Sacramental Piety
I used to wait tables at a restaurant. One winter I injured my ankle significantly enough to warrant a walking boot. My right foot was confined to the boot for just under a month. While in the boot I still did my job, which involved maneuvering up and down multiple flights of stairs in order to get from the kitchen to the dining rooms of the restaurant. Even though my bare minimum work was getting done, I was of little assistance to co-workers. I grew weary easily, and the boot did not aid in traction when walking through a slippery kitchen.
The church in Maine specifically has limped along unaware they have confined themselves to a walking boot. Out of a suspicion of sacerdotalism (salvation solely coming through sacraments), much of Maine’s church life is anti-sacramental or at best apathetically sacramental. Yes, the Word is preached, and people are trusting Jesus and seeking to obey His Word. In an effort to make much of the Word we have evacuated the sacraments of their fullness. We have denied them their proper place as the accompanying leg of the Church. This has created a misshapen piety. We walk by faith, with a limp. We have only been using one leg to navigate spiritual life. We need to reclaim sacramental piety in order to run the race with endurance.
What is “sacramental piety”? In a broad sense it is an amen to the work of Alexander Schmemman in For the Life of the World. Sacramental piety is an amen that perceives the Christian life as an extension of communion with God. An extension of special grace given in the sacraments into the “ordinary” life of the Christian. It is an understanding of our duties (piety) as Christians to be grounded in the Word, Baptism, and the Eucharist (Holy Communion). It is to be in concert with the apostolic faith in which word and deed are the twin pillars of the church. In which to hear and to do are a singular motion. Sacramental piety is what happens when our life in Christ becomes grounded explicitly in the objective realities born out through Baptism and Communion. Sacramental piety is what gave us Christendom, it is what evangelized the West. Reclaiming this piety gives a faith that can withstand martyrdom, persecution, and sorrow.
Before we can understand our duties (piety), we must know who we are. In other words, our ontology defines our ought. As a caveat, some may side with Hume in arguing that an “is” cannot give you an “ought”. For example, just because a tree exists does not furnish us with moral duties regarding the tree. On the other hand, if the “is” itself is of a moral nature than an “ought” can be derived. Thus, since our “is” will be shown as our ontology in Christ, it is legitimate to deduce an ought. To belong to Christ is to belong to righteousness itself, and thus to be given moral imperatives. Identity in Christ must require new habits as Christ is our creator, upholder, and establisher. It is entirely legitimate for the creator of an invention to dictate how it must function. Our identity is given to us, not self-manifested, thus our duties (piety) are also given.
Thus, we know who we are primarily by what is given to us. You are given a name. You are given a family. You are given a place to live. This frames your primary duties. I am a Corey who has been given a wife and four children in Waldo County. This means I must know my neighbors, who require love of me, for whom must I provide and feed, toward whom must I expend primary emotional investment? I am being impious and betraying my duties if I have long private talks with a woman who is not my wife, if I neglect to catechize my children, or if I neglect to pay my property taxes.
The same ought-ness applies to the Christian. Your faith is fundamentally something given to you, “ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (Jude 3). This faith is manifested in the objective event of baptism. (I argue for the efficacy of baptism here: https://www.tributeblog.me/blog/whats-water-got-to-do-with-it). Just as in the civil/familial estate we are born in a place, in the ecclesiastical realm you are born into the heavenly kingdom. You are born specifically by the water and the spirit (John 3:5). You did not baptize yourself, you were baptized, and you were baptized into Christ’s body. “As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Galatians 3:27. In this baptism you are given a new family, and as such are now called, “Christian”. This is the ontology by which scripture exhorts our oughts. It never derives “oughts” from “your decision that you made.” Whenever the apostles exhort Christians to be faithful to their duties, to be pious, it is preceded by a reminder of who they are.
Ephesians 2:4-10 (the good works we walk in are established by God’s gracious salvation he gives us…this in connection with clearer baptismal passages demonstrates that us being raised with Christ is done in baptism) “4 But[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Galatians 3:27-29 (the Galatians are exhorted to live at peace and not divide from one another, because they have been baptized) “7 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[g] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Romans 6:3-9 (here baptism is the reason by which we ought to flee from sin, and cleave to our duties in our new life, vindicating my point made prior to Ephesians 2:4-10) “3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free[b] from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him”
If we are to shape our understanding of our duties as Christians we must position them to flow naturally from the reality of our baptism. By faith we can see that in Baptism we are made new creations and thus can obey the Word of God. This guards us from forms of legalism that would exclusively urge you to good works to be assured of your justification. It also guards us from subjectivism in which our sincerity of decision at summer camp becomes the grounds of assurance. Baptism is given to us by God as a means by which we can know Christ has adopted us. It is our birth certificate imploring us to now live in a manner fitting with our new family. Just as a child can either be faithful to their parent’s instruction or unfaithful, in a similar way our faithfulness or faithlessness is our subjective response to the objective gifts given in baptism. Baptism is Christ grafting you into His body, thus baptism ultimately grounds your assurance in the person of Jesus and His Word. Baptism requires us to see the work of Christ as our source of confidence and the reason we obey. This is our common inheritance with the Church throughout the ages; one faith, one Lord, one Baptism. Our faith possesses those blessings given to us. Our faith is our allegiance to our new Father.
Baptism carries us to the next realm of our sacramental piety; holy communion. There are two ways in which holy communion is implemented as our piety, our duty. One is in the participation in the rite itself: the other is that communion drives us to piety outside the divine service of the church.
If we revisit our earlier illustration of familial piety, we can use the dinner table as an analog. If I neglect to eat with my family habitually, I would be considered an impious father. I would be a father that neglects rich fellowship with my wife and children. I would be denying the ought that flows from my ontology as a father. Similarly, our ontology as baptized Christians mean our primary piety is found in partaking of holy communion. “
16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.”
(1 Cor 10:16-17) The identifying ritual for the Church is the communion meal. We are one (ontology) therefore we must eat communion as one (ought). The Lord’s Supper is the central emphasis of the entire book of 1 Corinthians. Paul’s exhortations, admonitions, and encouragement all center around their sacramental piety of partaking of holy communion properly. They properly partake by not hogging food for themselves, not living in sexual immorality, and by discerning that the body of Christ is one. This understanding and maturity is not merely demonstrated in the Lord’s Supper, but the rite itself grows the habit of understanding. Jesus tells us to “do this” not to just “mediate on this”. The Christian faith is one of doing. Specifically doing out duty. In the doing we imitate Christ. These imitations start with the sacraments he instituted, baptism, and holy communion.
Jesus emphasized the necessity of us to dutifully partake of his body and blood in John 6;
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. (John 6:53-57)
Our allegiance, and reliance on Jesus must be lived out by fervently returning to the table. This is one of the strongest arguments for weekly communion using wine. It is vital we “do” in the exact way Jesus “did”. We need his body and blood regularly…for the Bible tells us so. We cannot live by bread alone, but by the Word that comes from the mouth of God. The Word made flesh is received after the Word is preached. The two must go together.
This is the covenantal reality of the communion meal. In the context of Sunday worship, we are called into the assembly as a reminder of our baptism that grafts us into this body. We are forgiven of our sins, which is grounded in the blood Jesus applied in our baptism. We are taught the Word through the scriptures and given our ought. The first response to this “ought” is the communion meal. The communion meals is how God vouchsafes us as his welcomed guests. He is preparing our table in the presence of our enemies. He is sealing the instruction with more promise, that his very Son will continue to nourish our faith by His body, blood, and Word. Our ability to digest the Word preached spiritually is directly tied to our digestion of the Word made flesh. We hear and do. Word and deed. When we partake of this rite, we can then extend our piety outward.
Hughes Oliphant Old points this out in his book Worship: Reformed According to Scripture.
“Something is mentioned, however, that is of great importance: the collection of alms for the poor. This had been an important aspect of the eucharistic piety of Continental Reformed churches, although not often specifically mentioned in the liturgical documents. It is a long-honored practice of Reformed piety that on Communion Sundays there is a special collection of alms that is turned over to the deacons for distribution to the poor.”[1]
He notes that it is meet and right to understand further obedience in our civil and familial realms are direct consequences of the communion table. Our sacramental piety that is exercised in the prime reality of covenant renewal worship, is what informs how sacramental piety manifests Monday thru Saturday. Christ giving us His body and blood fosters our generosity in alms giving. It is particularly demonstrated in the work of the diaconate. The hospitality of God to feed hungry sinners is mirrored in our neighborhood hospitality and evangelism. Our entire economy changes when we see our lives as entirely dependent upon the sacramental vitality of worship.
He is not alone in his perspective. The Reformed tradition in this regard is keeping with a mindset found in the ancient church. In the Constiutions of the Holy Apostles (a second century document that reveals much of the early church’s faith and practice) Book VIII ch. XIV we read a prayer that follows participation in Communion:
Now we have received the precious body and the precious blood of Christ, let us give thanks to Him who has thought us worthy to partake of these His holy mysteries; and let us beseech Him that it may not be to us for condemnation, but for salvation, to the advantage of soul and body, to the preservation of piety, to the remission of sins, and to the life of the world to come. Let us arise, and by the grace of Christ let us dedicate ourselves to God, to the only unbegotten God, and to His Christ.” [2]
The early church clearly understood their ability to perform their Christian duties as a direct consequence of faithful participation in Communion. This meal gave them assurance of forgiveness and their new life. By being strengthend in their new life they can uphold their duties faithful by the grace of God. They have tasted the grace, now they can enact the grace.
Seeing as how I have spent so much time emphasizing rites and sacraments, it is quite likely you may feel I am shortchanging the Word. Aren’t the Scriptures all we need for life and godliness? This is to pit two friends against each other. Faithfulness to the Word requires sacramental piety. If we are to pastor churches in accordance with Scriptures, we need to ground piety in the baptismal promises of Scripture. Duties must derive from ontology, and ontology as a Christian cannot be separated from the necessity of baptism in uniting us to Christ. Faith certainly comes through hearing, and making these baptismal promises effective but what promises are we making effective if we are told baptismal is our token of our devotion to Christ? Exhortations to generosity, hospitality, and joy fall hollow if the joyful wine of communion and the regular participation in Christ’s gifts are neglected. The comfort of Christians is given in Emmanuel, God with us. Our piety must flow from sacraments being taught and practiced as if we actually believed God is with us. He is with us in the Word, He is with us in Baptism, and He is with us in Communion. Our obedience can only be actualized through the gifts of Christ. Receive the gifts of Jesus and be changed into his likeness through His Word and Sacraments.
Bibliography:
[1] Old, Hughes Oliphant. “The Lord’s Supper.” Worship: Reformed According to Scripture, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville (Ky.), KY, 2002, pp. 138–139.
[2] Menzies, Allan, et al. “Constitutions of the Holy Apostles.” Ante-Nicene Fathers, Hendrickson, Peabody, Mass, 1999, pp. 491–491.
