The Journey Onward

So, What’s a Sacrament?

In my last post, Ordinance to Sacrament, I shared a bit about how I’ve journeyed from understanding Baptism and Communion as ordinances to understanding them as sacraments.  In this post I’d like to share some of what I’ve been learning about these holy mysteries.

Lots of folks have attempted to define the term sacrament, but one definition I’ve found particularly helpful is in The Book of Common Prayer (BCP).  The BCP defines sacraments as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” 

I see two sections in this definition of a sacrament. First, a sacrament is an outward and visible symbol of God’s invisible grace at work in our lives.  The outward symbol in Communion, for example, is the bread and wine.  Second, a sacrament is a means by which we receive God’s grace.  The inward grace we receive by taking Communion includes all the benefits of the Body and Blood of Jesus.

In order to better understand how receiving God’s grace works I needed to better understand grace itself.  Grace is the unmerited favor we receive from God. Sometimes grace gets confused with mercy.  Mercy is not getting what we deserve, whereas grace is getting what we do not deserve.  A right relationship with God, the forgiveness of sin, freedom from feelings of worthlessness and shame, and all other gifts from God, we receive not because of anything we have done to earn or merit them, but by God’s grace alone. He grants these as free gifts.  Our salvation, for example, is a gift of grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2.8-9). 

Throughout our lives God grants his grace in many diverse ways and at various times, but there are several special and specific ways, which the BCP described as “sure and certain means” of grace.  Means of grace are actions or places in which God has guaranteed to meet with and impart his grace to everyone who participates in them.  They are unique places where the veil between heaven and earth seems to wear thin.  Not participating in these means of grace does not indicate a person will experience nothing of God’s grace in their life, but it does indicate they will not experience the bit of grace they would have experienced had they participated in those particular means of grace.

When I got to this point in my thought process an objection rose up in my heart.  How is grace grace if we have to do something, like participate in a sacrament, to receive it?  Doesn’t this indicate the act of participating in the sacrament has become a work by which we merit, or earn, God’s favor, thereby rendering grace graceless?

This was an important question.  As I considered it I thought of giving an un-earned gift to my daughter.  When I desire to give her something she needs to put herself in a posture to receive the gift, otherwise she will never actually benefit from the gift.  For instance, if I want to give my daughter a piece of candy I can hold the candy out to her, but she needs to open her hand to then take hold of the gift.  By merely opening her hand she has done nothing to deserve or merit the candy, she has simply responded to my overture of gift giving by readying herself to receive the gift.  The more I thought of this example, the more the idea of a “means of grace” made sense to me.  By participating in a sacrament we do not somehow make ourselves worthy of God’s favor, we simply avail ourselves to his gracious gift.

When I considered all this it made sense to me that we, as followers of Jesus, could ready ourselves in such a way as to receive God’s grace.  The way we do this is by faith.  Understood this way, a sacrament is a means by which we receive God’s unmerited favor, which we avail ourselves to receiving in faith.

This brought another question to mind. “How do we acquire the faith that readies us to receive God’s grace?”  The answer I discovered to this question is that faith is itself a gift of grace.  The wonderful Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, a document written by official representatives of the Lutheran denomination and the Roman Catholic Church, says this “Faith is itself God's gift through the Holy Spirit, who works through Word and Sacrament in the community of believers and who, at the same time, leads believers into that renewal of life which God will bring to completion in eternal life.”

So, God grants us the faith that makes us able to posture ourselves in such a way as to receive his unmerited favor, his grace.  This may sound like circular reasoning, but it makes sense to me that our loving God would enable us, who are helpless in ourselves to choose to follow him, to avail ourselves to receive the unmerited favor he longs to pour out on us.  I praise God for these holy mysteries, and I praise him for his grace. 

Ordinance to Sacrament

The church environment in which I was raised never used the word sacrament.  We had ordinances.  And there were only two, Baptism and Communion.

When I was eight years old I wanted to be baptized.  I don’t remember exactly what I thought baptism was all about, but I knew it was part of following Jesus, and I wanted to follow Jesus with my whole heart.  Sadly, and it seems somewhat arbitrarily, the church of which my family was a part would not baptize children until they were nine years old.  Since Mom had no objection, we went to a church across town that would baptize an eight year old.  At that time I remember affirming my love for Jesus, my belief that he died for my sin and rose from the dead, and my commitment to follow after him all the days of my life.  I was then, praise God, baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

As I grew older I remember thinking it odd a church would actually withhold baptism from a follower of Jesus.  The reason for this, it was explained, was that the central purpose of baptism was to be a public profession of faith.  And how could we know for certain an eight year old actually possessed a faith of his own to publicly profess?  Similarly, the symbolism of death and resurrection was meant to symbolically refer to something that had already happened in the life of the Christian.  And how could we be sure an eight year old had in fact been crucified and raised with Christ?  The ordinance, it was taught, conferred no special grace nor offered any other particular spiritual benefit other than being an opportunity for obedience, so putting it off for another year didn’t really matter.  I had a hard time finding support for all this in Scripture, and couldn’t help thinking there must be more to Baptism than all that.

I had a similar experience with Communion.  As a boy I remember wanting to take Communion every week; it was my favorite part of worship.  But our church only participated in this ordinance once a month or so.  Whenever we did celebrate Communion it felt almost like an afterthought or an inconvenience to our service.  It had to be squeezed in somehow to a schedule already chock full with Bible teaching and song singing.  

When Communion was explained we were all assured there was nothing uniquely special about the bread or the grape juice.  Communion, like baptism, was a purely symbolic action.  The bread and juice were merely mnemonic devices, designed by Jesus to help us remember his death.  I remember thinking that was an odd purpose for Communion.  After all, how could I ever forget something so important to me as the death and resurrection of my God?  As with baptism, I couldn’t help thinking there must be more to the Body and Blood of Jesus than mere memorial. 

Later, in Bible College as I read Church history and theology I was confronted with the term “sacrament.”  Sacrament is a transliteration of the Latin sacramentum, which is itself a translation of the Greek mysterion, or “mystery.”  I learned that for the vast majority of Church history Christians have understood those actions I knew as symbolic ordinances, as sacraments, holy mysteries through which God conferred something of his grace on his people.  I immediately resonated with this idea of Baptism and Communion as sacrament.  As a result I have, for several years, been engaged in study, conversation, and prayer in an effort to better understand the meaning and purpose of these holy mysteries.  I’ll share some of what I’ve been learning in my next post. 

Where Else Would I Go?

My first real exposure to Roman Catholicism came through my college friend Sarah, who as I mentioned in my previous post was happy (and mature enough) to recognize that our beliefs were much the same.  I wasn’t easily persuaded, however.  I actually didn’t know much about Roman Catholicism, but I knew what I had been taught, or what I thought I’d been taught.  Whether or not these things were explicitly preached what I understood from my Evangelical upbringing was that Rome was the Whore of Babylon, the Pope was probably the antichrist, Catholics maintained an unhealthy devotion to Mary, worshipped the saints, and ignored the Bible.  That sounded to me like a totally different religion.  And indeed, the Catholicism in my head was.  My friendship with Sarah, however, helped me grow in willingness to exploring what Roman Catholicism was really all about, because, in case it needs to be said here, the vast majority of what I thought just wasn’t true.

Also during college I spent a quarter studying in Italy.  While there I grew an appreciation for the Roman church.  St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and even the more intimate San Michele’s in Lucca where I lived seemed to me monuments to the grandeur of God. 

When I returned home from Italy I felt comfortable occasionally attending mass at the local Roman Catholic parish.  During this time I learned a great truth about the Roman church: it has official teaching.  Some Roman Catholics may believe and communicate certain misunderstandings, but one can always go back to the official teaching of the church to see what it really believes and teaches.  I began acquainting myself with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and other writings explaining official teaching and I discovered Sarah was right.  Much of what she and I believed was the same. 

Now, I was not ready to become a Roman Catholic by any stretch of the imagination, but I definitely softened to the idea that I could learn some things from the Roman Church.  It was at this time I met Fr. Dimitri Sala.  Fr. Dimitri is a Franciscan friar absolutely committed to church unity.  He and I had several long conversations over the phone about the similarities and the differences between Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism.  Some of our common ground is that we are both deeply committed to working toward the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer for church unity in John 17:20-23. 

During one conversation Fr. Dimiti said something that struck me.  Years earlier, while praying for church unity he felt he needed to answer the question “If God asked me to, would I be willing to leave the Roman church in order to work for unity among the separated brethren?”  Now, Fr. Dimitri loves the Roman Catholic church and doesn’t want to leave it.  But he felt God wanted to ask him if he’d be willing to give it up if that’s what following Jesus meant.  He said yes. 

After that conversation I asked myself, would I be willing to leave my tradition and become Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or something else if God asked me to?  This was a big deal to me because if I answered yes I had to admit God was actually present in these other Christian traditions.  It was also big because it made me realize God may one day ask me to do something really uncomfortable for his glory.  If and when that time came what would I do?  Would I be willing to step into the uncomfortable unknown in order to follow after my Lord and his purposes?  My answer was and is, yes, of course I would.  How could I even dream of not being where God would send me.  I resonate with St. Peter’s words, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

At this point in my journey the Lord is leading me into unfamiliar territory.  I’m actually excited about this.  And even though I don’t know the final destination, how exactly God wants to use me, or what all the implications of journeying on will be, I know I am willing to do anything and go anywhere to follow after the leading of my Lord.

The Ancient Paths

In college, during one of our occasional conversations about religion, a Roman Catholic friend of mine asserted she and I basically believed the same things.  I arrogantly and ignorantly dismissed her wholesale declaring we were part of two very different faiths.  Hers was a religion weighed down by all kinds of unnecessary manmade baggage; mine was a pure untainted relationship with Jesus. 

A year or so later one of my professors introduced me to some ancient church documents.  Among them were selections from the Apostolic Fathers and the Didache.  I remember judging their validity and usefulness by whether or not I agreed with them.   For fear of what they might say I similarly condemned, without having read for myself, the writings of St. Justin Martyr, St. Augustine, and others.

Among other things, these scenes of my life demonstrate mine was a faith divorced from church history.  Well, at least the history between AD 70 and the 1950s.  And at the time I was proud of this.  I was proud that my faith was unencumbered by nonessential religiosity and structure.  I imagined this left my faith nimble and easily adaptable to the current cultural climate, which in turn better equipped me to share the simple truth of the gospel with those who did not yet know Jesus.

Years later, in an attempt to better understand worship I attended the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.  I was to my chagrin profoundly impressed by the worship, including much of what I would have formerly classified as periphery and potentially harmful.  After the service one of the parishioners loaned me the book Becoming Orthodox by Father Peter E. Gillquist, a priest who had converted from Evangelicalism to Orthodoxy.  Of his own spiritual journey he writes,

“For years we had tended to view the Church in its trek through history as a sort of ranch-style structure, twenty centuries long, the foun­dations being re-laid in each century to reflect the cul­ture at hand. Now, it seems, we were starting to look at the Church as a vertical structure twenty centuries high, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone.

Instead of having to build new foundations in each generation or each century, we were struggling to see if it were possible to stay with the original apostolic foun­dation, with that faith once for all delivered to the saints and, in turn, to build a new floor on it for our time, to house the people of our day. We grew less and less com­fortable asking, "Are the Christians in the second and third century in our church?" The issue was more the reverse: Are we in theirs?”

After reading this I felt convicted.  How could I judge whether or not the Christians in the early church were following the Lord in the best way possible?  How could I assume my twenty-something year old wisdom was greater than the accumulated wisdom and experience of the total Church throughout the ages?  I was humbled.  As an aspiring pastor, I had thought my job was to fix the mess created by all those people long ago, but now I began to think maybe my responsibility was to humbly listen to them as my teachers.  I realized in pride I had developed ideas and conclusions about the church that led me unintentionally to forsake the fullness of the “fountain of living waters.”  The sad truth was I had joined the ranks of those who had “hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

I am now fully convinced of the necessity of and committed to making sure my theology and faith expression is in continuity with the faith handed down once for all by the apostles and their successors.  I am eager to sit at their feet and submit to their instruction.  I have finally developed a deep desire to “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it,” and find rest for my soul (Jeremiah 6:16).

Where Providence Placed Me

At this point in my spiritual journey I’m growing to value certain understandings and expressions of the Christian faith that differ from some of those most common in the tradition in which I was raised.  As I become increasingly aware of these differences I’m faced with a choice.  Will I arrogantly dismiss where I’ve come from as old hat, provincial, and tired, with nothing more to offer as I journey onward?  Or will I recognize all traditions are flawed to a certain extent, and that the direction I’m headed may in fact benefit from some of what I received growing up? 

The first option would require me to declare all I was raised with categorically wrong, or at least not always right.  The second option would allow me to honor where I’ve come from, and even take with me as travel companions those aspects of my tradition that seem most helpful, all the while acknowledging journeying onward means leaving some of it behind.  Two significant conversations have helped me happily choose this second option.

Conversation #1

I can’t remember the conversation verbatim, but I’ll do my best to recount it accurately.  A few years ago I attended a workshop hosted by a pastor friend of mine.  After the workshop a man I had never met introduced himself to me. 

“Rob Patterson, you don’t know me but I have been praying for you for a year or so.  I’ve been waiting to meet you because I have an picture from the Lord to share with you.” 

After expressing my interest in what he had to say the man continued, “There was a boat in a body of water, anchored to its spot.  The Lord wants you to know it is time to cut the anchor and move on.  It’s important that the anchor is cut and not pulled up.  This is because where you were anchored was not a bad place.  You can leave your anchor there, nevertheless, the Lord is moving you on.” 

Conversation #2

Last year I had the opportunity to receive some spiritual direction from Orthodox priest Father Patrick Henry Reardon.  After having detailed my story for him he shared a word of advice that has stuck with me.  “Proceed slowly.  And always be careful to honor the tradition in which providence placed you.”

I am determined to honor the tradition from which I come, and to leave the anchor as I sail on.  First and foremost, I’m committed to nurturing my submission to, dependence on, and worship of God, no matter where it leads me and no matter the cost.  This is a value with which I was raised and I intend to keep it.  Second, I’m committed to processing my journey in community.  I’m not running away from the significant relationships with which the Lord has blessed me, not least of which is my current church community.  Third, I’m committed to retain and celebrate those most helpful and uplifting aspects of the tradition in which I was raised such as a deep devotion to Christian mission, a sensitivity to proclaiming the gospel in a manner intelligible to my current local culture, and a passion for proclaiming the gospel through strong biblical teaching and preaching.

I praise God for where providence started my journey.  I praise him for the direction in which, by his grace, I’m headed.  And I praise him for the journey itself.

My Journey Onward

Over the last couple years, the Lord has been teaching me to embrace and even enjoy the journey of life with God, and to not be too consumed with “arriving.”  In the trajectory of my life I have had preferable milestones, points to which I’m constantly looking forward, places at which I long to arrive.  These points are usually good places to be - perhaps the accomplishment of a goal, the birth of a child, the experience of the fulfillment of one of God’s promises.  What I have noticed, however, is that in-between any two given points is a lot of journey space, space when I am not arriving at any particular destination, accomplishing any particular goal, or celebrating any particularly obvious act of God, space in which I have previously felt uncomfortable. 

These days I feel the Lord inviting me to be content in these in-between spaces, these hallways, freeways, and deserts.  I am realizing these spaces are where I will spend the vast majority of my life.  Additionally, I’m beginning to understand the in-between spaces are not necessarily meaningless, roads whose only purpose is to get me somewhere else.  I’m discovering God is not only at the destination; he’s also in the journey itself.



I’m not necessarily giving up on goals or progress, but I am redefining success for myself.  Previously I thought success was the arrival at one of my preferred destinations.  Now I’m learning success is faithfulness along the way.  It’s hearing God’s voice as we walk together, enjoying the journey for all its beauty and mystery, and allowing my travels to shape me.  As a result I am becoming more patient and content.  I’m becoming more of who I want to be, and who I am meant to be.

This blog is a space I’ll use to share and process some of the things I’m learning and thinking about as I continue my journey onward.