Some thoughts on externals
A while back, my wife, who was not Lutheran at the time, was told that she would possibly be struck dead because she did not fast before communion--as St. Paul clearly said in 1 Corinthians, because she had not had sufficient respect for the body and blood of the Lord. Not only that, she should go to the priest and ask for penance to submit herself to the discipline of the Church.
Now, I don't want to beat up on other confessions, but when we concentrate on what some call "externals", they can take the place of the central things in the life of a Christian. This is a good anecdote--what is more important, disciplining the body or receiving new life through the forgiveness offered by Christ himself in the Sacrament of the alter? Of course I believe it is the latter.
If what I am doing in my Christian life starts with the preparations I make instead of what Christ offers to me, the battle is already half lost because I focus on myself. Fortunately for me, even if I focus on myself, Christ still forgives me because he loves me and died for me. In other words, the Sacrament does not become ineffective because my faith is defective. It is certainly true that receiving the Sacrament over time will help my broken faith to mend. Fasting is a fine thing, truly it is--but it is not the object of our faith. Christ is, and we encounter Christ in the Sacraments and in the preaching of his word.
Now to be fair, no one consciously believes he focuses on himself when he prepares for e.g. Holy Communion, it is just another insidious trick of our enemy, a thing we are all too prone to fall for as we wish to be the center of things at all times. So let us thank the Lord for his mercy, that he still saves us when we turn in on ourselves--that even when we rebel we have the comfort of what he gave us in our Baptism, and which he richly gives us when we hear the precious words of the Gospel.
2 comments:
what is more important, disciplining the body or receiving new life through the forgiveness offered by Christ himself in the Sacrament of the altar?
This is a totally false dichotomy. There is nothing about the traditional discipline of the Church (i.e. regular use of private confession and a reasonable rule of prayer and fasting, under the guidance of one's father confessor) that stands in opposition to, or is in any way a substitute for, regular reception of the sacraments.
A proper spiritual discipline, including fasting, is not "the object of our faith" -- and no one claims that it is. Rather than being the object of our faith, it is a means by which we live by faith, a means by which we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in His work of renewal (FC SD II.65-67).
You say:
If what I am doing in my Christian life starts with the preparations I make instead of what Christ offers to me, the battle is already half lost because I focus on myself.
But the Christian life does not start with our preparations, with our spiritual discipline. It starts with baptism -- with the Church's ministry of Word and Sacrament. It does indeed, as you say, start with ... what Christ offers me. But it does not end there. We are not immediately transported to heaven as soon as we hear the preaching of the Word and believe. We must still work out our salvation in this fallen world, and the Church gives us salutary disciplines by which to "fight the good fight".
The neglect of the Church's traditional salutary disciplines among almost all Lutherans is not our best quality, nor is it anything to boast of.
Chris,
I am not sure we really disagree. Perhaps I should have been clearer in stating that what happened is not the "official" teaching of any church.
The point of my "false dichotomy" is to point out the absurdity of what that man said, that my wife may be struck dead because she did not fast before Communion. It seemed to me that this gentleman thought it was more important to prepare for, than to receive the blessings of, Communion.
I also agree our Christian life does not end with our baptism, though we may rightly say "I was saved at my Baptism", this salvation is not a static thing. We must increase in godliness--not to cause of our salvation but as new creations BEcause of our salvation. How can the new man not follow his nature and do godly works? For without works our faith is dead.
Finally, I am not aware of where I said we should ignore disciplines, or that I was bragging about the sorry state of doctrinal and bodily discipline in the Lutheran Church. Perhaps you read too much into what I wrote. I really wanted to say that externals are just that, externals, and threatening someone with the wrath of God because she did not fast is probably across several lines.
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