The Offering of the Natural

My husband is laughing at me because I am currently surrounded by five fat books -- concordances, dictionaries and commentaries. I am most certainly not a Greek scholar, but in an attempt to understand what Oswald means by the "natural," I did a little research.

The word translated "flesh" in yesterday's passage (Gal. 5:24) is the same word Paul uses in Gal. 2:20: "The life I life in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God . . " According to my Greek dictionary, sarx, means "flesh, as stripped of the skin, i.e. (strictly) the meat of an animal (as food), or (by extension) the body (as opposed to the soul or spirit), or as the symbol of what is external, or (by implication) human nature (with its frailties and passions)." Hence, Oswald's point that Paul is not writing about sin. The body, itself, the physical, is not inherently evil.

Galatians was written as a letter to one of the churches Paul established on his missionary journeys. They were being heavily pressured to return to Jewish practices, to accept again the burden of the Mosaic law. Throughout the letter, Paul argues against this double-mindedness.

And that brings me to the central point for me in today's reading: "If we do not sacrifice the natural to the spiritual, the natural life will mock at the life of the Son of God in us and produce a continual swither. This is always the result of an undisciplined spiritual nature." Remember how Ishmael mocked Isaac? I also had to look up the word "swither," but in a common dictionary. It means to be indecisive, to dither. Immediately, I thought of the imagery in James of one tumbling about on the ocean waves: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."

Oswald uses the word "divorce" not as I initially thought -- to describe the action we should take toward our natural selves -- but rather to describe what will happen within ourselves if we do not sacrifice the natural.

I feel both tossed by the waves and split in two. I feel as though the natural within me is mocking the spiritual: You think God said what? You'll never be able to do that. The world doesn't work like that. Who are you kidding?

Sort of an odd place to stop, but I'm out of time and out of ideas. Any conclusion, at this point, would be false.

Barbara