Symbol and Sacrament

As I've been reading For the Life of the World by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, my understanding of "sacrament" has been changing - these are some of my thoughts. But before I get to that, I need to say that this change in my understanding of "sacrament" didn't start with the reading of For the Life of the World, but is something that has been evolving over the years.

My first remembered experience of a "sacrament", was with the "Lord's Supper" as I grew up in a mainline, southern Presbyterian Church. (I was baptized as an infant, so I don't recall that.) In that setting, the “bread” (weird little stamped wafer) and grape juice were understood to be symbolic – at least, that’s what my Dad told me. I don’t remember the Pastor ever addressing the subject, but that may be my fault. I was young and don’t remember 95% of anything he said. Nevertheless, my experience of this “symbolic” wafer and grape juice, was that it appeared to be some sort of “coming of age thing.” I had to wait until I was 12, go through some rite of “confirming my baptism”, and then I was able to partake of the Lord’s Supper.

My next set of experiences was in a number of so-called “Community Churches”, where the Lord’s Supper was definitely regarded as symbolic – period! Any talk of the “real presence” was thought to be pure Catholic superstition. During this period, I don’t even remember when or where I partook – it wasn’t very important since it was just a “symbol.” Turns out that is a very bad conclusion…but I may need to address that in another entry.

Then I became a member of a particular congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America and “stumbled” onto a new understanding of the Eucharist. Now, for most PCA church-goers, I’m fairly certain their experience of the Lord’s Supper is purely symbolic. But it just so happened that the church I attended was pastored by a man who had grown up Lutheran. So, for the first time in my life, I was exposed to a teaching that suggested there was something more going on in the Lord's Supper than “mere” symbol.

Next, I jumped off a cliff of sorts, became Anglican (i.e. traditional Anglican with high mass and not the Episcopalian version) and was exposed to a close to pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. They even have a service in which the wafer gets suspended in a little gold thingy, placed on the altar, and the congregation “adores” it with prayers, songs, kneeling, etc. In order to take communion as an Anglican, I had to confess that I believed in the “real presence of Christ” in the Eucharist. I did, and I partook, but my experience of it was hardly different than anything I’d experienced before. I felt like Wendy from Peter Pan trying to believe hard enough so I could fly.

Now, I am Orthodox – or perhaps more accurately - I am becoming Orthodox. That is, I am quite sure that I am still unOrthodox in many areas – not the least of which is my understanding of, and interaction with, the Eucharist. That said, I believe the Orthodox understanding of the “holy mysteries” (our name for the Eucharist, which gives you some indication of a slightly different approach) is not so much “scientific” as it is experiential. That is to say, the holy mysteries are eaten – not discussed. There is no service of “adoration” because the Eucharist is always in the context of a meal. We do believe that the bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood, but not in some sort of magical, transubstitutionary way. To my knowledge, you’re not going to find any precise, scientific explanation of how, when, where, etc. the bread and wine are “transformed” into Christ’s body and blood in Patristic literature. In fact to think of it that way is to completely misunderstand the nature of reality, because in reality - all things are created by God as the means by which we experience Him. So, the bread and wine that are set aside ritualistically for the holy mysteries don’t have to be fundamentally “changed” in order to transmit God’s life to us. The ritual is necessary and does “do” something unique, but we don’t know the nature of that “something” exactly. The bread and wine are “predisposed” to communicating God’s life to us by eating it because all created things transmit God’s life to us if we will but receive it. That is why gratitude to God is so important for everything that we encounter in life. Gratitude is the fruit of our acceptance of the reality that all life comes from God and is communicated to us through all His gifts to us - especially and uniquely - in the Eucharist. God manifests His love supremely by giving us life through the body and blood of His Son. It is a mystery – but not a fantasy. It is as real as it gets.