By J. Davis Creach
Father Alexander Schmemann was a devout Orthodox priest and theologian who saw the Christian life of faith as a never-ending journey of transformation and reconciliation with God. More specifically, Schmemann defines being as Christian as this: “to know in a transrational and yet absolutely certain way called faith, that Christ is the Life of all life, that he is Life itself, and therefore my life.” Schmemann was a firm believer in the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church being at the heart of this transrational and transformational expression of faith. Just by participating in the Liturgy itself, God moves and works within God’s people, giving them a foretaste of heaven (especially through Christ’s Body and Blood) and teaching them to see the world with fresh eyes; to see the world as a gift from God and give thanks.
The Catholic Mass and the Episcopal Rites, even the higher liturgy worship services of the Presbyterian or Lutheran churches, can give us much the same experience. It is worship itself, the act of communally praising God and discerning God’s Word to then be nourished and nurtured by the spiritual food of the Eucharist, that focuses our attention on Life and Love—on the One True God. When we come together to worship, we are not actually gathering ourselves but it is Christ who gathers us together to be His body, to be transformed by the proclaiming of the Word and the reception of the Sacraments. It is in worship where we regularly and deeply experience the mystery of our faith and learn to live sacramentally.
Fr. Schmemann saw the Divine Liturgy and the Icons painted on the sanctuary walls as glimpses into heaven itself, teaching us to view the world in much the same way: that the Kingdom of God is here now, that our world and our life is a wondrous gift from God, and so we give God thanks and praise for the joy of being. But Schmemann recognized that the Christian faith was not always sacramental in nature. It could often become a secularized faith or merely a “religion.”
A secular Christianity is one that emphasizes human action in the material world. It is all about what we can do in order to make our world a better place without worrying much about the next world. Of course, we know that our faith is dead without works (James 2:17); if we are in Christ as Christ remains in us, then we are called to share that Truth and Love with others. We are to care for the poor and look out for our neighbor as Christ taught us. These are all good and necessary parts of the Christian life. Secular Christians, however, forget that Christ is the one who does the real work, not us. It is right and good for us to serve, but we cannot forget why we do so: for the glory of God. More specifically, we serve because Christ came to serve (Mark 10:45) and to show the world a glimpse of the Kingdom of God that penetrates our material world and promises eternal life in the next world.
Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, (Yonkers, NY: St. Valdimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 126.
On the other extreme is Christianity as a “religion.” Schmemann talks about “religion” as a way to simply help people face the world of suffering we live in. It is all the human rituals and efforts that help us get to heaven. In other words, “religion” is all about what we can do in order to get with God in heaven and escape the suffering of this world. The problem here, once again, is in the forgetting that God is the one who does the work! But more troubling is that the religious Christian is completely focused on themselves, whether they realize it or not.
If the goal is to get to heaven and leave this world behind, we blind ourselves to the ways God is transforming the world right in front of us. Even more saddening, we miss the opportunity to be used by God to transform the world. Christianity as “religion” boils it all down to a selfish goal, completely forgoing the journey itself and simply focusing on doing everything we can to get to the destination. But what if heaven was already here?
In our training, though it might feel like we are in the fires of hell, we get a glimpse of heaven and receive a lesson about living sacramentally. We are being taught the disciplines of faith like perseverance, meekness, weakness, and humility. We see ourselves in the mirror and we see our partners in training and are invited to praise God for the gift of simply living, growing, and being. We are cast into the fire and reminded over and over again that God is in control, that God is transforming and molding us into an instrument of faith, that we are being sustained by the Spirit with every breath and sanctified with every cry for mercy, with every praise in our heart.
To view training as a spiritual discipline is to live sacramentally. It is to see the whole world like a child in awe of creation for the very first time. It is to give even the most difficult moments to God as an offering and to receive the gifts of grace with gratitude and wonder. It is to witness to and participate in the Kingdom of God already while nevertheless preparing for the Kingdom of God that has not yet come.
We sometimes refer to training at Laudate as “The Iron Sacrament.” This is not to suggest the Church should adopt our programming alongside baptism or confession or the Eucharist! But we do believe that prayerful training is an experience of grace and a transformation of the Spirit. It is a way to claim and participate in the life of Christ who is our very Life. Prayerful training is a sign and physical seal of confirmation that God holds us, that we are beloved, that we are never finished journeying with Christ; it is a reminder of the promise that God is with us, and an opportunity for us to commit ourselves to be with God.
By Iron, through Iron, to Iron. Amen.
“For none of us live for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” Romans 14: 7-8
Comments