The Spirit vs. the Law??

In the New Testament it always seems like there is a tension between the Law and Faith or the Law and the Spirit.

This tension is perhaps at the root of some of the greatest theological divisions of Christian history: Marcionism, Pelegianism, Protestantism

These are just a few of the “isms” that it has caused.

And this tension continues to affect us even today, not only in modern Protestantism but even within the Church.

We see occasionally Catholics who want the faith without the Church, that is without the hierarchy, the Law. Spirituality without communal Worship and practice.

Conversely there are Catholics who want the Church without the spirit, without the sometimes uncontrolable mysticism of charismatic members and movements. This is what Jesus is addressing today in explaining the parable of the sower of seeds.

As Jesus explains the seed that falls on the path refers to those who reject the gospel, but I believe that the other two situations are more dangerous than the first

The other two places that the seed falls I believe refers to the two extremes of Law vs. Spirit

We live in an age of extremes and it strikes me that this dichotomy has been deadly to the Church especially over the past 50 years.

The seed that falls on rocky ground is received with joy, however these seeds cannot penetrate deep into the heart and so they are washed away.

This refers to those who hear the word, and are excited who embrace the good news
and begin to practice it, observing its outward manifestations but fail to allow its Spirit to enter their hearts.

How many people have grown up as Catholics going to mass, receiving the Sacraments, considering themselves Good Catholics

Without ever opening a Bible, without ever imagining the passion of a John of the Cross or Theresa of Liseux toward the faith, and even, without ever really praying—because after all there is a difference between rattling of the word: such as a Hail Mary, and actually praying them.

AMEN. Why do we say it? What does it mean?
When we understand why we are doing something, then we make its meaning our own
This is the Spirit of the thing, but when we don’t understand the action or word is by definition meaningless.

Jesus said when he was giving the Sermon on the Eucharist, in John chapter 6, the Spirit gives life.

A parrot who mimicks the words of the Creed is not a Christain because it is the Spirit that gives life, but how many Catholics lack this Spirit?

The tension between the Law and Spirit we see in the New Testiment, and St. Paul in particular,
Arises not from a desire to separate these two things but from a realization that the Jews, the Pharasees had separated them, observing rules and regulations without understanding.

Jesus testifies: I have not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.

But many Jews were so blind to the Spirit of the Law that they failed to see God’s promised Christ, in Jesus. I think it was the great Russian author Dostoyevsky who wrote a short story within one of his novels about Christ being put on trial before the Catholic Grand Inquistor

Although the story was clearly anti-Catholic I think the message is still esential for us to think about our Catholic faith cannot be a dead thing, it cannot be all letter and law, lest we run the risk of not recognizing Christ in our midst.

This being the case, the law provides and essential form and space, for our faith to grow in.

St. Paul of all people knew this, and nowhere in his letters does he encourage us to ignore the law. Likewise, when Jesus cured people on the Sabbath, He was not encouraging men to ignore the Sabbath, to ignore God, but rather to put the Sabbath observance in its proper place, seeing the Spirit of the Law, not just the letter.

When Jesus speaks of the seed that falls in among thorns He is speaking of the opposite extreme, the Spirit without the Law without authority and hierarchy, without guidance

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath Jesus explained to those who complained that he violated the Sabbath Law.

This is not to say that it is abitrary or can be lightly dismissed, but that the God gave Man the Law to help us live good lives. The law is made for man, BECAUSE our maker, the one who knits us together in our mother’s womb AND who knows us better than we know ourselves tailored the Law to us, so that it fits like a glove and shows us the sure way to happiness.

Without the Law the seeds of the Faith take root, they may even take root in our heart but they are choked to death by the world.

The Spirit without the Law is like a human body without any bones.

This mentality, which is the essence of protestantism, and has been around almost as long as the Church has because it makes people feel liberated and free, the way eating the Apple seemed to be liberating to Adam and Eve.

Often this Spirit without law mentality is accompanied by the desire “to live like the first Christians,” who, we are told, did not have any formal structures. What it fails to recognize is that within the first few decades after the early followers of Christ were first called Christians
they were already developed hierarchical structures. Structures, that developed out of the Apostolic hierarchy established by Jesus, which helped them combat years of persecution and countless heresies so that the Early Christians could stay true to the Faith. so that the seeds would not be killed by the thorns of the world.

The famous Russian Orthodox theologian, Vladimir Soloviev, made exactly this argument at the end of the 19th Century pointing out that before the Great Schism Rome had always come to the defense of the Church in the East against the Eastern Emporers. Since the schism the Orthodox Church has been at the mercy of secular powers—he claimed.

Therefore, Soloviev saw in Papal Primacy, that is the Law, the only guarantee of true orthodoxy and of true freedom against the State and the world.

A prophetic arguement, if you consider the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church was heavily infiltrated by the KGB after the Communist Revolution.

Jesus’ final alternative, is the truly Catholic option, one that embraces the Law, but always leaving room for the workings of the Spirit. This is what St. Augustine is getting at
in his famous sermon of St. John’s Gospel. "Dilige et vis quod fac." “Love and do whatever you will.” However, if you love God, if you are truly in his Spirit you will want to follow his path. The ten commandments, laid out today in our first reading are not an impediment to our freedom,
but the only true way to exercise it.

They are not set against the Spirit, but the normal ways the Spirit of God acts in our lives.

As the Book of Deuteronomy says: today I have set before you blessings and curses, life and death, choose life—life, found in both the Spirit and the Law working together to bring about the Kingdom.