the terms of my story from C. S. Lewis this morning. The Pharisees faith in the law, is like the man who is motivated by what others might think of him. He believes that if he fulfills the law in the sight of others, that he will be justified and saved. The person who is truly righteous is the man who acts not on a stage before others, but seeks to rescue the drowning man, simply because he or she cares, has compassion, and seeks to realize the sort of person that God made them to be, even if by the way, they don’t know who God is or never heard of Jesus Christ. But that is a discussion for another time.

Anyway, all of this came tumbling into my head this last Thursday, as we were discussing the gospel reading at the Committee on Ministry meeting at DeKalb. The secretary of the prairie association Julie Grendahl shared that she was an adult Sunday School teacher, and her concern about it, was that she wasn’t sure how she could know that she was born of the Spirit, or if others were born of the Spirit, or if she was just one of those people born of the law, or morality or human goodness. In short was she saved, and how could she know, or how could she describe it for her students.

And so, of course, I told her the story from C. S. Lewis, and we talked about how, through faith in Jesus Christ, we can discern what our motivations are. Do we act based on the law, and the condemnation of the world, or do we act based on a Spirit of compassion and genuine concern for others, a self-lessness that risks and suffers ourselves for others. These are the marks of faith in Jesus Christ, and life in the Spirit of God. And through this faith, there is salvation for our lives, and for the world. That is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Amen.