MetaCatholic

(This post is part of a series on the 39 articles of the Church of England)

In the previous post I noted problems with defining and classifying sacraments. What I want to do here is note some elements of the Eucharist as the ritual act that for most of us, simply through regular and central experience, is most likely to colour what we mean by the word sacrament, and then move on to others

1. The basic stuff of the Eucharist, bread and wine, are processed gifts of creation. Whether one is thinking about the created order in wheat and grapes, or the human culture that processes these gifts into food and drink, the Eucharist touches the everyday world of our existence. Moreover, the sacramental use of these gifts is appropriate to the human use of them: in worship as in daily life they are for eating and drinking. In sacraments divine or spiritual use is consonant with human or physical use.
2. The Eucharist is anchored in the story of God with his people, backgrounded against the character of the liberating God of Exodus, foregrounded in the story of the God who comes among us in Christ. Sacraments are not general rituals whose meaning derives primarily from the nature of the action, but are specific rituals whose meaning comes primarily from the narrative of God with his people, and represent that narrative as Christ-focussed.
3. The Eucharist as a sign and symbol of the presence of Christ among his people is grounded in the incarnation. God’s union with humanity is profoundly materialist in his taking of human flesh. So, at the least, the Eucharist testifies to how God continues to take the material things of the world in order to convey his spiritual presence among us.
4. The Eucharist is always an ecclesial act. Christians meet together, and what joins them as one Body is that they all receive the one Body. The sacramental action is directed as much at the sustenance of the church as the sustenance of the Christian. Discerning the Lord’s Body in the bread is inseparable from discerning it in the people.

A fully rounded picture would need to pay attention to other features, which are implicit here, not least a proper attention to the Holy Spirit’s role in the work of God generally, and the eschatological culmination of the narrative, but I think these four are useful and central markers for exploring the question of sacraments, without tying the argument down into the specifics that divide Christians.

Of the range of actions that might be claimed as sacraments, some fit all of these criteria, others fit some of them. Baptism would seem to fit them all. (Confirmation is in all sorts of ways more problematic, partly because of its confused relationship with baptism.) The reconciliation of a penitent clearly fits (2) and (4) and it could be argued that by enacting the restoration of relationships with God through restoring human relationships goes some way towards fitting (1) and (3) as well. Anointing for healing seems to fit (2), (3) and (4) but it is less apparent that there is any natural fit between oil and healing so it doesn’t really fit (1). Holy Orders can be argued to fit (2) and (4) easily, with the story of God’s commissioning of individuals for the sake of the whole body running through the scriptures, and that probably also satisfies (3) and perhaps (1).

Ironically, perhaps, the one that fits least comfortably in many ways is marriage. I say ironically, because it is the only one to be described in Scripture as a “sacramentum / μυστήριον” (Eph 5:32). There are all sorts of marriages which take place as exchanges of human love which are not at all related (as far as their participants go) to the story of Christ, the divine use of human love, or any reference to the Church. Yet it is interesting that the author of Ephesians does a number of things to get to this point: he sees the human love of the couple as capable of reflecting the divine love of Christ (1,3), and he relates the actions of human family life to the narrative of Christ’s actions (2). So most of the features noted are present in the way he makes marriage parabolic of, even perhaps sacramental of, divine commitment.

To this point I have noted only those things which at one time or another have been put forward as sacraments. Among them some share all of these main characteristics, and others share some. But there are other actions which also participate in one or more of these characteristics, and I would suggest that the public reading of scripture is in fact a most significant one. Public reading is an act of the Church, in which the nature of scripture as addressing God’s people (rather than an individual is underlined, and the church discovers its identity as addressed by God. (4) Scripture both is a narrative, and locates God’s speaking within a narrative of how God is present with his people (2). The continuing presence of the Word of the Lord in the Church is attested by the reading of actual human words (3). Finally, the use of words is entirely appropriate to the self-communication of God (1). On this understanding it is easily possible to speak of scripture as sacrament.

What, therefore, I want to suggest, is that there is more benefit in thinking of a sacramental continuum, than there is of a neat and tidy classification designed to exclude some acts and include others. The means of grace supplied by a God who has chosen to enter his own creation will not only be many and varied, but they will not despise the many material gifts of that creation, which remain charged with the grandeur and glory of God.

(This post is part of a series on the 39 articles of the Church of England)

The first article on the sacraments is a long one, which offers a definition of sorts, then a listing of the sacraments (and a note on what are not to be so considered) and then a note on their use (aimed primarily at the Eucharist). I expect to have to carry these reflections over more than one post, since I see problems with this article at every stage. In this first post I note some general issues about the problem of defining and classifying sacraments.

XXV. Of the Sacraments
Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him.

There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord.

Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures; but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.

The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them. And in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome effect or operation: but they that receive them unworthily purchase to themselves damnation, as Saint Paul saith.

To this article one should probably also add the more famous definition in the Catechism.

Question
What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?

Answer
I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.

Question
How many parts are there in a Sacrament?

Answer
Two: the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace

One of the features of this definition (shared by article and catechism) is determined by the desire to restrict the number of sacraments, namely the idea that a sacrament must have been ordained by Christ. Even with this narrowing, the earlier Luther included penance, seeing the divine institution of it given in the command to bind and loose (Matt 16:19). It would also not take too great a work of interpretation to move from Christ’s practice of healing, through his giving his disciples power and command to heal (Matt 10: 1,8), to the command of James to anoint (James 5:14) and argue, if not for unction, at least for a sacrament of healing (with variable outward sign. Similarly, one could work from the calling of the apostles, the seventy and others, through the practice of apostolic laying on of hands (Acts 6:6; 2 Tim 1:6) to a sacrament of orders. The connections are not entirely tenuous. I am not making the argument here, but suggesting rather that the definition is to some extent an imposition on the biblical material to organize it in a way that suits the Reformers’ polemic.

Despite the form of medieval arguments, one cannot help get the feeling with, for example St Thomas, that the whole point of the argument is to get to seven sacraments. In the same way, one can’t help but feel here that the whole point of the definition is to get the number down to two. The later debates and arguments of the Reformation are shaped by being a response to the medieval desire to count, classify and collate into one coherent system. It is unclear to me that this does justice to the biblical record, the experience of the church, or the manifold nature of grace.

It seems that either one starts with some general principle or definition, as the article appears to do, or one starts with the ritual acts generally held to be sacraments, as in the end, I feel the mediaeval writers do. Neither seem entirely satisfactory: to some extent the starting point presupposes and anticipates the conclusion. Perhaps the best starting point will lie in exploring the Eucharist. Not only is it generally agreed to be a sacrament, but, by being the most repeated and experienced of the sacraments, it is realistically the ritual act that most colours our definitions. In a subsequent post I will take up this exploration.