Translating the Spirit

The scriptures referred to are Romans 8:1-11.

I know it irks some people when I use illustrations from popular culture, particularly movies, TV and comic books. I cite as my example for doing so St. Paul, who quoted popular Greek poets and playwrights in his letters and even in his testimony about Jesus' post-resurrection appearance to him. (Acts 17:28; 26:14; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Titus 1:12) If you are talking to people it helps to use terms that their culture understands. Paul bases a speech to the Athenians on an altar he sees in their city that is dedicated to an unknown god. TV shows, movies and comic books are the mythology of our culture. That is, they present and preserve our values and our consensus on certain truths in the form of stories that are easily grasped and remembered. This becomes especially clear when they are translated from one medium to another.

After seeing decades of crappy versions of the popular Marvel superheroes, fans were gratified at the movies turned out when the comic book company became a studio. And comic book historian Alan Kistler can tell us why. In his blog on film adaptations of comic books, he says that movie makers must do 3 things to get them right. First, they must know the source material. You'd think this was a prerequisite but he lists some bone-headed ideas movie producers had that did not, thank God, make it to the screen. Such as a Superman without powers who didn't wear his costume and who died only to be reborn, virgin-birth style, from Lois Lane. Where did that come from?

However, the problem with the first Hulk movie directed by Ang Lee was not a matter of not knowing the source material, Kistler says. While some minor details were changed the origin of the Hulk was told relatively faithfully. The problem came in violating the second principle of translating something to film. The movie makers must “figure out what it was about the original product that people reacted strongly to.” Kistler points out that what makes us sympathetic to the Hulk is that we know that he is really a decent guy who, due to a tragic accident, can become a monster if he gets angry. Stan Lee, long-time Marvel editor, says the challenge in writing the Hulk is how to make a hero out of a monster. Director Ang Lee said the Hulk is not a hero but a monster who messes things up. He saw the film as a straightforward Jekyll and Hyde story. He missed the fact that the Hulk is more like Frankenstein's misunderstood monster. Ang Lee didn't get what made the character resonate with people.

The third thing that Kistler says makes a good comic book movie is when the director remembers the atmosphere and the heart of the original. The story of the Hulk is that of a fugitive unjustly pursued. From Les Miserables to many of Alfred Hitchcock's films to the saga of Dr. Richard Kimble, people love to cheer for the innocent man fleeing from a relentless and wrong enforcer of the law. The second Hulk film starring Edward Norton got all of these elements right and so it became a big hit. And Marvel has been for the most part succeeding in its subsequent adaptations of its heroes and stories.

I've gone into such detail because the problem of getting the heart and character of someone right is precisely what Paul is dealing with in today's reading from his letter to the Romans. He has been going into depth on the question of how Christians relate to the law laid down in the books of Moses. It's not simply a matter of trying to obey God's law. For one thing, that doesn't change a person, not at the deepest level. Obeying the law is not the same as being a good person. Eliot Spitzer became governor of New York after being a zealous prosecutor and officer of the law. He nevertheless availed himself of the services of high-priced young call girls while in Nevada. Prostitution is legal in certain parts of that state, so he wasn't even breaking the law. Human law, that is. However the revelation of his infidelities and deceptions revealed he was a hypocrite and not the virtuous person he advertised himself to be when running for election.

Which leads to Paul's second point: we can't even obey God's law, not totally. We are always going to fail at some point. And the reason we fail is the principle he talks about here. Unfortunately it is one that has been misunderstood for most of 2 millennia. Paul calls this principle “the flesh.”

In Greek the word sarx or “flesh” means different things in different contexts. When Paul is talking about circumcision, he is of course using the term “flesh” in the literal sense. But when he talks about things “according to the flesh,” he is talking about things seen from a strictly human mindset or standard. But other times, like in this passage, when he talks about “the flesh” what he means is human nature unaided by God. This is an important distinction to understand because lots of people, including many Christians, think Paul is referring only, or primarily, to sexual sins. But the term is more inclusive than that.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual sins, impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, quarrels, jealousies, rages, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like...” (Galatians 5:19-21) As you can see from what I italicized, a lot of what he is talking about are non-sexual sins. Hatreds, idolatries, divisions and their ilk don't arise from sexual or bodily desires but from human nature when it is divorced from spiritual direction. So that's the way to understand Paul's use of the word “flesh” here, as unredeemed human nature.

Paul contrasts “the flesh” in this sense with “the Spirit.” By this Paul doesn't mean what people today mean when they talk about “spirituality.” It is not simply any kind of belief system or the contemplation of non-material realities. By “Spirit” Paul means a person, the Spirit of God who lives in us, who enables us to embody Christ in our life. So Paul is juxtaposing 2 ways of life: “walking” (living) directed by mere human nature or directed by God's Spirit.

It is very popular today to equate what is natural with what is healthy and good. But that ignores the fact that a lot of what happens in nature is anything but. In various animal species we see cannibalism, infanticide, incest, rape, and even war. Most but sadly not all of these things are condemned by most human societies. Even non-Christians recognize that not everything that arises from human nature is good. The usual solution to these is to make laws against them.

If you've been following our weekly passages from Romans you know that Paul has been arguing that the law doesn't really make people good. Prohibiting theft doesn't make theft disappear, not does it make thieves into model citizens. It just makes them outlaws once they commit the crime. This is also true of God's law. The prohibition in God's law against murder hasn't wiped murder from existence. Which is why putting the Ten Commandments in schools will not somehow stop school shootings. God's law is not magic. So what good is it? We'll get to that shortly.

Sometimes instead of violating laws, people learn to game them. If you've got kids you know they love to annoy one another. If they are poking their brother or sister in the back seat of the car, telling them to stop touching each other often results in them waving their fingers inches from each other, tauntingly saying “I'm not touching you.” They are observing the letter of your prohibition while violating the heck out of its spirit. And once again this is true of how people often react to God's law. A president said that oral sex with his mistress was not adultery. True, you can't find a specific mention of it in the Bible. But obviously it violates the spirit of the commandment against adultery.

Human nature is so perverse that prohibiting something can make people curious about the thing or activity prohibited. Tell your kids not to look in the upstairs closet and they will break into there faster than the Mission Impossible team. Unfortunately this impulse to explore the forbidden doesn't disappear with childhood. Advertisers appeal to it all the time. The internet is flooded with clickbait articles that promise to tell you salacious stories about celebrities or show scandalous pictures of them. Even if it's not true it's an effective way to get people to go to the website. And it wouldn't have any appeal if it didn't promise something forbidden and if we weren't curious about such things.

So with all the ways people can abuse God's law, what use is it? For one thing, the law is good at pointing out what is and is not healthy behavior. It can't make you obey it but it can function as a diagnostic tool. For instance, it's essential to know that a healthy temperature for a human being is somewhere around 98.6 degrees, a healthy resting pulse runs between 60 and 90 beats per minute, and a healthy blood pressure shouldn't be higher than 120 over 80. These vital signs let you know when someone has a fever or hypothermia, tachycardia or bradycardia, hypotension or hypertension. But to treat those conditions you need more than a thermometer and a blood pressure cuff. You need something that gets to the heart of the problem.

The law gives us standards that tell us what's wrong with our human nature. But the law cannot cure us by itself. For that we need something or someone else. We need the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God who was in Christ. (Luke 4:1) And we need him in us. We need to let go of the reins to our life and hand them over to the Spirit. We need to let him transform us from people led by our human nature to people led by the Spirit.

Letting our human nature run our lives hasn't worked out so well. The hatreds, quarrels and divisions Paul described are universal, found in all human societies and groups. We act like rival packs of animals, zealously guarding our territories, trying to extend their range into the territories of others. We are suspicious of strangers, and prisoners of our fear of them. We let the urgings of our human nature ruin personal lives and break up families. No one is immune, whether rich or poor, rural or urban, Western or Eastern, Northern or Southern, pink or brown. So maybe it's time to let Jesus take the wheel.

But we fear that. We fear not being in control. If we let the Spirit take control of our lives, what will happen? Just as Paul described the consequences of letting out human nature control us, he described the results of letting the Spirit take over our lives. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) It is the antithesis of letting our lower nature rule our lives. Paul adds there is no law against these. And again, no law can compel them either.

You can't pass a law requiring people to be kind or to be humble or to be patient. Any lawyer would tell you that such laws would be too vague and unenforceable. Yet the world needs more people who are peaceful and kind and faithful and patient and humble. How will we get them? Not by passing laws. That's what has always bothered me about members of the religious right who thought they can bring about the kingdom of God on earth by passing legislation. If they really studied and believed their Bibles, they'd know you can't do that. Paul spends half of Romans and Galatians establishing that fact. Instead we are to be the body of Christ to the world. And the only way to do that is to embody his Spirit.

Jesus taught. So should we. Jesus healed. So should we. Jesus fed the hungry. So should we. Jesus forgave the repentant. So should we. Jesus preached good news to the poor. So should we. Jesus spoke the truth to power. So should we. Jesus comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. So should we. Jesus went beyond the demands of the law. So should we. Jesus stood up to evil regardless of the consequences. So should we.

Some fans have objected to movies in which Batman uses lethal force because that goes against his moral code. In the same way, we must be careful that in translating the gospel into the medium of our lives we do not betray the Spirit of Christ. We must not do harm in the name of the one who healed. We must not wink at sin in the name of the son of righteousness. We must not act arrogantly in the name of the one who blessed the meek. We must not stir up hate in the name of the God who is love.

C.S. Lewis said that Christianity is more like painting a portrait than following rules. The purpose of following Jesus is to become like him. Too often the picture of Christ we paint in our words and actions is rigid, lifeless, rote and predictable. We lose the heart of Jesus, the thing that makes people respond to him. We need to capture his Spirit. Or perhaps that is the problem. We still want to be in control. What we need to do is let his Spirit captivate us and take hold of our lives. Only then people will see in us the real Jesus.