INTRO
True, we've never before had a nearly-instantaneous, nearly-worldwide network connected to devices in our pockets alerting us to rising temperatures and the temperamental outbursts of tyrants or the spread of malicious insects and viruses.
And being constantly aware of all this can feel disorienting and surreal.
But even so, we're not convinced we should be so quick to call our times "totally unprecedented." Our ancestors weathered tyrants and plagues and renovated their political thought and activity when facing the consequences of previous human actions.
And for those of us within the Christian Tradition, we must always remember that our predecessors took on the challenge of reinterpreting all of reality in light of the singular life of Jesus of Nazareth.
What is not "unprecedented" is humans encountering the unprecedented. And in the midst of our own unique challenges, we unnecessarily feed the bad reactions that can come with fear and uncertainty if we believe we face our challenges alone.
So, in this series, we look at people and moments in the Tradition where those who came before us give us precedents for facing our epoch-shaping tests and tasks.
This time, we talk about water and wine and blood, and how they can provide a precedent that leads us to something better than DIY, individualistic spirituality.
STORY
The Christian faith hinges on Jesus, and Jesus' ability to save us. And we are not the first to hear the Christian proclamation of salvation and ask, "How could he possibly do this?"
For those engaging this question in the first few centuries of the life of the church, the first step was to define just what salvation was. And, they said, certainly salvation includes liberation from oppression and death and the freedom to love and do what is right and good, but more primally this, and even more fundamentally than thinking of salvation as eternal life, to the minds of early Christians, salvation is Union with God.
Everything else, the life and liberation and peace, would flow from union with the eternal source of life and freedom and bliss. In truth, these could only flow from God.
So, the Christian faith hinges on Jesus ability to unite humanity to God.
It was then reasoned that only God can unite us to God. If Jesus was anything less than God -- even if Jesus was the supreme prototype of God's creative abilities -- Jesus might serve as a celestial example of eternal love, or as an immortal teacher dealing in divine secrets, but everything Jesus might grant as this kind of exalted being would fall short of intimate union with the source of wisdom and love. So Jesus must be God.
The church then reasoned the flip side of Jesus' divinity must be his full humanity, because salvation is union with God. If Jesus was not a true human -- if in Jesus God was only speaking through some fleshly Avatar or moving through some earthly puppet -- then Jesus did not actually unite humanity with God. So, next came the Christian dogma that Jesus was fully human.
This is what Christian faith calls the doctrine of the Incarnation. And with it, we can see salvation achieved ... in Jesus of Nazareth.
And so now, in this episode, we puck up the question, "How can other, genuine, normal, humans, how can people like you and I experience a salvation that is nothing less than Union with God?"
The Christian faith also proclaims the possibility of this union for any who would come in faith. And the sacraments have been key places we've said this fellowship with God happens.
Two central examples, shared across just about every strand of the Christian Tradition, are Baptism and the Eucharist. Which is why we also call that second sacrament, Communion.
And notice, these sacraments are not constituted by disembodied leaps into etherial realities. But they involve everyday things like water, bread, and wine.
So, if the central claim of the Christian faith is going to hold, these ordinary things must also be involved in granting us union with God. This means the bread and wine do more than make us think about Jesus and his union with God, more than cause us to remember Jesus and his teachings and sacrifice. The water must do more than trigger memories and generate desire for communion. They must to some degree be communion.
So, we need to talk about how we think ordinary things like bread and wine and water can be vehicles for God's presence.
To help us see the intimate connection between God and bread and water, I'm going to first make and explore a vital distinction, between an arbitrary sign and a valid symbol.
An example of an arbitrary sign would be the octagon shape we use for stop signs. Or the plus or minus icons we use for addition and subtraction. These things have nothing to do with what they stand for.
Octagons don't interrupt the flights of birds or the wind by making them think, "Oh, okay, stop." A horizontal line bisecting a vertical line, or a single short horizontal dash ... They only work to make us add apples or subtract dollars from our bank accounts because a bunch of people agreed to make them work that way. Just like the color purple could potentially come to stand for the chicken dance, if a whole culture decided every time they saw it they would bob their heads and flap their arms.
Symbols, like those used in the sacraments, though, have an actual communion with the thing they represent.
Take Baptism.
It's about washing and cleansing. And what do we use to wash off dirt and germs? Baptism is also about death. And throughout history and in many cultures, water has embodied forces of chaos and death - because what is more terrifying and disorienting than being out to sea in the middle of a hurricane? But Baptism is also about new birth - and what surrounded and nourished us in the womb? So what, other than water, could sever as a better symbol for baptism?
So, a North African theologian named Tertullian, who helped the church develop its thinking thinking about the sacraments, wrote around the year 200, quote, "Water was created at the dawn of time." And noted that at creation, the Spirit was "carried on the waters." It was the first element to "produce things that would live." And so water, ordinary water used at baptism, "already knows how to give life." And so Tertullian also notes that, quote "Christ was never without water. He himself was baptized with water; when invited to a marriage he inaugurates the exercise of his power with water; when talking he invites the thirsty to partake of his own everlasting water; when teaching about charity he approves among the works of love the offering of a cup of water to a neighbor; he refreshes his strength at a well-side; he walks on water; he crosses it at will; he uses water to do an act of service to his disciples. This witness to baptism continues right up to the passion. When he is handed over to the cross, water plays a part (witness Pilate's hands); and when he is pierced, water gushes out from his side (witness the soldier's spear)."
To the mind and imagination of the early church, the the One who is union with God, places the waters of baptism at the center of his ongoing work to provide that union for others.
And when it comes to the Eucharist, we first note that it is all about a kind of union with Christ that allows his life and energy to nourish and enliven our souls. And what are greater staples of the food that nourishes and energizes our bodies and minds than Bread and Wine?
So, one of the most famous preachers of the early church, John Chrysostom, said, in order that we might receive union with God in Christ, and quote "become one with Christ in body and soul, not only according to love, but in actual fact, let us be blended into that flesh. For this happens through the food he has graciously given us ... he has mixed himself together with us, and has kneaded his body into us ... he has allowed [us] not only to see him, but also to touch him, and to devour him, and to fix [our] teeth in his flesh, and to embrace him."
In this context, bread and wine and water don't just "stand for" what they represent like an octagon stands for stop and a dash can stand for subtraction and purple might well stand for polka and flapping chicken wings. The symbols of water and bread and wine look like what they represent. They feel like what they represent. They deliver something of the actual effects of the things they represent.
These symbols embody what they represent, and so they re-present to us what they represent.
Now, one place arbitrary signs and genuine symbols have something in common is that they both always have a story behind them. But what sets them apart here is that arbitrary signs always have a story - as in, all arbitrary signs have some variation of the same story -- behind them. Whatever the sign, the story always goes like this: At some point, some people decided this thing, whatever it is, would stand for this other thing, whatever that is. Then enough people agreed and so it became a sign.
But symbols, they have stories. Plural. Symbols are tied to any number of varied and very particular stories. And because of the wide variations that can take place in these narratives, there is no way to summarize them all in a general formula like the one we just laid out for signs without losing the vital power and nature of the story itself.
The Waters of Baptism, and the words and ritual movements we us in it, for instance, as we saw in the Tertullian quote, are linked to the story of creation and the ritual John the Baptist appropriated when he began to prepare peoples' hearts and minds for the coming of Jesus, and then the baptism of Jesus himself when we see the Trinity revealed. So when at our baptisms, we enter into Jesus death to be raised to new life in him, we do it in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And the Eucharistic meal is rooted in the story of Jesus' last meal with his disciples when Jesus took the bread and blessed it, then broke it and said, "Take this and eat, all of you, for this is my body, broken for you." Then he took the cup and said "take this and drink, all of you, for this is my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins." When Jesus did this, he gave his disciples a way to live out the implications of his earlier words when Jesus said, "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood," or unless you have my energy and way of thinking become your energy and way of thinking, unless you have my very life become your very life, "then you have no part in me."
Then, as the story of the Eucharist progresses, after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, there is an episode in Luke chapter 24, where two disciples are walking along a road, arguing about what to make of Jesus now that he'd been crucified. And Jesus himself comes along and starts to walk and talk with them, and they have no idea who this really is. Then Jesus spends a whole seven mile walk correcting their understanding of the Scriptures and show them how they all witness to him, but it is not until Jesus blesses and breaks the bread and gives it to them that the disciples see who is right in front of them.
So, the story of the Eucharist goes, followers of Jesus don't read Scripture well, or even recognize Jesus, without communion with God.
These are powerful and central stories that show us what union with God in Christ would look like. And because symbols, as we are using the word, carry a deeper resonance with the thing they re-present, they also carry us deeper into these stories.
See, whenever the stories we live involve something deeply moving, or that changes forever the direction of our lives - say, the day I got engaged, or when you moved to a new city - we might want to names some symbols and develop a ritual to commemorate it. When it comes time to do this, we hope this episode might help you find an authentic symbol, rather than just settling for some arbitrary sign, that would help you not just remember the events, but also live deeper and deeper into what that story continues to mean for you.
But that's not the main goal of today's podcast. Today we're not just looking for a precedent for a faith that can transform people by helping them connect to God or something that brings meaning to their individual existence. This would be a truly good goal. It's just not our main goal right now. Today we're chasing something bigger. Were looking for something that doesn't just unify and heal individuals, but that can also unify and heal us. That do more than help me feel connected to God, but can heal and save by uniting us to the source of freedom and peace and a life that would be worth living throughout the ages.
So in the conversation coming up, Julius and I talk about how the central symbols of the faith we are highlighting, draw us into a story that is much larger than our own. And so why the Sacraments play a role that cannot be replaced by any arbitrary sign, or even a genuine symbol, that we make up and connect with, because it is born out of and continues to unite us with, our individualistic stories.
DISCUSSION
Julius: Welcome back to "All Things". And today we are just going to go for it. This is Julius and you know, Wil, uh, some of you
Wilson: Well, no... you don't know me.
Julius: That's true... Pause for reflection.
Wilson: You tossed that to the wrong Enneagram type, buddy.
Julius: We're both 4's, so we apologize. Um, but outside of that today, we want to talk about why sacraments matter. I, I think I just want to talk about, I don't know if this is fully just a question, but like, I think just opening up the conversation as even between kind of our pre-conversation on Friday and today it's it was one of those things where like, you know, where you.
You're like on the market for a Toyota Prius and then you see it everywhere. It was one of,
Wilson: Yeah.
Julius: it was one of those moments for me where like this weekend alone, just like conversations with friends, um, seeing, um, public figures on social media that there seems to be this kind of, um, I don't know if it's like a push pull or like a resistance, but I think there's, there's this sense of like, The hanging question is something like, why, why is it worth doing church the way that we've always done?
And I mean, they don't use these terms, but like the people that I've talked to are kind of like, um, I think it's something like, w what is the point of. Um, retaining these traditions and for us, what we would see as sacraments, if we live in a world where like experientially, people are finding instances of like feeling closer to God or the divine in things outside of that, of like the churches four walls or the like quote unquote constructs of liturgy.
And I think that, um, This connects to those distinctions that we were talking about, because my hunch is that there's something like, um, uh, philosophical under a current that is wary of these forms of worship, because the assumption is that things like baptism and Eucharist and the way that the church has done worship.
Just falls under the category of the rest of the things that we do, where we just arbitrarily assigned, meaning that like ancient people decided that this was the way to connect with God. And that's the only reason why they're being done. And so, because it's arbitrary that these things can be done away with, or shouldn't matter to us today.
Right. And so.
Wilson: And I think if I'm tracking, what, what you're connecting here is with the distinctions we've just made. Uh, you're you're seeing all over the place that in our world, the assumption is that it's these things aren't genuinely sacrament in, in the kind of way we've talked about, but these, these would just be signed.
That these, that this isn't, you know, this isn't the symbol of the sacrament. This is like the octagon on the stop sign that baptism and Eucharist are, are just arbitrary signs. And if they're arbitrary, why not make up something we like better.
Julius: Yeah, exactly. And I think part of the first part of where I want to take this conversation, I think I may be. I'm trying to be a bit generous too, because I think a lot of what people are experiencing right now is like, what do we do with this? Like I skipped church on the Sunday and made a meal with my friends.
And that made me feel some sense of like connectedness to God and people around me more than going to Sunday service has, or like I went out for like to look at nature and I was moved by that. And that brought me like, in a sense, In like a palpable sense, closer to God than Sunday church ever has. And like, I, I understand like, and I, but I think that where I come from might not see those two things as disconnected, but like, how can we, I guess the question is something like, is that invalid for people to.
Like connect with God outside of like Sunday service. And what do we, what do we do with that?
Wilson: well, I first just want to say that I think the. Uh, the attempt, the intentional attempt to be generous is, uh, is a good one because it, this isn't the case that people are just like out to destroy things just out of meanness or leave things behind out of, Right.
That it really is coming from a genuine place of, but I've experienced some things.
And now how do, how do we make sense of this? And what we would be saying here is not that those things are in. You know, uh, there's there's also along with the tradition of sacraments in worship, there's a long tradition of, of testimony and. And of the church receiving and, and affirming the testimonies of people that, that found, you know, God all over the place.
I mean, one of, one of my favorite books is called practicing the presence of God, uh, by a guy named brother Lawrence, who was, you know, who is just a very ordinary monk. Um, and actually maybe ordinary, according to certain standards. Too much because in his monastery, he wasn't seen as incredibly valuable in a lot of things.
Like they, they tried to give him some business to carry out and he didn't handle business very well. And so they ended up just putting him in the kitchen, washing the dishes. And the whole book is about how he found God in that work of just washing other people's dishes. So there there's a long tradition in this.
And so what we're saying is not. You can't or you should feel guilty, uh, communing with God, with your friends on a Sunday morning, um, over brunch or out in the, in the woods or in a beautiful landscape or on a, on a cliff overlooking the ocean to sunset. You know, the, the thing here, what we would want to say is actually, it's not really an either or, but it's kind of a matter of priority.
Um, and what we would like to, I think a lot of what confuses people is they just, haven't been given a way to conceptualize and understand both and how they fit together. And that's more, I think, where we're aiming in this, in this episode, in this discussion. That if we see the genuine precedent that's been given to us in the tradition of the sacraments, then that's something that genuinely like on the back end fuels and makes it possible for us to experience some of the depth of those kinds of. To even begin to, I mean, that, that back ground experience, and even just the rote habit of going to church over and over and hearing these words, hearing these stories, being, being told over and over about this creator. Is what allows you to initially make the connection between something great happened?
When I had lunch with those friends and the concept of God, Right. So on the back end, that's part of what allowed those things to happen. And on the other end, that continued practice and engagement in the sacral. It's something that it's, and here's what we'll pick this up later. It's not arbitrary now again, you don't have, we're not enforcing this on anyone and you don't have to incorporate it into your life as the most important, but I do think intellectual honesty just puts us in a place where we have to at least admit they're not arbitrary.
Right. And so that's the point of our distinction here between sign and symbol. Is the symbols and the sacraments of the tradition, aren't arbitrary and continuing to participate in those and receive the grace of God through those, you know, we sat on the, on the front end, makes those moments possible.
And on the back end and continuing to seek the integration of those things is what will allow you to experience more and more the depth of the walk on the beach and the sunset and the dinner with friends. Right and getting captivated by, I mean, whatever it is, dust flakes floating through your living room, in the sunlight, you know, coming through your Venetian blinds or whatever it is, you know, all these moments like brother Lawrence, doing his dishes can be those things.
Right. And so it's not that or the sacraments, but we're trying to give a framework where we could see the tradition and engaging in the sacraments would open up more for those.
Julius: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's really, I think that's a really great way of putting it and it helps name kind of. Some of the ways that I feel about it too, that those two things don't necessarily have to be in competition with one another, the like finding God's. Oh, it goes back to seeing the world as graced as seeing those things as the ordinary, like the shared meal as graced by God.
Seeing like nature is graced by God. I think that's all held in the Christian story in the Christian faith, but I, I like the. The importance of seeing that as connected. Right. And not in competition. So I want to ask what, like, I know that like a lot of people who are like in the churches and especially work in the church, maybe have some anxiety about like, when people start to kind of, um, untether these other practices from, um, The worship and life of the church.
Why, um, why is that? And what, what harm can there be from like leaning into these non Sunday church practices and just like disconnecting those from, um, like liturgies and sacraments.
Wilson: well framed in that way. Um, from the angle of, well, why do some people in the church feelings identity, when others start to start to recognize these sorts of religious experiences outside of an overtly religious context, um, There could be lots of ways, you know, and some of those that you have my complete permission to ignore if that's what's really going on, because it might be, who knows, you know, pastors and church leaders are just people too.
And so it could be that it's just anxiety about attendance. You know, their, their lives are intertwined in this and just like anybody. And, and I, again, I don't want, I actually want to point this out in a way that levels it and helps us to notice another double standard is it's super easy to. Get really, really hard on pastors when they get worried about their paycheck, but it's like, come on.
People who wouldn't.
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: I mean, for real, if you're in danger of like, not being able to pay your rent, I would not in any way, shame or guilt you for being worried about that, you know, but where there's, where there is it. And so why do we do it, pastors, and then, but where there's I think the answer to that question is, is maybe because we're just in a season where pastors have abused authority and, uh, have missed the point on the. You know, so, uh, if, if it's coming from, from that sort of place, you know, I don't really have anything beyond that to say, but I think we're where it would be genuine where a genuine cause. And we're where I could say like, well, here's, here's what I would see as a genuine concern for that is, um, well, it's situated in, uh, Or a root this part of the conversation in talking about a religious experience itself, that just to say, so for our culture, that's a highly, highly entertained, you know, a very consumeristic, um, emotive, uh, you know, emotion centric kind of culture.
Um, It can be easy to think that those religious feelings are the point, but this is exactly why we don't want to just abandon the tradition because the deep Wells, the richest part of the tradition warns us about the potential dangers of religious feeling, right.
That lets us know religious feeling in and of itself is not the point.
You know, for one precedent here, we could talk about St. John at the cross. um,
And his, his whole thing there is about how sometimes God will work to remove the feelings so that we don't put the feelings on the throne so that we don't come to learn the feelings or come to love the feelings, um, over religious experience, the way we should love only God and people. Right.
So to, to put an analogy, when you fall head over heels, for someone where the relationship really gets tested is when the feelings. And then it's like, you know, if, and I think it's important to put yourself on the end is like on the receiving side, the question being, do you really love me or do you just love it when I can make you feel this way?
Julius: Oh,
Wilson: Right.
And so on a human when you're in that, in that place and then flip it and then just think, Okay.
If life, if eternal life is loving and communing with God, then the question then becomes Right. Do we really love God? Or do we love it when God makes us feel this way and this way? Um, and so the, the feelings themselves, aren't the point.
And so th where that can become really, really dangerous is when you feel great when you're having all sorts of religious experiences, but you're actually pretty unhealthy. I mean, just think about it with our bodies. The worst possible scenario is to have like a terminal illness, but no symptoms,
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: a terminal illness, but not feel any discomfort or anything that would point alert us to the fact that, you know, something, you know, a disease or a cancer is stealing our life from us.
Um, and you know, I've, I've. gotta be really general here because I do not want to betray anyone's story. But, um, I mean, there are plenty of time and I've, and I've lived through seasons like this myself too, where, um, people have said, you know, have if out of their mouths, it's, you know, I don't do this or this anymore.
And I've never felt closer to God, but are totally blind to the kind of havoc that they're wreaking on. Well, in some cases, their children, in other cases, they're their best friends, people that are dependent on them
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: are counting on them. Right. But they feel great. And that's, that's where the danger would be, um, is that we could go off and be feeling spiritually, alive and healthy when that's not actually the case.
Um, just like if we feel energetic and strong and alert, but there's, there's a disease. And where the sacraments and the disciplines, um, can help with that. As they constantly point us to Christ, they root the whole thing in Christ as the model of look, whether you're showing up and you're praying and you're worshiping and you feel great or you're showing up and you're praying and you're worshiping and you don't feel great.
The real question is, um, is Christ alive in you? And so are you becoming like Christ?
Julius: Hmm.
Wilson: Not did I have a great Sunday morning with some friends or did I have a great Sunday morning with some other worshipers?
Julius: Right.
Um, so, so far I think we've addressed some really important things. Um, first off, just reiterating that. That these practices right outside of Sunday, church aren't necessarily invalid or in competition with, but there's something that can, there's something there that is grace that can be held together, especially in the context of a worshiping community, practicing these sacraments together that these two things can hold together and it's not either, or, and also we've named something like the importance of ha um, rather than.
Turning to arbitrary signs and practices that make us feel good or spiritual, that those necessarily must be held in something that is, I want to use the word intersectional of something that's like held in like, uh, a story greater than ourselves that holds a community beyond ourselves so that we're able to be in conversation and listen, so that the things that make us so that we're not turning to things that only make us feel good.
But. Creating harm for others. And I think that that's an important part of, um, I mean, that's, that's, it's Eucharistic to be able to share like a table with somebody and like have to be, have to face somebody and like to consider their needs, consider who they are, that there's something embedded in the practice of that.
And so I guess to continue in, in that, um, In that thought or like that question, I guess. What more can we say about, um, what the church's precedent of practicing these sacraments? Like for all of these centuries and generations that, I mean, it, it is another one of those like unprecedented slash precedented things where like walking down somewhere in LA feels like maybe there's an unprecedented amount of like, options for like spirituality or like a do it yourself, kind of like create your own path towards God thing.
But that that's not necessarily a new thing that end that end, that those things also. To be even more generous, like can be held in traditions in and of themselves and are, have symbols that are not necessarily arbitrary, but that are held in something. So keeping all that in mind. Um, what does the story of the church has precedent in like being faithful to practicing these sacraments that they've viewed as important?
How does that make a case for. Why these particular like Christian practices, these sacraments are still worthwhile for us to hold on to.
Wilson: The way I would succinctly put that and then maybe try to unpack it and see what happens is when, what we're, what we're putting forward is to, to recognize, uh, a genuine expression of the Christian sacramental tradition. Um, meaning if, if your look, I mean, you go to. Any church with, you know, a Christian name and his title, and it's organizing papers that are filed with whatever government agency or whatever that has the name, Christian.
And you'll, you'll find these things, but that doesn't mean they're all alive and healthy. You
Julius: Hmm.
Wilson: again, our Tricia, our tradition, our scriptures speak. Uh,
bodies of believers that have lost their true love, who who've been wooed away to other things and have traded the living genuine Christ for something else.
And where we'd look at this and say like, if, if Jesus is like the gospel of John says the true light that enlivens everyone, uh, coming into the world, if Jesus is this, then. And if, if his life and his presence is really being shared and received in this sacramental context, it would be. Open in it will enliven and open things up. Right.
Rather than it being the like super closed off, this is the only place you get it and own. Right. But it, instead being, this is the primary originary way that you get it so that it opens up so much more. Right. And so, yes, not, yes. Opening up other places for you to be able to recognize. You know, God in this place, Jesus is present the holy spirit and in this ordinary, everyday thing
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: from the overwhelmingly beautiful sunset to the seemingly overlooked dust, motes dancing around in Sunbeams, you know, but not just this, but even, even at an edit deeper like metaphysical level. The genuine practice of the sacraments opens up so much more for, for life and humanity. There's there are so many arbitrary symbols. Sure. We live in such a world that, that we, we start to think that it's only arbitrary. It's only sign. What the tradition can teach us is that we actually have we, and we are meaning-making animals. We constantly do that. We constantly make signs and meanings for other things.
And so of course, but what, what tradition does, is it, so yes, it disciplines, um, that strength, that power. And directs it. And so, yes, that's good. So that provides some bumpers to keep it from going down. That is that place where, you know, we, we could be ill, but feel great, but it doesn't just provide the guard rails.
It also, it doesn't just guard against the negative. It also opens up the positive by bringing us into, like we said, uh, the way a chord functions in a song. Now we can bring. Our symbols, right? The ones that we've discovered that we've made. And instead of it just being my arbitrary thing can find it participating in something much, much larger than me.
That then teaches us that our, our capacities are not just like our own personal isolated capacity to make up my own meaning, but to discover something larger, to participate in something larger that tells not just me, something about. You know, something I find meaningful, but that could help us discover together, um, a meaning that's bigger than all of us, so that our, so that our language, so that our, our words, so that our gestures toward each other, our acts of kindness can not just be arbitrary.
Things that we make up. It alerts us to a genuine, real reality. And so, and in that. Uh, truth. Um, because so often we, we mistake truth capital T for a thing that I, I contain and, and I hold in in my head, but, but what sacrament would genuine symbols in a sacramental context can alert us, can teach us to see is a genuine reality.
That's out there a real thing. And so in that sense truth that a genuine reality and truth that we're, that we named God, um, that, that then be in light of that in coming to see, recognize, participate, and receive life from that larger thing than us. Then what that does, is it enlivens and it opens up it, it saves. Tempted to say isn't right. Like, uh, I'm compelled saved. I'm compelled to say, uh, our, our meaning making abilities so that Yeah.
we make it up, but now it doesn't, it no longer resonates as true to say. It's just arbitrary. Yes. It's very much me recognizing a new. You know, creating, making a connection here, seeing it in these other places, but it's sanctifying and enlivening my ability to do that.
So that when I make meaning, when I, when I find my, my personal liturgies and rituals, they harmonize with this other genuine truth. And so I become more truthful and my son. It carry more, more life and vitality and weight and truth because they've been, they've been, uh, not just, you know, disciplined away from bad paths, but, but opened up in the genuine life of God.
Julius: Hmm.
MEDITATION
Sacraments involve symbols, and symbols are themselves powerful things. But a Sacrament is not a simple synonym for "symbol." Sacraments are greater realities that help even symbols find a fuller meaning and purpose.
As an analogy to help us comprehend and feel what's happening here, think of the relationship between a musical chord, and a whole song.
A symbol is something like a chord. And a single note does not make a chord.
For a triad, you have to pull together three different notes ...
...that share a harmony. So the nature of a chord is to bring things together. And so, in itself, it is a thing of substantial power and beauty.
Likewise, a symbol is something that pulls things together. For the key symbol of baptism, you have to have the water. The story. The religious experience of rebirth, and a sense of cleansing.
You have in a symbol many different things participating in the one thing. So a strong symbol is like a full musical chord, but if you just hit the same chord over ...
..and over...
...and over again, eventually the beauty of that chord is going to get lost on your ears.
So a chord needs a larger context, something bigger to participate in.
And what happens when difference and harmony and rhythm and pacing and ideas and words all come together in a song?
What we're saying here, is that a symbol, like a chord, can indeed pull several things together in the hidden places of our hearts and minds, and this can be a very powerful thing. To a certain degree, it can even be healing. But this is always a healing carried out to a certain degree. Because some parts of us - like the parts that connect us to relationships and communities - by their nature cannot be healed when we are cut off from relationships and communities.
And, further, we must admit, that individual hearts and minds are not the only things that need healing. The relationships and communities and cultures and institutions and ecosystems we are tangled up in also need to know the life and liberation that comes with being brought into communion with God.
So, just as a symbol is something like a strong, harmonious chord, the sacraments provides a larger environment where something more like a song can take shape.
Here, the symbol has an important role to play, but in a much larger piece that gives a greater experience of the beauty and power of God's ability to reconcile and save, and so joining that larger piece and harmonizing with other realities lets the symbol experience more of its own reality.
Because, notice, in a sacramental context when the church gathers you have the different people from different backgrounds, with different hopes and expectations, and the love and the faith and the doubts of the people and their ideas and their ignorance and the felt absence of those who are elsewhere, all there. And you have the non-human stuff that makes the floors and walls and the music filling the air and light pouring through the windows and shadows cast on the ground and the whole myriad of infinite things that come together to make any kind of moment in any kind of place ...
...all of it, being united in God, and with God. The One in whom we live and move and have our being. Who created and holds it all. United together in God to work salvation into every dimension of that reality.
When all this comes together in faith the sacraments are for us like a song moving all things to the rhythms and uniting all things in the harmonies of Christ Jesus.
Nothing less than this union is Salvation.