sacraments

[Kristonia]

What are your thoughts about sacraments? I know many Christians reject the thought of anything being sacramental. Others have a substantial list of sacraments.

My idea of a sacrament is that it is any physical act in which God attaches a blessing or spiritual miracle.

Baptism would be a sacrament because it is an outward form that God ordained to be the time that the Holy Spirit marks a new Christian.

Communion (bread & wine) is an outward act in which God encounters (or communes with) the Christian in a deeply spiritual way.

I would argue that the reading of scripture is a sacrament because scripture tells us that there are blessings for reading scripture and that Holy Scripture is active and living and it cuts like a sword. That is a miracle attached to the physical act of reading.

I would include marriage as a sacrament because two people become spiritually bound into one flesh in a miraculous way.

Accordingly, annointing the sick could also be a sacrament.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Father Gregory]

Dear Kristonia

As far as I am concerned you have described this very well. Sometimes I meet Christians (Quakers for example or those for whom Church sacraments are, well, not that important), who say that since God is everywhere it is ridiculous to say that he is somewhere. Strangely, these people often make an exception for Jesus ... which sort of destroys their argument. Church sacraments (for many but not all, the usual 7) are God's accommodation to our finitude and our created human need for particulars. Other so called sacramentals bear a wider notion of God's presence but not better. Both are true.

There is, however, I think a genuine division between those who have a sacramental spirituality and those who do not. The latter see matter and spirit as incompatible. Sometimes I wonder whether these Christians realise just how heretical that position actually is.