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Friends United
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March/April 2007
Radical Faithfulness Equals Sacramental Living
By Kenny Harvey
Sacramental living. Sounds great! It’s catchy. It sounds theologically satisfying, but what does it mean? Try this. Look it up in any Bible dictionary or software. What did you find? No really, look it up. What did you find? Nothing! As a mainstream concept, sacramental living simply doesn’t exist, at least as that term. So back to the question, what is sacramental living?
According to Saint Augustine, a sacrament is “a visible sign of an invisible reality.” Jesus, as the visible Son of the invisible Godhead, is the ultimate representation of this. When we become a follower of Christ, we become a living sacrament. Our lives in whole become an outward sign of an inward transformation. Sacramental living is living each moment as a sacred time to see God’s love, power and grace as a reality. It is living in a way to let the Light of Christ shine through our words and actions regardless of our situation. Instead of condensing the experience of communing with God into the two formalized sacraments of the Eucharist and Baptism, Quakers have, in theory, made every event a holy event in which to commune with Jesus Christ.
Sounds great! It’s catchy. It sounds theologically satisfying and it has a concrete meaning, but.… Yes, there’s always a but. Do we, as Quakers, live sacramentally? Do people on the street see us interact with the check-out clerk or the repairman or the stranger on the sidewalk and think “Wow! There’s something different about them.” And I don’t mean in the “They must be Christian” kind of way. I mean the “There’s something way out there!” kind of way. Do people who don’t know anything about our personal lives ask us if we’re Christians because of how we treat others? They should.
I know what you’re thinking. “Living sacramentally is a personal experience between Jesus and me, not between me and the mailman or the waitress.” You’re right! It is a personal experience between you and Jesus, but no one can truly live sacramentally and not have their life changed to the point where the mailman and the waitress are not affected by that transformation.
Polls, statistics and casual observation would suggest that we as Christians do not live sacramentally. As a whole Christians are equal to the general population in almost all measurable categories. How can this be if the Holy Spirit is leading us, if we are living sacramentally? Shouldn’t we be holier? Shouldn’t we be harder workers? Shouldn’t we be more honest? Of course we should!
Darkness cannot co-exist with Light. Good and evil cannot live together. We cannot live sacramentally and steal from our employer. We cannot live sacramentally while we hate our brother. We cannot live sacramentally and cheat on our spouses. Christ lives within us and has come to teach how to be holy. We must listen to Him.
Wilmer A. Cooper’s book, A Living Faith, has a section on perfection where he refers to phrase that really made the concept clear to me—“revolutionary faithfulness.” I admit that I am a recovering Generation X’er. It was a tragedy of birth, not of choice. But, I am still drawn to quick, powerful, marketing phrases like: “Just Do It,” “No Fear” or “The Real Thing.” Sacramental living is definitely revolutionary, but it is something more. When I look at the lives transformed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, I can only use one other word—radical. Radical faithfulness, the kind of faithfulness that kept the Christians singing in the Coliseum as the wild animals descended on them. Radical faithfulness, the kind of faithfulness the early Quakers had as they were led to prison by the thousands. That’s what I want!
When I think of the Old Testament, I think of how far the Jews strayed and wandered from God and yet He was always faithful—radically faithful. I can say the same for my own experience with God, and He has continued to be radically faithful. And what could be more radical than Jesus willingly offering Himself on the cross to fulfill God’s promise of being faithful to bring us back into communion with Him? If I am to live sacramentally and see God in everything, how can I not long for radical faithfulness?
God told the Israelites several times in Leviticus, and Peter applied it to Christians in 1 Peter 1:16, “You must be holy because I am holy.” This holiness is the product of a sacramental life. A life that is not lived sacramentally will never be completely holy. Only by the focus of communing with God at every moment, in every circumstance, can we as imperfect, sinful people ever accomplish holiness.
George Fox knew this. He saw the hypocrisy of many of those around him who professed to be Christians, but had no desire for holiness, radical faithfulness or sacramental living. He knew we, as followers of Christ, are called by our rebirth in Christ to live out these ideals in every possible way. We cannot hide behind a priest or a ritual to excuse our unholy living. Christ’s message is one of total commitment on every level. We either follow Christ or we don’t. There is no middle ground.
Maybe instead of “I Wanna Be Like Mike,” we should say, “I Wanna Be Like George.” Okay, maybe we won’t see that on a billboard or on a T-shirt, but as Quakers we were founded on the principle that each of us can commune with God in every moment without any mediary other than Christ Himself who has come to teach His people. George Fox lived out the example of sacramental living and radical faithfulness and was used greatly by God to bring this pivotal message back to His people.
The first-generation Quakers lived this out with gusto. John Punshon states in Portrait In Grey that “…Friends had been rebellious, self-confident, truculent and fiercely evangelistic.” (pg. 119) But soon after, they became “inhibited, authoritarian and inward-looking, concerned not so much to transform the world as to avoid contamination by it.” (pg. 119) Wow! Which of these describes most of the Quakers you know? Honestly I had to look up truculent in Webster’s and here’s what I found; 1. feeling or showing ferocity: savage; 2. aggressively self-assertive. Aggressively self-assertive, ferocious, God-driven evangelists who wouldn’t compromise their radical faith. Does this describe the people in your meeting?
If we are living sacramentally, being radically faithful and pursuing holiness we should, as Quakers, resemble much more the first generation Quakers than the more recognizable “quiet Quakers” we have become. If we ourselves are a living sacrament, a testimony to the ultimate sacrament of Jesus Christ, shouldn’t we long to express His radical faithfulness to others to draw them to the Light? We have held on to our history long enough and need to embrace the sacramental living of Fox and the Valiant Sixty. We need to conscientiously live as sacraments, holy and pure and in communion with Jesus Christ. To be a Christian and a Quaker demands nothing less.
Kenny Harvey has lived in Grant County, Indiana all his life and is a member of Maple Run Friends. He has three children and runs his own business. He enjoys reading, writing and genealogy.