Components of a Sacrament

In order to understand our Sacramental God, we must understand all that is necessary for something to be sacramental. I'll be honest in saying that I do not purport in portraying a comprehensive view of sacraments. And frankly, I am uncertain as to how connected my beliefs are with any let alone Anglican view of sacraments. My draw to Anglicanism has been chasing the reverberating echo I sent out signaled back to me from Anglicanism that I heard as I have tried to follow Jesus.

Some minimum requirements are needed for a sacrament to "happen." First and most important, you need God. Second, you need something created by God (something that isn't God, material or not, even a mere idea). Third, you need God's operating by means of the created thing to convey an aspect of his benevolence and, in some manner, presence/grace. From this minimal definition, literally anything can be a sacrament. In fact, I would even suggest everything is sacramental in some manner. But the purpose of each sacrament is not the same in scope and effect. All sacraments make holy something may not ordinarily be counted holy, thus making it a vehicle of God to express his divine nature and intentions toward creation and humanity.

Finally, all sacraments demand a response. Whether we are talking Newtonian physics ("for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"), or relational interactions between us with God and one another, the Sacramental God acts in ways that make it impossible to for there to be mere stasis. Creation must respond. We must confront the reality of the Living God as the Holy Spirit moves within us and outside us. God is wooing us, summoning us, seeking our greatest good and his ultimate glory, which coincide with one another again and again. Perhaps it is time for us to open up our eyes to the workings of the Heavenly Father, revealed in Jesus Christ, and still at work among us through the Holy Spirit.

The Sacramental God

I have been taking a class on John Henry Newman, focusing on when he was still an Anglican, reading primarily from his Oxford sermons and his Parochial & Plain Sermons. For my most recent paper, I read his sermon on the Eucharistic Presence of Jesus in holy communion. And it got me thinking about how I have been framing my theological ideas for some time now, at least the past 5 years. I truly believe that God interacts pre-eminently with creation sacramentally. But I would qualify that what I mean by sacrament is not limited to the 2 Gospel sacraments or the Roman 7.

I believe every manner by which God interacts with creation is a sacrament. Wherever grace is found touching the physical world, that is where God is, and that is a sacramental act on God's part. Sacraments also, by their nature, demand a response to fully apprehend the benefit they are intended to give. Perhaps this would be a good topic to address in the next few posts, concerning how our sacramental God engages us to win us and creation back into a restored relationship with Him.

Finding the Core

Kelly and I got into a discussion yesterday about whether certain beliefs/actions were necessary to be a Christian (and maybe which ones). Particularly the centerpiece was the idea of a kind of pluralism, potentially embodied in a pop culture icon like Bono who in many circles would be discounted as a genuine Christian, in others a wishy-washy Christian, and in still others a model of Christian faith and practice. The basic idea that we are all sinners, have an incomplete and usually distorted view of God, but yet were recipients of grace opens a unique can of worms when it comes to issues such as salvation, faith, Church membership, etc. There is definitely a body of teaching that can be seen as essentially the core of Christianity. But it begins to blur at the edges, as we make allowances for debatable issues. As Anglicans we even have a "doctrine" of via media to embody a tolerance for a degree of theological fuzziness, originally so England wouldn't fall into the sectarian post-Reformation warring chaos, but in effect permitting a wide degree of opinions on almost concept or practice in the Church.

There is a central core to Christian faith and practice. There is such a thing as special revelation by which God reveals Himself to us. But immediately natural questions come up. What is the source of this revelation? How reliable is it? How much and what kind of authority should be ascribed to/recognized in it? How does this source rank among other possible sources? How do I make a determination among these sources? Do I really even have a right to make such determinations and ask such questions?

Yes there is a core. And the closer one comes to the core, the more one sees through the fuzziness at the edges. That core has been attested to for millennia by God's people. Echoes of it reverberate in the galaxy of other other faiths, but the central fullness, including the mystery it encompasses, is found as we become more rooted in Holy Scripture, more aware of the consistent strains that weave through tradition of the Church, more committed to the historic practices of devotion and service, and more intentionally loving of others starkly different than us. We also come closer to the core as we become more humble, more silent, more penitent, and more giving. There is a point we cross over from death to life, when we "become" Christian. But that point is not so discernible to many. The point is keep traveling to the center. Because it is there where we will meet God face to face.