This is not truly a response or rebuttal of The Living Church’s article Communion and Consent by Fr. Clint Wilson. The paucity of understanding regarding the ethics of consent and the #metoo movement in that article makes a rebuttal an exercise in futility. It did serve as a prompt for this essay on account of this paucity and is meant to be part of the ‘discussion’ that The Living Church is seeking to foster.
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| one of my school's worship spaces |
I remember the first eucharistic service I attended after my sexual assault. It was at my preparatory school and I was still dissociating from the series of events that had occurred to me over the weekend. The liturgy of the 1928 BCP was the closest thing to a rape counselor I would see over the next years. The crucial reality was that at no point in the liturgy did anything bring me to think that I was unworthy to be part of the community as we made eucharist. I could go up to the communion rail, I could partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ… the Logos would still consent to enter into my body, a raped body. When it felt as if the bed of my existence was in the depths of Sheol… G-d was there.
The Logos consented to the kenosis of the incarnation. They emptied themselves of the unlimited potentiality of the Trinity and with the consent of the Blessed Virgin Mary and power of the Holy Spirit was born a struggling infant human male. Jesus lived, taught, and had the potential to take up any power known to human imagination but consented in the Garden of Gethsemane to walk the path to Golgotha. Even on the Cross there was that ever pressing temptation to call down the heavenly host, but instead Jesus consented to be forsaken and succumb fully to the depraved violence of humanity.
G-d consented to be a victim of the depraved violence of humanity. G-d consented to be in solidarity with everyone who is a victim of the depraved violence of humanity. G-d, the Holy Trinity Uncreate whose very reality is outside of existence, consented to be part of my raped body in the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist.
Jesus rose from the dead, in a very physical and real way. I rose from that place of Sheol in a very physical and real way. The realness of that resurrection, the realness of the Eucharistic Elements, the realness of my resilience… are a linked realness. This is the realness, this is the resilience, this is the Triune G-d shifting the very ontology of creation so that no level of depravity, no permutation of death… even such that can break a god upon a cross… marks an ending. All it can mark is a point where the resilience of resurrection will once again manifest itself in our existence.
The inward invisible truth of the reality out of space and time that is the Eucharist is there working to enliven the resilience of resurrection in each body cruelly marked by the depravity of humanity. It is a grace that is not contained by any of our liturgical endeavors. The consent for each and every one of us to be caught up in this grace has been overwhelmingly granted by G-d from aeternity for all time and through all space.
Jesus rose from the dead, in a very physical and real way. I rose from that place of Sheol in a very physical and real way. The realness of that resurrection, the realness of the Eucharistic Elements, the realness of my resilience… are a linked realness. This is the realness, this is the resilience, this is the Triune G-d shifting the very ontology of creation so that no level of depravity, no permutation of death… even such that can break a god upon a cross… marks an ending. All it can mark is a point where the resilience of resurrection will once again manifest itself in our existence.
The inward invisible truth of the reality out of space and time that is the Eucharist is there working to enliven the resilience of resurrection in each body cruelly marked by the depravity of humanity. It is a grace that is not contained by any of our liturgical endeavors. The consent for each and every one of us to be caught up in this grace has been overwhelmingly granted by G-d from aeternity for all time and through all space.
All of this… the bright cloud and rushing wind of ontological incarnational realities… has something to say about the pragmatics of how we go about our liturgical life. In that our pedagogy of liturgy needs to strive to make this accessible. I had been baptized at two months and from preschool my life had been saturated with the liturgy of the 1928 BCP. The liturgy had made the veil between myself, amidst a moment of Sheol, and the ontological reality of the Resurrection thin. I am not convinced, however, that the universal reality of the ontological truth of the resurrection is universally accessible by means of the 1928 BCP. I am not convinced that an expectation of Baptism before Eucharist makes it universally accessible. I am not convinced that an expectation of Communion Regardless of Baptism makes it universally accessible. There is actually no liturgical format or hierarchy of our sacramental life that I am convinced will make such universally accessible.
What I am convinced of is that our duty as curators of liturgy is to work in our context to make the Resilience of the Resurrection accessible to those whose bodies, whose minds, whose hearts, whose souls… have been marked by the depravity of humanity. That amidst the rules of relationships that we foster within our specific communities we ensure that the expectations are clear, that there is no coercion or forcing of anyone towards anything, and that everything occurs with consent by all involved. That consent as an undergirding ethos of our liturgical life is, in my mind, essential to us curating thin spaces where individuals can become outwardly and visibly aware of the inward invisible graces that permeate our reality.
What I am convinced of is that our duty as curators of liturgy is to work in our context to make the Resilience of the Resurrection accessible to those whose bodies, whose minds, whose hearts, whose souls… have been marked by the depravity of humanity. That amidst the rules of relationships that we foster within our specific communities we ensure that the expectations are clear, that there is no coercion or forcing of anyone towards anything, and that everything occurs with consent by all involved. That consent as an undergirding ethos of our liturgical life is, in my mind, essential to us curating thin spaces where individuals can become outwardly and visibly aware of the inward invisible graces that permeate our reality.
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