cairns

Whatever happened to sacraments?  Was it just the desire of Protestants to never sound Catholic that removed them from our lives?  Or was it more?  Was it the poison of modernity telling us that observable acts are what they appear to be and nothing more?  In fact late-modern science has taught us that they may be less because various observers cannot agree on even the exact nature of the physical act.  Perhaps it was the Age of Reason which led us rushing to a world which never spoke of magic or anything which might be considered ignorant and superstitious. Perhaps a lingering Gnostic heresy causes us to refuse to believe that bread and wine can be body and blood because we find the physical repulsive and separated from the spiritual.

But, somewhere along the line many of us lost the presence of sacrament in our lives.  According to Brueggemann, sacrament is “an invisible act wrought through a visible sign.”  How can we have sacrament when we live our lives by the rules of objectivity, even if we voice other beliefs when pressed?  And lately it has weighed on me more and more that we do not have the courage to speak of the glorious magical mystery of God’s unseen acts even when enacting the most basic practices of the church.

The elements of Holy Communion are held up and in my last place of worship consistently referred to as “emblems.”  No danger of Catholic theology of the literal body and blood there!  And, no power to save either.  What do the faithful understand to be happening when they eat small “emblems?”  What sense does it make, what power to transform does it bring to them — let alone the uninitiated seeker who still wanders in the door?

Baptism becomes “an act of crucial obedience” in order for the church to maintain its position that such an act must be performed, and at the same time avoid accusations of saying we are saved because of our acts rather than God’s.  What strange god is this who dies to find me, but demands that I be dipped in a fancy hot tub, or in places with less funds a decorated watering trough, to demonstrate that I am obedient enough for his love?  Why does he settle for my obedience to take a bath, but not demand my obedience to the more radical and subversive commands of Jesus?  What sense does this act have, and what transformation does it bring?

I hold that these acts are indeed sacraments, visible signs of very real but unobservable divine acts.  To argue about the exact nature of the bread and wine as they reach my lips is to fall into the trap of modern thought that an object can only be one thing and not two.  But, faith proclaims it to be true.  Jesus said they were His Body and Blood.  His Body and His Blood are the reality of the God who stops at absolutely nothing in order to bring about the redemption of creation.  I do not have the courage to call it less than Holy.  There is more going on in these moments than symbols invoking memory!  I come unworthy and undeserving to the alter of grace and participate in the redemption of all that is — including myself.

If baptism is nothing but proof of obedience, it is a silly ritual at best — better to ask the new believer to sell their earthly goods and give to the poor in obedience!  I embrace the belief that it also is a sacrament — that the alienated self is buried in the waters and the new self truly raised to live in the post-Easter Kingdom.  The properly instructed recipient experiences this transformation.  The properly led gathering of believers witnesses the miracle of rebirth.  To be clear, I agree that there is submission involved — the baptized have surrendered the humanistic hope of redeeming creation by human effort and agreed to die unto self and be raised into Christ.  At least, if the church dares to declare holy mystery, they do.

I believe that marriage is holy because the two become one in the unseen realm of the divine, not just in the state record books.  I believe that life is holy because the text tells me it was created by the speech and breath of God.  While I would not label conception as a sacrament, (it is always unseen under natural conditions), the text declares that the sacrament of marriage is the intended precursor to this creation of a new life.  God intends for life to be nurtured and has made it observable not only in human families, but in the animal kingdom as well.

There is no logical, scientific, objective speech for the same person dying and being reborn into a new holy kingdom.  Neither is there expression for receiving into my physical being the eternal gift of that deadly day we dare to call Good.  The every day life that surrounds us is shot through with Glory. Jesus declared that the Kingdom is all about us.  But, we have insufficient language to comprehend or share it.  Perhaps it is time again to live the poetry of sacraments which make the invisible tangible and unite us in praise and gratitude.

peace

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