Earlier this week, Jessica and I recorded a podcast for Ministry Matters addressing the question of what is absolutely necessary in the liturgy of Holy Communion, and what is overkill and can make the sacrament stuffy and boring.
Jessica grew up in the Disciples of Christ church and became a Methodist when we got engaged, and is rather "low church" in her preferences. I am a cradle United Methodist and lean toward the Anglican side of our heritage, so I'm a "high church" guy. Gimme the smells and bells!
You can listen to the podcast here, and we'd love to hear any comments on that page or on this blog. What elements are necessary for the Lord's Supper to be a truly holy experience for you?
Showing posts with label sacrament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sacrament. Show all posts
Friday, November 02, 2012
Monday, June 20, 2011
Julian of Norwich- Fourth Showing
This post is part of my meditative reading through Julian of Norwich's Revelation of Divine Love
during my renewal leave.
In the fourth showing Julian briefly explains how God showed her that God chooses to wash us clean with blood rather than with water. At first this sounded a bit macabre to me, but after meditating on this passage for a while I saw a different side.
Julian talks about how God created water for many purposes out of love for us, but that his blood is simultaneously more precious and more plentiful than water.
As I thought more about this, it struck me that water is a created thing, just as we are. So of course God could use created things to redeem other created things, but in the Incarnation we see God inserting God's self into the created order. Jesus is God's ultimate act of self-giving.
Perhaps this is because as a created thing, I can possess and give all kinds of other created things and maintain the illusion that I am somehow in control. One of the reasons that religious institutions get so twisted and toxic is that we begin to believe that we are in control, and we leave God out of the process. But when God gives God's self, there can be no mistaking who is doing the giving, hence there is no mistaking who is in control.
Although Julian doesn't mention this, God choosing to redeem us through self-giving as opposed to through a created thing calls to mind the sacrament of Holy Communion. Celebrating Communion (both as celebrant and congregant) has always been very meaningful to me, because recalling the story of the Last Supper and proclaiming the elements to be infused with the real presence of Christ helps me temporarily forget the limitations of finite people and things and see everything as interconnected and animated by the living presence of God.
Until meditating on this showing, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to find the beauty that Merton and others found in her text, but I may be beginning to see what they see.
during my renewal leave.In the fourth showing Julian briefly explains how God showed her that God chooses to wash us clean with blood rather than with water. At first this sounded a bit macabre to me, but after meditating on this passage for a while I saw a different side.
Julian talks about how God created water for many purposes out of love for us, but that his blood is simultaneously more precious and more plentiful than water.
As I thought more about this, it struck me that water is a created thing, just as we are. So of course God could use created things to redeem other created things, but in the Incarnation we see God inserting God's self into the created order. Jesus is God's ultimate act of self-giving.
Perhaps this is because as a created thing, I can possess and give all kinds of other created things and maintain the illusion that I am somehow in control. One of the reasons that religious institutions get so twisted and toxic is that we begin to believe that we are in control, and we leave God out of the process. But when God gives God's self, there can be no mistaking who is doing the giving, hence there is no mistaking who is in control.
Although Julian doesn't mention this, God choosing to redeem us through self-giving as opposed to through a created thing calls to mind the sacrament of Holy Communion. Celebrating Communion (both as celebrant and congregant) has always been very meaningful to me, because recalling the story of the Last Supper and proclaiming the elements to be infused with the real presence of Christ helps me temporarily forget the limitations of finite people and things and see everything as interconnected and animated by the living presence of God.
Until meditating on this showing, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to find the beauty that Merton and others found in her text, but I may be beginning to see what they see.
Monday, August 11, 2008
The Protestant Sacrament
Lately my dissatisfaction with much of the Christian lingo we toss around with little to no thought as to what it really means has caused me to consider the whole subject of salvation. It’s impossible to bring up the topic in church or anywhere else without everyone getting very uncomfortable because the fire and brimstone preacher they heard as a kid still echoes in the back of their head. “Be saved or go to Hell” seems to be the paradigm most people are familiar with, even if they don’t totally buy into it, and as such they see this as the central tenant of Christianity, or worse, of all religions.
In much of my reading and discussion in the emerging church conversation I find pretty much the same thing, even if it’s talked about in a more sophisticated way. We’re afraid to express any definitive opinion because we’re afraid of who we’ll offend or whose painful childhood memories we’ll awaken. Perhaps this is not an entirely bad thing, because for us to rethink what these things really mean we actually have to spend some time thinking about them and not just race to an answer for the sake of having one. Still, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve become so comfortable with sitting with these questions that we’re afraid to take the next step and test out some ideas.
That being said, I have a theory I’ve been working on for a while that I’d like to share and get some feedback on. It’s not an explanation of what it means to be saved or how the process (if it is, indeed, a process with definable stages) works. Instead it’s a working hypothesis on the central problem of our conversations on salvation in modern American Protestantism.
My theory is this: American Protestant Evangelicals have turned the concept of “accepting Christ” into a sacrament. I will hereafter refer to this as “The Protestant Sacrament”.
I use the word “sacrament” intentionally because of how the meaning of the term has evolved over time. In the Roman Catholic Church the term has classically meant a means through which one receives and partakes in the grace of God (the Council of Trent did refine the definition somewhat, but the council was in response to the whole Protestant problem). Protestants changed the definition somewhat because of the desire to get away from the perceived ecclesiocentrism of Catholicism. Definitions differ depending on who you ask, but most Protestants would tell you that a sacrament is a tangible manifestation of God’s grace, but that grace is not confined to these rituals and can be experienced in many ways.
It is the classical Catholic understanding of sacrament that leads me to speak of the Protestant Sacrament (the definition I just gave is grossly over simplistic, of course). In our efforts to package Christianity as a consumable product on par with the Big Mac we have reduced being a Christian into whether or not one has had a saving experience with a specific time, date, and place. If you’ve come forward at the altar call at church, at the Billy Graham crusade, or prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer” after someone walks you through the tract, then you’re a Christian. You’ve accepted Christ, you’ve received the Protestant Sacrament, therefore you’re saved and are going to heaven.
That’s all I’ll say for now. I’ll put up another post soon and talk about some of the reasons I think this is a huge problem. What I’m trying to sketch out right now is how this came to be. I have a general idea, most of it having to do with frontier revivalism in the respective Great Awakenings in America (leading me to think that I, as a person of Wesleyan persuasions, have inherited some of the blame for this) and the gradual decline in the regular practice of Communion at many camp meetings.
What I need right now is feedback. Is this small seed of an idea something worth pursuing? Has somebody already fleshed this out and I just haven’t picked up the right book? Let’s discuss.
In much of my reading and discussion in the emerging church conversation I find pretty much the same thing, even if it’s talked about in a more sophisticated way. We’re afraid to express any definitive opinion because we’re afraid of who we’ll offend or whose painful childhood memories we’ll awaken. Perhaps this is not an entirely bad thing, because for us to rethink what these things really mean we actually have to spend some time thinking about them and not just race to an answer for the sake of having one. Still, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve become so comfortable with sitting with these questions that we’re afraid to take the next step and test out some ideas.
That being said, I have a theory I’ve been working on for a while that I’d like to share and get some feedback on. It’s not an explanation of what it means to be saved or how the process (if it is, indeed, a process with definable stages) works. Instead it’s a working hypothesis on the central problem of our conversations on salvation in modern American Protestantism.
My theory is this: American Protestant Evangelicals have turned the concept of “accepting Christ” into a sacrament. I will hereafter refer to this as “The Protestant Sacrament”.
I use the word “sacrament” intentionally because of how the meaning of the term has evolved over time. In the Roman Catholic Church the term has classically meant a means through which one receives and partakes in the grace of God (the Council of Trent did refine the definition somewhat, but the council was in response to the whole Protestant problem). Protestants changed the definition somewhat because of the desire to get away from the perceived ecclesiocentrism of Catholicism. Definitions differ depending on who you ask, but most Protestants would tell you that a sacrament is a tangible manifestation of God’s grace, but that grace is not confined to these rituals and can be experienced in many ways.
It is the classical Catholic understanding of sacrament that leads me to speak of the Protestant Sacrament (the definition I just gave is grossly over simplistic, of course). In our efforts to package Christianity as a consumable product on par with the Big Mac we have reduced being a Christian into whether or not one has had a saving experience with a specific time, date, and place. If you’ve come forward at the altar call at church, at the Billy Graham crusade, or prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer” after someone walks you through the tract, then you’re a Christian. You’ve accepted Christ, you’ve received the Protestant Sacrament, therefore you’re saved and are going to heaven.
That’s all I’ll say for now. I’ll put up another post soon and talk about some of the reasons I think this is a huge problem. What I’m trying to sketch out right now is how this came to be. I have a general idea, most of it having to do with frontier revivalism in the respective Great Awakenings in America (leading me to think that I, as a person of Wesleyan persuasions, have inherited some of the blame for this) and the gradual decline in the regular practice of Communion at many camp meetings.
What I need right now is feedback. Is this small seed of an idea something worth pursuing? Has somebody already fleshed this out and I just haven’t picked up the right book? Let’s discuss.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Life is a Sacrament
This past weekend I performed a funeral, a wedding, and a baptism, in that order. I love times like this because it allows me to be present with people in some of the most significant moments of their lives. I’ll be honest, though- it was a tad inconvenient because it ate up what was supposed to be a day off spent reading the final Harry Potter book, but ministry never has and never will go according to my schedule (nor should it).
When it became clear what a busy 24 hours I was going to have, Jessica remarked, “Wow, a trifecta of sacraments in one weekend!” This is not technically true because, as Protestants, we tend to be finicky about biblical precedent for things, and as such we recognize only baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments because of their prominence in the life of Jesus. Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, on the other hand, recognize weddings and funerals (last rites) among their list of seven sacraments.
Her comment got me thinking, though. Perhaps we Protestants have missed something in our noble quest for biblical fidelity. Perhaps a more inclusive list of sacraments makes a broader statement about the very nature of life itself. Recognizing baptism, communion, confirmation, confession, marriage, ordination, and anointing of the sick/dying as sacramental and holy reminds us that there are holy moments throughout our lives. Indeed, it helps us see all of life as sacramental, not just a few specially set aside parts. What if we really viewed every part of our lives, both the “significant” parts and the ordinary parts, as holy and completely infused with the spirit of the living God?
It’s unfortunate that those of us in higher church traditions (Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox are all in the same boat here) have turned the sacraments into something that is reserved only for those of us who belong to the priestly class. We originally did this because we wanted everyone to understand them properly, of course, but what we ended up doing was creating a method by which we who wear fancy robes and have cool titles get to pretend we’re better than everyone else. “I can perform these things and you can’t because I’m special and you’re not.” This is the very thing which Jesus came to get rid of.
What if, just for a moment, we stopped our ecclesial chest thumping and considered the possibility that the reason the church has sacraments in the first place is to remind us that significant moments in our lives are not only important because we decide they are, but because they give us the opportunity to remember how God is fully present with us in all the moments of life? If we really believed this, then we might understand that sacraments are not merely another way to mark who’s in and who’s out, but as markers of the fact that Jesus has removed all barriers (most, if not all of our own making) to each of us experiencing the fullness of life with God. I think that looks a whole lot more like what Jesus wanted for us.
When it became clear what a busy 24 hours I was going to have, Jessica remarked, “Wow, a trifecta of sacraments in one weekend!” This is not technically true because, as Protestants, we tend to be finicky about biblical precedent for things, and as such we recognize only baptism and the Lord’s Supper as sacraments because of their prominence in the life of Jesus. Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, on the other hand, recognize weddings and funerals (last rites) among their list of seven sacraments.
Her comment got me thinking, though. Perhaps we Protestants have missed something in our noble quest for biblical fidelity. Perhaps a more inclusive list of sacraments makes a broader statement about the very nature of life itself. Recognizing baptism, communion, confirmation, confession, marriage, ordination, and anointing of the sick/dying as sacramental and holy reminds us that there are holy moments throughout our lives. Indeed, it helps us see all of life as sacramental, not just a few specially set aside parts. What if we really viewed every part of our lives, both the “significant” parts and the ordinary parts, as holy and completely infused with the spirit of the living God?
It’s unfortunate that those of us in higher church traditions (Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox are all in the same boat here) have turned the sacraments into something that is reserved only for those of us who belong to the priestly class. We originally did this because we wanted everyone to understand them properly, of course, but what we ended up doing was creating a method by which we who wear fancy robes and have cool titles get to pretend we’re better than everyone else. “I can perform these things and you can’t because I’m special and you’re not.” This is the very thing which Jesus came to get rid of.
What if, just for a moment, we stopped our ecclesial chest thumping and considered the possibility that the reason the church has sacraments in the first place is to remind us that significant moments in our lives are not only important because we decide they are, but because they give us the opportunity to remember how God is fully present with us in all the moments of life? If we really believed this, then we might understand that sacraments are not merely another way to mark who’s in and who’s out, but as markers of the fact that Jesus has removed all barriers (most, if not all of our own making) to each of us experiencing the fullness of life with God. I think that looks a whole lot more like what Jesus wanted for us.
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