{"id":34362,"date":"2015-01-01T13:44:42","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T18:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=34362"},"modified":"2017-08-09T14:08:39","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T18:08:39","slug":"teaching-sacramental-theology-mennonite-seminary-descendants-john-charles-wesley-engage-descendants-menno-simons-ulrich-zwingli-live-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/teaching-sacramental-theology-mennonite-seminary-descendants-john-charles-wesley-engage-descendants-menno-simons-ulrich-zwingli-live-tell\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching sacramental theology in a Mennonite seminary: Descendants of John and Charles Wesley engage descendants of Menno Simons and Ulrich Zwingli and live to tell about it!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eastern Mennonite Seminary provides this reflection by former professor Daniel L. Garrett\u00a0for use in public settings such as worship, Bible studies or Sunday school. Please give credit to the author when using this work.<\/em><\/p>\n

Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals in 1784, the same year the Methodists invented a new church in America. Franklin was attempting to deal with two focal points in a single lens. Methodism has struggled with a dual focused view of church, alternating between classic ecclesial definition and evangelical movement. The capacity to see both elements in our ecclesial life defines the Methodist lens on Church. It requires a balancing act to hold both sides in tension at once. In doing so, we are better able to understand some of the dynamic tensions within our church and between Wesleyan and other ecclesial traditions. This dialectical way of doing church provides a method for understanding United Methodist doctrine, polity, and worship.<\/p>\n

I want to use as a case study a course I taught at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in the spring of 2007:\u00a0Sacramental Theology and Liturgical Practice<\/em>. The dialogue between United Methodists and Anabaptists as they explored sacramental and non-sacramental understandings of Baptism and Eucharist helped to clarify students\u2019 understandings of each tradition and the tensions between them and within them in practical church life.<\/p>\n

A key question provided the starting point for the explorations into sacramental theology: Who is the prime actor in Baptism and Eucharist? For Wesleyans the primacy of God\u2019s grace locates the power in both baptism and the Lords\u2019 Supper in what God is doing to make these acts efficacious. In classical sacramental statement both Baptism and the Eucharist\u00a0effect<\/em>\u00a0the very thing they point to. For Anabaptists, the preoccupation resides with the anthropological focus of the Radical Reformation, namely, human response to the Gospel.<\/p>\n

In the thought of Catholicism and the Magisterial Reformation, the definitive characteristic of a sacrament was God\u2019s initiative, but for Anabaptism it was the human response of faith and love. The nature of the human action with the sacrament, rather than the nature of the sacrament itself, stands at the center of Anabaptist interest.<\/em>\u00a01<\/p>\n

Both understandings recognize the necessary connection between divine initiative and human response. The issues and controversies that have divided the traditions are more a matter of starting point and focus. Most controversies over sacramental practice result from entering the discussion from one side of the basic tension, and downplaying the essential balance between divine act and human response. To look at divine initiative and human response in dialectic tension, opens up needed dialogue and appreciation across old battle lines.<\/p>\n

In the introductory class session, each student described their baptism and what they remembered about it. Typical of the practical ecumenism in the experience of most Americans, we found a wide variety and diversity in the churches in which students were baptized, and the age at which they were baptized. Catholic infants, Mennonite adolescents, United Methodist infants, adolescents, and adults, and adults in new evangelical churches had been initiated into the church in a variety of settings. Some reported \u201cremembering\u201d their baptism. Others describe something done without their consent or conscious understanding. Many described minimal preparation in a class prior to baptism as adolescents. I found it interesting that those baptized as adolescents or children at a so called \u201cage of accountability\u201d most often reported experiential remembrances around the mechanics of baptism, or the see-through potential of baptismal garments, rather than more profound reflections as \u201ctrue believers.\u201d Notwithstanding some typical adolescent concerns, there were also remembrances of deep feeling and meaning in the baptismal act itself.<\/p>\n

Some Sacramental Basics<\/h4>\n

Since the issue of sacramentality itself was at issue in the makeup of the class, we began with a review of its basics, using Larry Stookey\u2019s four-fold nature of how liturgical signs function. 2<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The value of creation itself as necessary medium of divine action is at the heart of sacramental understanding. The material world can and does become a medium for divine communication. Against all spiritualizing tendencies that would denigrate materiality, sacramental thought embraces creation as good gift and divine medium.<\/li>\n
  2. Recognizing that the material world can be a means of revelation does not mean that it automatically becomes such. Any middle school science student knows that rainbows are the result of light refraction through water vapor. Hebrew faith sees divine promise in the rainbow.<\/li>\n
  3. The location of the celebration of baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper within the faith community reminds us that these sign-acts do not force faith on the skeptical or unbelieving, but rather reinforce faith within the covenant community.<\/li>\n
  4. At the heart of sacramentality is the belief that life itself is offered freely and abundantly, and hence sacramental acts are grace-filled gifts to be received. I like to ask United Methodists in this regard, whether they take or receive communion.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    James F. White provides a basic definition of sacramentality:<\/p>\n

    By sacramentality we mean the concept that the outward and visible can convey the inward and spiritual. Physical matters and actions can become transparent vehicles of divine activity and presence. In short, sacraments can be God\u2019s love made visible.<\/em>\u00a03<\/p>\n

    White also provides a review of some of the classic sacramental positions in Protestant thought. 4 By grouping them along classic sacramental and non-sacramental lines, one can begin to see clearly the outlines of the distinctions in ecclesial understanding and practice.<\/p>\n

    On the sacramental side:<\/p>\n