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Friends United Meeting |
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November 1998
Thousands of Sacraments
By Bruce Bishop
I had the opportunity to speak at the Midwinter high school camp last year. And it was a great time!
The topic had to do with bringing Christ into our everyday lives. Too often we leave Christ at the church doors on Sunday morning, and go about our business without a sense of interaction or relationship. And too often we think the only ways to access Christ are through the religious words, actions and symbols that surround a Sunday morning experience.
As part of our time together, I thought it would be good to talk a little about the sacraments; where they came from and what their purpose is. It was a great surprise to discover that one of the Midwinter attenders was raised as a Catholic, and so with her assistance, we were able to identify and talk through each of the seven sacraments held by the Catholic church. This really added a lot to the discussion and was a cultural experience of sorts.
Together we talked about how Catholics have tried to bring the Holy into the everyday experience of life through these actions they call sacraments. I then asked how many sacraments, in general, the Protestants have. We quickly arrived at the number two: Baptism and Communion.
When I asked how many sacraments we as Quakers have, I caused a bit of consternation. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room as faces were screwed up in thoughtful expressions. The momentary discomfort was dispelled with audible relief when someone hollered out, "None!"
However, it quickly returned with my response: "Wrong. We have thousands!"
We went on to discuss how, as Friends, our efforts are supposed to be on bringing the Holy into every moment. Rather than reserving our attempts at integration to just two or seven events, we are to live sacramentally. Each action, each attitude, each behavior, should be a sacrament. Whether we are in Sunday morning worship or not, we should be experiencing the sacrament of worship. Whether we are taking communion or not, we should be experiencing the sacrament of communion. In effect, we should be attempting to live the Sacrament of the Present Moment (a phrase borrowed from the 17th Century writer, Jean Pierre DeCaussade).
As this thought settled in, we began to talk about how our skiing the next day could be done sacramentally. Or how our snack after this session could be taken sacramentally. Interestingly enough, the next day when the bus broke down prior to reaching its destination, the thwarted inner-tubers made some intentional efforts to experience the breakdown as a sacramental moment.
The next day's worship was concluded with a sense of joy and awareness of God's presence as we were prompted by the Spirit to participate in the Sacrament of Dogpiling! In no way is this an attempt to belittle the power and significance of sacramental moments. Rather, for those of us experiencing this dialogue at camp, each moment of life was momentarily elevated to the Sacred. Our eyes were opened to the presence of Christ within the daily activities of our lives. Obviously, this was the intent and experience of the early Quakers as well. For them, physical sacraments were a shadow of the spiritual reality apparent with Christ's on-going presence. At best they were reminders or times of intentional focus. At worst they were distractions, encouraging an emphasis on the action rather than on the presence of Christ.
And for us, the "Modern Quakers"? Perhaps we have lost the power of both the sacraments and sacramental living. What would it take for us to recapture the wonder and awe of doing every action in the presence of our Creator?
Bruce Bishop is youth superintendent for Northwest Yearly Meeting.
Copyright (c) 1998 Friends United Meeting
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