All things by immortal power,
Near and Far
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star.
Francis Thomson
I believe that reality is ultimately natural; incarnate holiness to be encountered universally in both the minute and the infinite in all creation; spirit and matter to be inseparable. So I’m hesitant in raising a word from Christian orthodoxy that I reckon is too often understood to mean a kind of unearthed supernaturalism. The word is “sacrament;” ambiguous to some, hackle-raising to others.
So let me first share a small bit of my personal creed (written when I caught myself being far too ready to decry others’ stated beliefs than state the markers of my own faith):
I believe one needs to be aware of such subtle enemies of healthy, growing, searching, vulnerable faith as:
Certainty: denial of doubt, deafness to challenge, clinging to texts out of context of the whole of faith-tradition and of the time of their writing, without the benefit of modern critical scholarship.
Superstition masquerading as faith.
Trust that there are people, and institutional castes, with such special access to the wellspring of ultimate truth that one can rest easy as a passive, individualist consumer. (There is always need for representative leadership and mentoring in community of our own spirituality but clerics are not to be seen as being set over the lay faithful).
Religious exclusiveness oblivious to truths presented by art, science, nature, other faith traditions.
Okay, my definition for now is that a sacrament is simply a sign of grace. (At least grace is a word more inclusive!)
With time to spare in the detached twilight of my life, I’m moved to share a couple of earlier bits of my journey away from religiosity toward abandonment to the mystery of what I begin to understand as the all-inclusive Incarnation.
*
AUTUMN, 1951: A fifteen-year-old farm worker, I’m volunteered, along with a couple of old huntaway dogs, to help with the autumn muster on a neighboring high country sheep station. Two A.M. breakfast, then slog on foot up in the moonlight with the mustering gang to reach starting positions by dawn. We’re to sweep the scattered sheep ahead of us across the mountain face. I, the greenhorn, am to take the top beat because all my dogs and I need do is keep in line and make a lot of noise. I arrive at my spur, sit puffing amid the snowgrass, look out upon the awakening of a wide, wide, wonderful world of mountains, farms, village, sparkling water, arching sky. I know that the creation is vast, a work in progress, indwelt by Holiness, earthed, natural not supernatural yet transcending all I’ve ever known. I know that all, even my ant-sized existence, is grace. Awe!
Next Sunday is Easter Day. I line up with my faithful Anglican family at the village church. I'm hoping that the liturgy (the 1662 Book of Common Prayer) will somehow connect in my mind and heart with the “mountain-top” experience of being overwhelmed, caught up in, vibrant, all-inclusive holiness. It doesn’t. The ministry of word and sacrament is competently delivered by a good man. Perhaps I’m not tuned to the right frequency. Perhaps my hope is unreasonable. But my experience that day seems to be of just another nice service in a church that tidily keeps within its place, a place defined not so much by deep theology and searching spirituality as by many generations of comfortable culture. The emphasis seems to be on doctrines suggesting the supernatural, not much about the mysteries, the wonders, the beauty of the earthed, natural world of land (including the human presence) beyond the stained glass.
*
ROLL FORWARD A QUARTER-CENTURY: I’ve learned a bit by not only head-learning but also listening to the land in hands-on work, as a Department of Agriculture livestock instructor and an agricultural journalist – well, learned that there’s always infinitely more to learn, especially in the light of scripture and theology. I’m still seeking the sense of deep connection I sought as a fifteen-year old at Easter. I’m a guest for a while of the then West German Government, invited to indulge my quest for understanding how the stories of land-inclusive human community may play out. One happy evening is spent over a bottle of Moselle in the Presbytery in Flintsbach, a picturesque village in the Inn Valley, Upper Bavaria. The parish priest (let’s call him Fr Willem) speaks good English because he had spent the latter years of World War Two in a British POW camp. Fr Willem tells of how he and parishioners revived the traditional procession on the feast of Corpus Christi. After morning Mass that day, the Thursday after Trinity, they paraded the Blessed Sacrament to every store and workshop, home, cowshed, garden in the district. “Just to Catholic folk?” I ask. “No,” replies the good Father, “Everyone, everywhere.” You’d be fully vested with the Sacrament held high in an ornate monstrance” I suppose. “Oh, no, nothing so high and mighty,” says Fr Willem. “Just day clothes, ciborium and lidded chalice. We had a bit of a yarn with everyone we met, chatted about what the deep reality represented by the Sacrament might mean in the down-to-earth contexts of these folks’ lives, answered questions, shared a few words of prayer, and the Sacrament itself wherever accepted, and wandered on. It was great fun!”
*
This is where I could be tempted to toss out a lot of smart, obscurant and patronizing stuff from theological and liturgical tradition about what is really happening in Eucharistic worship. The fact is I have yet to find a neatly packaged answer to even the simple question I began struggling with in that mountain-top moment 69 years ago. When I turn to imagined Jesus in contemplative prayer he’s inclined to laugh at me as he laughed with his mates as they struggled to get their heads around the feeding miracles; Do you not yet understand? (John 8.21) As with them, he leaves me to work things out without resort to cop-out dogma.
I guess I’ll still be asking questions as I drop off my twig. But one thing I know: that in which we take part in the sacramental worship is earthed, invoking Jesus then and there, Jesus here and now, radiating light and renewed life everywhere and in all time. This infinite Christ is equally the intimate Jesus, the host who calls us as friends to share his costly love, share his vibrant life, be refueled to spread the love 24/7. Jesus in life, Jesus in death, is revealed as the most earthed person ever; bearer of the greatest love for all this world – a world ”filled with the grandeur of God” as Hopkins put it, a world in which one inhales both spirit and matter in every breath. I fear some of my cultural upbringing as a Christian and an observer of the life of land suggested that, depending on context, I could choose: spiritual or material, natural or supernatural, No so! All or nothing!
Yes, I've been overwhelmed by wonder during church worship as well as out in the loved world, usually when my soul is stilled and the liturgy not too busy. I wonder whether there should be more listening silence in many faith communities. In spite of the fact that I’m very serious indeed about the ministry of the sacrament, I wonder whether an odd service of the Word should be inserted into the worship schedule of local churches where most people experience an unvaried diet of Eucharist. I wonder whether some of us are prey to a spirit of passive, individual consumerism, denying that the what’s offered represents the entirety of God’s loved world beyond the stained glass. I wonder how to speak to the un-churchy majority of folk of the deeply, joyously disturbing reality of our faith without being greeted with rolling of eyes.
It’s not all about me. It’s not all about those of us who call ourselves Christian. As we offer bread to be broken, wine to be shared, ourselves soul and body, I imagine the Incarnate One offering back as sacrament the entire being of this little planet representing the vast universe in its beauty and its suffering, challenging us to live as grateful, healing celebrants where we are at every day.
Boyd Wilson was a prominent New Zealand agricultural journalist, then an Anglican parish priest focusing on full rural context before retirement.