Paul’s Dialectical Teaching
The Body of Transformation
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Paul often uses physical language to describe spiritual states, as if they have a bodily aspect. Both sin and salvation are corporate concepts beginning with Israel itself. Modern science and neurology seem to be confirming this deep intuition. Paul specifically teaches the marriage of body and spirit through the Eucharist and community, both of which are called “The Body of Christ.” As we come to understand gravitational, electro-magnetic, and quantum fields, the disjunction between matter and energy breaks down. Einstein himself said that matter and energy are “convertible concepts.”
Try on these three Pauline concepts of Body, and see if they match your own experience:
- The Body of Sin and Death (Romans 7:23-24): Paul points to the very real power of negative/death energy operating with material, measurable manifestations. Hate hangs out with hate and creates more hate. This body is also called “the false self” by Merton, “the flesh” and “the powers and principalities” by Paul, “the ego” by Freud, and “the devil” by most world religions. You cannot be naïve about the “Body of Sin and Death” or it will swallow you up without your awareness. The notion of a devil or evil spirit is a psychologically helpful way to speak of this and take it seriously (though your image of the devil doesn’t have to be a horned creature with a tail!).To clarify: 1) the false self and ego are not in and of themselves evil; they are needed for healthy development and for our basic survival. They simply are not our true, full, authentic self; 2) by “flesh,” Paul does not mean the human body. Both of these concepts will be explored in greater depth in Friday’s meditation.
- The Body of the Crucified (Philippians 3:8-12): Paul uses many expressions to describe those who are suffering inside the cauldron of transformation—either those who suffer various forms of persecution or those who live in solidarity with them. In the suffering state there is great potential for a real shift into our full nature and our True Self. If the suffering people of the world see God in their pain, they are actually in a common soul and material “body” of understanding for one another. The poor, prisoners, immigrants, homeless, addicts, and those who are marginalized or hurting often have a natural empathy and sympathy for one another. They know something together that the rest of us do not know. Baptism is supposed to be an initiation into sympathy and solidarity with this “body,” but I’m afraid it seldom is (see Romans 6:3-4).
The “body of the crucified” is a brilliant psychological and spiritual understanding, pointing us away from the impossible burden of individualism. The weight of guilt, shame, and sin is far too much for the individual to bear. Thus we carry the mystery “in the Body,” or “in Christ”—“Making up in our own body what still has to be undergone by Christ for the sake of the larger body, which we call the church” (Colossians 1:24).
The Body of the Risen One (1 Corinthians 15:35-56): Paul refers to “carrying the weight of eternal glory, which is out of all proportion” to “the suffering that trained us for it” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Again he uses a physical metaphor to describe the state of those who have come out on the other side initiated and transformed. The “body” concept realizes that the individual person cannot carry the weight of glory any more than he or she can carry the “burden of sin.” Both sin and salvation are dealt with in one “lump sum,” as is described in The Cloud of Unknowing. The shared corporate mystery sustains the fragile individual. The transformed body is meant to be the positive and healing atmosphere of the church—and sometimes it is—but often it is also “enjoyed” in a gathering of joyful and altruistic people working for a common cause. This honest recognition is at the core of deep church satisfaction when church is done right and at the core of deep church dissatisfaction when it is not a loving, positive environment.
Gateway to Silence:
I am not separate.
Reference:
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 5 and insert (CD)
