When we try to understand anything, most of us have at our disposal the ability to think, to remember and to will. In other words, we tend to perceive and experience our lives in a way that brings together the faculties of mind, memory and will.  We think in ways that rely upon recognition of past experiences and unconsciously but also willfully make connections so as to operate and function in our world. This is the manner in which what some call our ego operating system works.  It’s a seemingly necessary way to engage in the world.

But what would happen or what does happen when we somehow transcend those faculties?  What would our experience be like if we could encounter experiences in our lives that not so much suspend those faculties but transcend them in such a way that we have an even richer and fuller experience of what this life is about in all of its terrible and wonderful relationships and interactions?

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (2 COR 3: 4-11) today is perhaps saying a little something about this:

“Brothers and sisters: Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that of ourselves we are qualified to take credit for anything as coming from us; rather, our qualification comes from God, who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life.”

According to Paul, we have a good reason to be confident, but not based upon our own qualifications and decided actions, but rather from the standpoint of God’s qualification of and IN us. This new qualification goes beyond the letter (of the law) that he says brings death, and moves into the realm of life-giving Spirit.  It may seem that Paul is being dualistic here between “law” and “grace,” but I am tempted to see this as not taking sides, rejection or doing away with anything, but opening up the possibility for all that is already here to be fuller and extending into ever-expanding life.

“Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so glorious that the children of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of its glory that was going to fade, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, the ministry of righteousness will abound much more in glory.”

Paul equates the letter of the law “carved in … stone” as a “ministry of death” in that it presents itself to us in a way that seems to condemn us.  And in this condemnation we seem to “fade.” What Paul refers to as the “ministry of righteousness” is this New life in the Spirit that does not reject death but actually moves THROUGH death to show a fullness that we could not have discovered or experienced without death.  This is a Life that does not fade in death but becomes fuller through it.  Jesus tells his disciples the same thing in the Gospel today (MT 5: 17-19):

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place…”

Rather than setting up an opposition between law and grace and death and life, I think the Scriptures here may be saying more about the relationship between the pairs. The relationship is based upon the qualification that God grants us in His enveloping Love of us in our lives.  It is nothing we have earned – it is totally given and when accepted by us, it bursts forth into a manifestation of a life of righteousness in the Spirit.

And here “righteousness’ does not mean the qualification we obtain by our deeds or our strict adherence to the laws, but rather righteousness as a way of standing, breathing, and moving in the sacred space created by the pure grace of God’s active love in our lives.  This is the fullest context that can hold death within life and allows and empowers death itself to give life.

As the evangelist Matthew tells us in the words of Jesus “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  The very person of God in Christ will touch us and show us and lead us into that fulfillment where “not the smallest letter or the smallest letter will pass from the law.”  This God of ours carries even death along in gentle embrace, knowing and loving the “child” that will be born.  Nothing is lost, indeed all is fulfilled, namely though the transformative Caress of the Holy Spirit.

So, inasmuch as we seem ordained to move through this world adhering to the laws (moral or otherwise) that are governed by our mind, memory and will, which by the way are all gifts from God, we are invited beyond these – or perhaps through these – into a transformative journey where we can actually encounter God directly. All the deaths in our lives, whether they be things we feel we have done wrongly, attitudes we have held onto for security, or self-recriminations for these and all other mistakes, all these deaths have the capacity to be brought into fullness through the God-Incarnate, i.e., the resurrecting Spirit of Christ!

Is this the “glory” perhaps that Paul is telling the Corinthians about – that all-inclusive Christ passageway that rejects nothing but transforms everything (through death) so that as Jesus tells us nothing passes from the law?

I recall some time ago, while swimming in the gulf, I was heading back to the shore as the tide was ferociously coming in and was knocked down to my knees by a wave crashing over my body. Before I could get up another wave broke upon me and forced me underwater wherein my glasses came off and I lost them in the surf.  I arose from the water quite humbled and somewhat embarrassed.  It occurred to me that the breaking waves that resulted in losing my glasses could be an analogy of how sometimes things (ways of seeing) must be broken or even lost in order for us to begin seeing another way.  It can be quite traumatic and forceful.  It can feel like breaking an internal law that we have been guided by – the lenses (like eyeglasses) that we have used to see our world.

Perhaps the glorious qualification of Christ in our lives is precisely that which can allow us to break the laws of how we see and engage in our world in a way that transforms our whole outlook so that we can now see and live the “Law” as an exciting and dynamic journey toward and in God with each other and all the world. Then, the glory of our lives are manifested in the glow of the Holy Spirit of Christ who breaks, carries and transforms death with the Law of Loving Sight!

Peace,

Thomas

(originally published June 14, 2017)