A Human Point of View

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 and Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32. Click here to listen to an audio version of this sermon.

"From now, on we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way."

I have to admit that when I first read those words from our Epistle reading today, they really threw me for a loop. "A human point of view"? What's so bad about a "human point of view"? We're human beings – what other kind of point of view could we have? God became human in Jesus; doesn't that mean human beings, including their "human point of view" have been blessed and raised up to a greater life in God? Why then should we disparage the "human point of view"?

Well, it helped a little when I checked this line out in other translations, and in the original Greek. What Paul actually says here is "we regard no one according to the flesh." Ah, that makes more sense! Because you see, in Paul's writings, he uses the word "flesh" in a very particular way. For Paul, the "flesh" is one part of a human being, but not the whole human being. For Paul, the "flesh" is not just the muscle and organs and tissue, not just the body, which is the way we usually use the word; but Paul uses the word "flesh" to mean a particular psychosomatic reality, a combination of bodily factors and psychological tendencies that all revolve around satisfying our appetites. For Paul, the "flesh" is a pattern of feeling and reacting that is all about making sure that you are the most important thing in your entire universe. The "flesh" is that in us which is essentially self-centered, entirely focused on preserving our own self-images, completely devoted to gratifying our own self-involved desires. Because it is essentially self-centered, the "flesh" is also essentially opposed to God: the "flesh" doesn't care about God's calls to us to work for justice and peace, to build up right-relationships of mutual well-being, to turn outward beyond ourselves to give and receive in generosity and grace; the "flesh" knows nothing about loving God and loving our neighbors; the "flesh" is exactly the opposite of the spirit that opens to God and lives in God and co-creates with God. The special way Paul uses the word, the "flesh" represents pretty much the worst behaviors of being human.

So to regard someone "according to the flesh" is to regard them in pretty much the worst kind of way. Regarding things "according to the flesh" means seeing them and thinking about them and treating them only as means toward your own gratification. It means treating everything around you as nothing more than counters in the calculus of your own satisfaction. It means not caring at all about what things or people are in their own rights, but only caring about what they can do for you. Regarding things "according to the flesh" is being just about as greedy as you can be.

And I think we get a couple of wonderful example of regarding things "according to the flesh" in the two sons in the parable in our Gospel today. Yes, I said "two sons": I think both the prodigal younger son and the dutiful older son are guilty of putting themselves at the center of their universes and watching everything else – including their father – revolve around them.

That's pretty obvious, I suppose, for the younger son. He doesn't care at all for his father: he says "Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me," which means "I want what's coming to me when you're dead," or the short version, "I wish you were dead," which is a pretty uncaring thing to say to your father. He doesn't care at all about his property, squandering it in dissolute living. It's not even clear that he cares about forgiveness: when he decides to go home, he doesn't even plan on asking his father to take him back, he's just thinking about the three hots and a cot that he can get as a farmhand on his father's ranch. Right up until the very end, the younger son is measuring everything in terms of what it will do for him, he's regarding everything and everyone "according to the flesh."

And the same thing is true of the older son. Oh, he's less obvious about it than his younger brother, but he is every bit as much "according to the flesh." He works on the farm, he does his duty – and he resents every minute of it, he spends all his time counting up how many brownie points he's earned and how much his father owes him for being such a good son. And he's banking all those brownie points; he's never even asked for a small goat for a feast with his friends, because that's one more thing he can tell himself his father owes him. Right up until the very end, the older son is measuring everything in terms of what is owed to him, he's regarding everything and everyone "according to the flesh."

And, as the brothers in the parable illustrate, regarding everyone "according to the flesh" can be a pretty burdensome way to live. They don't make it look like much fun. Between Paul and the parable both, we're left with the question "Isn't there a better way to regard things than 'according to the flesh'"?

Of course there's a better way – and we see that better way at work in the father in the parable. When the father looks at his sons he doesn't see them just in terms of himself. He doesn't see them as disappointments to his hopes, or drains on his resources, or hands for his farm, or investments for his old age. When the father looks at his sons he sees them in their own rights, with the gifts and the passions and the faults and the foibles they each have, with the accomplishments and the potentials that are theirs and nobody else's. And more than that, when the father looks at his sons he sees them as partners in relationship, as ones who can co-create with him moments of joy and love and celebration. After all, it is the father who goes out to them – to the younger son on the road and to the older son in the field – it is the father who goes out to them and brings them in to the party. The father regards them, not just in terms if what they can do for him, but in terms if what they can do together to create joy and peace and reconciliation and love. The father sees them in just the opposite way from regarding them "according to the flesh."

Now the father's point of view, Jesus makes very clear, is God's point of view. And the point of view of God is shared in Christ; and the point of view of Christ can be shared with us as well. Paul says, "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God." The grace that comes from God is given to us in Christ, and that gift of the Spirit opens us up to a new creation, to a new creativity. It changes us, and it changes how we see the world: it empowers us to recognize the creating work of God all around us, and to realize how we can join with God as created co-creators to bring into being occasions of joy and peace and justice and well-being and love. The reconciling love of God frees us from the point of view of the "flesh," it frees us from seeing everything simply in terms of how it can satisfy our mere appetites, and it creates us anew to be ambassadors for Christ, missioners of Christ's own work in the world. The reconciling love of God helps us be like the father in the parable, to go out to meet people where they are and welcome everyone into the party of God's joyful love.

In this Lenten season, may our special devotions open the way for God's Spirit to free us from regarding according to the flesh, and fill us with reconciling love. Amen.