Wild Card
The elements of the sacraments are signs of God’s love,
grace and desire to bring us into a deeper relationship with Him. When we participate in the sacraments, we are
saying to all: We belong to Christ. As we participate in the sacraments, we
receive through these actions the power and authority of God in our lives. When we believe in the gospel, the benefits
of the gospel are sealed within our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit. Our faith is nourished and strengthened by receiving
the benefits of Christ.
Jesus commanded his disciples to baptize and extend baptism
to others. The sign of this sacrament is
water. Believers are brought into and
incorporated into the church as the community of faith. Jesus commanded his followers to eat and
drink together in a commemorative meal for his sacrificial death. The sign of this sacrament is the bread and
wine of the Lord’s Supper. The community
celebrates the Lord’s Supper, through which faith is nourished and
sustained.
Calvin maintains that sacraments are important auxiliaries
to the Word. “Therefore, let it be
regarded as a settle principle that the sacraments have the same office as the
Word of God: to offer and set forth Christ to us, and in him the treasures of
heavenly grace.” (4.14.17) They are visual reminders of the central
messages God is concerned to communicate to humans. They are a media, in addition to the preached
and written Word, through which God communicates God’s self to us. Calvin calls them instruments that “seal” on
our consciences the promises spoken to us in God’s Word, a kind of “visible
Word.”
Calvin strongly rejects the Roman Catholic view that God’s
actual presence could be found in the material of life. “For the distinction signifies not only that
the figure and the truth are contained in the sacrament, but that they are not
so linked that they cannot be separated; and that even in the union itself the
matter must always be distinguished from the sign, that we many not transfer to
the one what belongs to the other.”
(4.14.15) He feels that this thought
is unbiblical and akin to idolatry. Calvin
maintains that the sign should not be confused with what it signifies. Not a simple reminder, but a sign that
conveys the reality to which it points.
Imagine God powerfully relating the two, making the signified thing
available through, not in, the sign.
The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally recognized seven
sacraments: baptism, confirmation, marriage, ordination (holy orders),
reconciliation (penance), Eucharist, and last rites (extreme unction). Based on Calvin’s definition of a sacrament,
having been instituted by Jesus and open and available to all, he questions the
validity of the “other five ceremonies.”
In 4.19.3, Calvin states, “I indeed admit that they are sometimes quite
free in their use of the work ‘sacrament’; but what do they mean by it? They mean all ceremonies and outward rites,
and all exercises of piety.”
My question is did we Protestants drop the ball? Are there more sacraments that we should be celebrating?
Hi Pam,
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Protestants have dropped the ball. However I think we need to connect the Word preached to our faith and recognize it as a "sacramental" method. It is not we who convince others but it is the Holy Spirit working through the proclaimed word which transforms people's lives. I concur with Calvin for the recognition of two sacraments, the one which joins us to the church and marks us as Christ's own, and the Lord's Supper by which Christ's believers are sustained in their walk of faith.
I agree with you Ric, and I am reminded from Reformed Worship that the sacraments are only given when the Word is preached.
DeleteHi Pam, great explanation and question. I agree with Ric, I don't think Protestants have dropped the ball. I think we need a way to define what a sacrament is and what qualifies as a sacrament. The reformed definition is a good one.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think we have room for liturgical forms that, though they are not sacraments, are important to faith and do involve the participation of the spirit. Ric mentions proclaiming the Word. I would add our corporate confession and the subsequent pardon. In fact much of the Lord's day service seems to me to fall into this category.
Identifying the 2 sacraments was one of the major themes of the reformation. In the Council of Trent the Roman Catholics reaffirmed their 7 sacraments as instituted in the Medieval Church. What is really significant here is the importance of defining what a sacrament is and the Medieval definition is different than that of the Reformers.
DeleteNice summary of the sacraments Pam. I also don’t think that we’ve dropped the ball. I think the most important thing to pay attention to is the definition of “sacrament.” I wonder how our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters define sacraments. Calvin would say the sacraments are aids to faith and God uses them to feed us spiritually. They are made effective only when the Holy Spirit works through them. (Lane, p. 156) I think God can use other ways to help our faith and to feed us spiritually, but we just wouldn’t call them sacraments.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the lovely summary of Calvin's position in and about the Sacraments, after reading over the comments written, I have little to add. God's creative manifestations abound, for me to lock Christ's Love in two or seven human actions in some ways signifies placement of constrains on the Lord's ways. However, Sacraments when seen as outward signs of what is internally churning, uplifts and edifies the Church, brings community and connection and solidifies for us these un-tangible essences of the Lord's Work. As far as dropping the ball, I do think in many ways the ball has been dropped. I see less and less of what I call, reverence in the Sacraments of Baptism and of Communion, not in all services and not by all individuals... But I do think as leaders there should be evidence of reverence. Rather than the leadership quickly imbibing the bread and wine mid-sentence as an aside, there should be a pause, at least. What I observe is less than a pause, as leadership are often mid-production in their "work" of creating a production-like Service.. and seem to be mentally on to the next portion of the Service.. Possibly this is their 2nd or 3rd Service, 2nd or 3rd Communion of the Sabbath Day and are not realizing... just my thought(s).
ReplyDeleteWow Claire - interesting points about the reverence of the Sacrament. Overall, I feel that our church does a pretty good job, but we are traditionally high church in a grand old sanctuary that in itself has a reverence. Does it make a difference? Yes and no, but I think the informality of worship as a whole definitely makes it more difficult to bring reverence to the sacraments. .. MY thoughts
DeleteHi Laurie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this reminder of a reverence for the sacraments! As those who lead or will be leading churches it is a good reminder for us to always be mindful of the delivery and communication of our messages - not just the spoken sermon but every aspect of worship. I would like to add that we need to continually recover baptism as the method by which we receive the sign and seal of the presence of Christ. It is not just "the right thing to do" or something that parents "expect."
I would make a distinction between a sacrament and a sacramental outlook. I don't have strong feelings about the number of sacraments (I think it's fine that Protestants recognize only 2, and that Catholics and the Orthodox recognize more), but I think that Protestants have really lost something if/when they lose a sacramental sense of the world. I'm preaching on Exodus 28 in chapel next week, and I found these comments from Walter Brueggemann in The New Interpreter's Bible really helpful:
ReplyDelete"In the end, the exodus scenario is not only a transformative 'event,' but also a settled, reliable, sustained 'pattern' for God’s presence. This text, then, is an act of daring imagination that invites erstwhile slaves to imagine a world in which God is palpably, visibly, wondrously present.
"Imagining the presence is an invitation to a certain kind of theological sensitivity that is marked by extravagance and aesthetic yearning. This act of imagination is crucial in our own time for two reasons. On the one hand, mainline Christianity in the United States has been preoccupied with either moral or doctrinal matters, giving far less energy to sacramental imagination. In the tradition of the Reformation in particular, an actual cherishing of the presence in and for itself is largely avoided. Such a shunning of the mystery of presence has permitted much faith to become blatant ideology practiced in a tone and posture of coercion. Imagination about the presence may tone down such hard-nosed certitude to permit a less triumphalistic sureness.
"On the other hand, a society of technological secularism is increasingly a profaned society, having banished mystery and largely emptied the world of any meaning beyond the small significances we ourselves devise. In such a world, brutality is possible and increasingly palatable, both informally and as official public practice and policy. The mystery of presence does indeed function as a counter to the threat of profanation so powerful among us. This text requires us to think and believe in trajectories largely neglected in most popular religion as well as in most cavalier rejections of religion. This text asserts, against both ideological religious certitude and against confident secularism, that there is a sacramental foundation that makes life possible, that defines life in certain ways, and that precludes the destructiveness and despair that seem so potent among us."
I think it's very possible to recognize only two sacraments but to apply a sacramental outlook more broadly. That's what I'd like to see Protestants do.
I agree with the sacramental outlook, but i disagree with the 7 sacraments practiced by the Roman Catholic church. I will comment more below.
DeleteI think within the Protestant faith the sacraments are held with different reverence which would tend create various mindsets within the practice. A church like the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist, only an ordained minster may institute the Lord's Supper or Baptism. Where as in Community churches and other forms of the Protestant faith any church leader or volunteer lead in the sacraments. This mindset can distort the focus of the sacraments, for what they are originally intended to be. This could cause a division within the Protestant faith when it comes to the sacraments.
ReplyDeleteJeff, your caution of different mindsets on the Lord's supper is something that has been around since the very beginning of Christianity and is a very important concern. The last thing the church needs is any distorted division and would like to see more teaching, preaching on our reformed view. My church is very elderly with most being between 70-90 years old and I sometimes think they miss the reverence of the sacrament. Very good point to remember.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Pam, for this wildcard conversation on Sacraments. I've always understood the sacraments as things that Jesus commanded us to do. I went to Catholic school for 6 years, and I always found the Catholic understanding of Sacraments very complex and difficult to learn and grasp. True, more sacraments could mean more participation in the Christian life, but if we don't fully understand our participation nor are we commanded to participate, then what good does it do?
ReplyDeleteThank you Pam for a great discussion and wild card topic. As I read through the post and then the question, I found myself learning towards a “maybe”. As I went further I came to Dr. Coffman’s discussion and thought, maybe that is it. So now I am back to a “maybe”. This discussion could be merged with the other discussion of Sacraments. Maybe some of those who are aging in the congregations are well aware and the newer members are less aware. My question (or even task) may be to teach, preach, and point to the Sacraments more often. Perhaps we need to explain things we assume everyone already knows. I don’t know if dropped the ball or we need better explanations of what we do and why we do.
ReplyDeletePam, thank you for your post and your question which has led to the most wonderful discussion. I have been posting and responding throughout the blog posts. I love the emphasis a sacramental outlook and I agree whole-heartedly that we have strayed away from this outlook in not only taking the sacraments but in worship as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit concerned about how we view the 7 sacraments, however. Remember that the reformers identified as sacraments only those instituted by Christ. The other 5 in the Roman tradition emerged in the Middle Ages though the papacy and were justified by he belief in the apostolic succession of the Pope. What happened was the emergence of a faith that really started to veer away from the early church. While I agree that many of the practices can be spiritually useful, I agree with our Protestant background that we need to be careful what we label as sacraments. I won't take on all of the Roman Catholic traditions, but there are a few worth mentioning. Extreme unction and penance, for example are important in the Roman Catholic cycle of sin and redemption. In the Roman Catholic position, if you die without being in the state of sacramental grace, then you are lost in the intermediate world of purgatory until you can be "purified" and enter into a state of grace. Such a stance reflects that being in a state of grace comes from the penitential cycle where after confessing your sins, you are given penance to "work off" your sins or "work toward" your state of grace. All of these take power away from God and into the hands of priesthood, first and the congregants, second.
I had to look this up. The Roman Catholic definition of the 7 sacraments is medieval, but the practices are older. It appears that they were defined in the West in the medieval period because, in the era of the Crusades, there was increased contact between East and West, which led to more precise formulations of doctrine and practice on both sides. Some primary sources from the Western tradition:
Deletehttps://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1438sacraments.asp
And just a tiny bit of information on the Eastern tradition:
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Holy_Mysteries
The earliest enumeration of sacraments beyond baptism and eucharist is attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, a contemporary of St. Paul, but mostly likely written by a 6th century pseudo-Dionysius. He listed 6: baptism, eucharist, chrismation (anointing with oil), ordination, tonsure, and rites for the dead. (See http://www.iep.utm.edu/pseudodi/)
We Protestants far too often forget about the Orthodox, and get ourselves in these binary arguments with Roman Catholics. The church is bigger and older than either of those two traditions.