Ritual

We watched a movie today about "Cargo Cults." In the discussion that followed, I was intrigued at where it did not go. I was also surprised by my own hesitation at speaking up (which has not been a problem for me before). For myself, I will chalk it up to my resolve to listen more. But the group as a whole, I was surprised at that we did not really move the discussion inward.

As I sat there and listened, I kept thinking that religious rituals are often the result of a little bit of knowledge added to human desire and seasoned with "reason" to explain how the ritual gets you what you want based on your knowledge of "God." And then I began to think more about what the meant for Christians. What rituals do Christians practice that an outside group of people would find as odd and as silly as building a crooked runway in the middle of the mountains and then sitting and waiting for a plane to land?

What I came up with were 2 things: Baptism and Eucharist. Now the first is not all that surprising to me, as I have of late become very frustrated with the "law of baptism" and that is a large part of why I do not really want to go with Ben to our Lutheran church. But Eucharist? That one threw me just a bit. Yes, I have struggled and do struggle with the "sanitization" of Eucharist, but I was just sharing last night with a new friend how essential it is for me to share in it during worship. But today, all my misgivings came flying back. I looked again at how Christians have taken Jesus sharing the Passover meal, a meal of great significance for the Jewish people in regards to God's salvation, and his command to do so in remembrance of him, and developed a ritual of filing down a line to get a piece of bread (if you are lucky, so often churches use the wafers, or Jes-its) and a small cup of wine, and then file back to your seat. Where is the sharing of community in that? Where is the breaking of bread, really breaking bread, in that?

I was so overcome I was barely able to go up today. I was sitting there feeling frustrated with hollow ritual and longing for the spiritual nourishment I do receive. After I got back to my seat, I started writing, furiously, about the Eucharist, and why I do, what it means to me. I have been continuing to mull over those thoughts ever since.

Where I am, RIGHT NOW, is that sacraments are sacred not because God is there but because we are there. Now, that might sound pretty crazy and maybe even awful, but the way I see it is that God is everywhere. God is everything. It is no surprise that God meets us in baptism or Eucharist, or Bible study or prayer. But that is where we meet God. Sacraments are sacred because we have chosen to meet God there, and then over time, perhaps we (the Church) have come to decide that God only meets us there.

I cannot and do not deny the presence of God in baptism. But I also cannot limit God to them. I do find nourishment from God in the Eucharist, but perhaps that is because I only look for it there. What if I looked for that same nourishment when doing yoga or walking my dog? Would I find it? Perhaps I'll try....
***Amendment - In just a few days, I realized one essential element my "suggestions" above are missing --> COMMUNITY