When You Need Something from Outside Yourself

Having grown up in a Baptist context, I knew that worship and theology were not sacramental in nature. However, it was not until I did my undergraduate work at a fundamentalist Bible college that I realized just how anti-sacramental my tradition was. The rejection of God working through any material means was passionate and pointed, as though giving any ground to sacramental theology would somehow reverse the Reformation. Fear of Roman Catholic stereotypes permeated many layers of the fundamentalist teaching, leaving one with the sense that Protestants had better keep "protesting" or else a sinister Cardinal is coming to get you. As a result, all expressions of faith allowable for worship must be manufactured out of one's own sentiments.

This is not to denigrate the devotional life, nor to downplay the necessity of emotive engagement in worship. However, by making worship solely reliant on the sentiments that one can conjure within themselves, the anti-sacramentalist unwittingly denies the penitent a tangible means of receiving God's grace when life's "low spots" retard the ability to manufacture the right sentiment on their own. This is unfortunate, since there are most certainly times when conjuring feelings of worship and devotion are more difficult than other times. At such times the worshiper needs something from God that they know they didn't conjure on their own. Such exterior sources of assurance can penetrate dark times of disappointment, despair - even depression.

Consider the great pleasure taken by the parent when the child first expresses love back to them in a way that the parent didn't train them in. Or think of the security wrought in a relationship when one hears "I love you" that was not "I love you too" (a response to the affection you initiated). Assurance cannot be manufactured on our own. Intuitively we know this. It is a deeply felt desire to receive tokens of relational security that our conscience cannot undermine with an accusatory: Oh you totally made that up.

For this reason there are most certainly times in life when you need something from outside yourself.

Sure there may be times when I can "sense" God's grace around me, but right now I need you to had it to me as I kneel at the rail. Sure there are times when I can pray spontaneously to God, but right now I need you to lead me through prayers past down from ancient divines that knew the same God I'm crying out to. Sure I can reflect privately on my own about what I believe, but right now I need you to walk me through what we all believe from the Creeds. Sure I can remember the great acts of God on my behalf, but what if I need reminding - will you supply symbols, traditions and rites to keep them fresh in my mind? What's your answer when I need a faith that I know I'm not making up? Will you "feed" me the goodness of Christ? Or will you instruct me to be "warmed and filled" on my own, and be on my way?

Sometimes you need something from outside yourself. I come from a tradition that often maligned sacraments by calling it "salvation by works." If anything, sacraments refute "salvation by works" by offering grace from outside yourself. You're not conjuring, manufacturing or inventing feelings of grace within yourself. On the contrary, it can't be by your work since it came from a source outside yourself - and that can be very assuring at just the right time of life.