Blog on the Lillypad
Saturday, August 09, 2003
I got more sick last night than I've been in years. Everything hurt, and it hurt for a long time. I don't know if I had a flu bug or had eaten something I'm allergic to, or if it was one of those girls things, as I'm code red right now. After an hour of trying every chair in the house to find a comfortable way to rest (and the floor), I tried a hot bath in spite of the late hour. That did help. I dozed in the tub for about 20 minutes or so. All the pain suddenly congregated in that one critical spot, and I had just enough time to grab the trash can and lean over the edge of the tub. I threw up several times, and that eased all the symptoms, but then I was so weak I wasn't sure I could get back to bed. This scared me, to some degree, but I told myself that if I couldn't get back to bed I could just lie down on the floor until I could.
But once I got to my feet I knew that I could at least get as far as the bed. THe discomfort came back but then gradually faded, and I slept until almost nine o'clock this morning. And I seem to be fine. There's a certain way you wake up after being really sick---a kind of peacefulness and stillness all through you.
However, his defense of the Church as sacramental----an experience of the God-Man Jesus Christ as Christ interacts and continues to reveal Himself by visible union with us---is true only if we recognize that "sacrament" is not made up of what man decrees sacrament to be. Nor can man broker the sacrament of Jesus Christ.
Christ instituted the sacraments, not man. Christ is the basis of the sacraments, not man. And Christ creates the union with His people that we depend on, not man. The Orthodox churches have heaped up ritual upon ritual, pageantry, gold, processions, for the same reason that Fundamentalists heap up rules after rule after rule of strict behavior. The religious leaders are trying to provide a human framework and a human engine ti dispense that which remains the divine prerogative.
Christ meets His people in the real world and has union with them in real events. It is true that the revelation of Him is ongoing to each one of us (and that revelation occurs in accord with Scripture). But His revelation is that He is ours and we are His, and He has given us His Sonship with the Father. (And we do have to understand that intellectually, as well as experientally, so we must have Scripture as the text of our faith.) Sacraments, as observed in too many orthodox churches, are given as a means to "allow" this, yet it is quite ironic, for no priest or pope or elder can halt what Christ has decreed. Therefore, that sacramental union with Christ must occur at His administration of Himself.
I am not knocking people who find meaning and comfort in the sacraments that Christ has ordained, but it's important to define the difference between the form, which serves only as the reminder, and the essence, which is Christ Himself. Sacramentally, we come into line with the reality of Who He is by taking up a cross and following Him in our everyday lives; thus we show we are ready to have fellowship with Him and enjoy union with Him.
So there are two ways to define "sacrament": the first is that in real situations, Christ is present with us, acting to unite to us through events and by use of this material world. The second definition is the ritualized event that takes place repetitively in Orthodox churches. When the second definition becomes the sole definition or takes precedence over the first, then that church too has missed Christ and is simply engaging in a pageant, where our Savior is not a participant.
It looks to me lke the writer of the article is behaving as a marriage counselor who tries to draw a line of difference between conversation and sex in a marriage. "Ah!" he says, a marriage based on informational conversation (Fundamentalism) leads only to rational understanding! Marriage is so much more than that! Cut the conversation and start having lots of sex! (Orthodoxy)" Well, eventually, a marriage based on sex without a genuine understanding of who the other person is, what that person values, and where he's been becomes just as empty and meaningless as the marriage based on rational conversation. No matter how elaborate the sexual encounters become, there is still no real union, and the encounters might just get so elaborate that the bride wakes up and realizes she's been alone in that bed for years, having sex with no one but her own reflection. (Just as the Fundamentalist bride may realize she's been talking to herself for the last several years.)
If we Christians as the bride of Christ wake up and realize we're alone, let's remember that our husband would only leave us in order to give Himself to us and take us based on what our union really is, so that we stop enjoying our image of the union and instead enjoy the real thing. Our union is founded in Him. We must know Him and also experience Him, but He is the broker of who He is and what He gives us. Christ labored for us. Christ won us. He is all we can ever truly possess.
But once I got to my feet I knew that I could at least get as far as the bed. THe discomfort came back but then gradually faded, and I slept until almost nine o'clock this morning. And I seem to be fine. There's a certain way you wake up after being really sick---a kind of peacefulness and stillness all through you.
Sacramentalism
But back to the theology. I like the idea (and commend the insight) of the man who said that one lack in Fundamentalism (even the scholarly branches) is the hyper rationalism of it. If that rationalism goes nuts or becomes banal, the faith itself turns into the sideshow that so much of it has become.However, his defense of the Church as sacramental----an experience of the God-Man Jesus Christ as Christ interacts and continues to reveal Himself by visible union with us---is true only if we recognize that "sacrament" is not made up of what man decrees sacrament to be. Nor can man broker the sacrament of Jesus Christ.
Christ instituted the sacraments, not man. Christ is the basis of the sacraments, not man. And Christ creates the union with His people that we depend on, not man. The Orthodox churches have heaped up ritual upon ritual, pageantry, gold, processions, for the same reason that Fundamentalists heap up rules after rule after rule of strict behavior. The religious leaders are trying to provide a human framework and a human engine ti dispense that which remains the divine prerogative.
Christ meets His people in the real world and has union with them in real events. It is true that the revelation of Him is ongoing to each one of us (and that revelation occurs in accord with Scripture). But His revelation is that He is ours and we are His, and He has given us His Sonship with the Father. (And we do have to understand that intellectually, as well as experientally, so we must have Scripture as the text of our faith.) Sacraments, as observed in too many orthodox churches, are given as a means to "allow" this, yet it is quite ironic, for no priest or pope or elder can halt what Christ has decreed. Therefore, that sacramental union with Christ must occur at His administration of Himself.
I am not knocking people who find meaning and comfort in the sacraments that Christ has ordained, but it's important to define the difference between the form, which serves only as the reminder, and the essence, which is Christ Himself. Sacramentally, we come into line with the reality of Who He is by taking up a cross and following Him in our everyday lives; thus we show we are ready to have fellowship with Him and enjoy union with Him.
So there are two ways to define "sacrament": the first is that in real situations, Christ is present with us, acting to unite to us through events and by use of this material world. The second definition is the ritualized event that takes place repetitively in Orthodox churches. When the second definition becomes the sole definition or takes precedence over the first, then that church too has missed Christ and is simply engaging in a pageant, where our Savior is not a participant.
It looks to me lke the writer of the article is behaving as a marriage counselor who tries to draw a line of difference between conversation and sex in a marriage. "Ah!" he says, a marriage based on informational conversation (Fundamentalism) leads only to rational understanding! Marriage is so much more than that! Cut the conversation and start having lots of sex! (Orthodoxy)" Well, eventually, a marriage based on sex without a genuine understanding of who the other person is, what that person values, and where he's been becomes just as empty and meaningless as the marriage based on rational conversation. No matter how elaborate the sexual encounters become, there is still no real union, and the encounters might just get so elaborate that the bride wakes up and realizes she's been alone in that bed for years, having sex with no one but her own reflection. (Just as the Fundamentalist bride may realize she's been talking to herself for the last several years.)
If we Christians as the bride of Christ wake up and realize we're alone, let's remember that our husband would only leave us in order to give Himself to us and take us based on what our union really is, so that we stop enjoying our image of the union and instead enjoy the real thing. Our union is founded in Him. We must know Him and also experience Him, but He is the broker of who He is and what He gives us. Christ labored for us. Christ won us. He is all we can ever truly possess.
