Two curious things happened in close order when I lived in Iowa. But, alas, not close enough for me to parlay one of them with the other. It was a moment lost, but at least I learned a lesson from it. 

At Heartland Presbyterian Church where I served, there was a trash enclosure with two dumpsters that I would visit occasionally to empty a trash or recycling bin. One of those dumpsters had a sticker that read, “Paper only.” It also had a sticker that read, “Cardboard only.” And one that read, “Glass only.” And “Plastic only.” I often thought I should take a photo of that dumpster, because there was a lesson there. Unfortunately, I don’t like taking photos and never got around to it until one day I decided to go for it, went out to the enclosure, opened the gate, and saw that the company had replaced the dumpster with one that simply read, “Recycle.” The lesson I learned was to capture a photo of something if I think I’ll want to retain it, whether I take it myself or simply save it from somewhere else. As a result I have a whole folder of curious pictures that I may or may not get around to employing one day. 

If I had taken that photo, it would have been a big, metal dumpster with these stickers on it, only whoever pasted the stickers was totally unconcerned about justifying them in any kind of order. My first inclination was to capture a photo of these stickers because “Somebody needed a lesson on the precise meaning of the word  only .” In time, however, I realized that they made sense, even collectively.

The second curious thing that happened to me around that time was that a friend of ours seemed determined to convert me to Catholicism. She described for me in detail how the book of Revelation was based on the Catholic mass. She pointed out a form of “Pascal’s Wager,” that whether or not we could say for certain that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church, it made sense for me to join it just in case, since I was already “all in” on Jesus and such. And, the real argument – straight from her priest – was that Protestants had too many “solas.” 

“Sola” is the Latin word for “alone” or “only.” This word has a history among Protestants from arguments that our forebears made against Roman Catholics. You may be familiar with them:  Sola Scriptura ,  Sola Gratia , and  Sola Fide , or “Scripture only,” “Grace only,” and “Faith only.” My friend thought it persuasive that any movement with multiple “onlys” was obviously confused. 

This is the point at which I wanted to show my friend the dumpster photo that I should have captured. At first glance, it seems ridiculous to have four stickers, each containing the word “only.” But, in time, what I realized was that there are some recycle containers that require paper only. For them, the “paper only” sticker is proper. And likewise for all of the others – cardboard, plastic, and glass - in some cases, those are the only things one should contribute to the container. In our case, the recycling company dealt with paper, and cardboard, and plastic, and glass, so each of the stickers was true when take collectively. 

Likewise, when Protestant were arguing with Roman Catholics over authority, they argued that  sola scriptura , in opposition to the church’s decisions that were binding on the believers’ conscience. When they were arguing over salvation, they argued  sola gratia , in opposition to the church’s practice of being the only source of forgiveness. When arguing over the proper understanding of good works, they argued  sola fide , in opposition to various requirements of the church. All of these were important and nuanced arguments, which I am oversimplifying here. In each case, the use of “only” ( sola ) was proper in that moment, just like “paper only” would be proper for some recycle bins. But, there are also times when one can say that  sola scriptura , sola gratia , and  sola fide are a reasonable way of describing our church collectively, even if there are three ‘solas’ there. 

Wow, the things one can learn from a dumpster. Who would have thought? 

Mark of St. Mark  

(You can also read the Friday Blast reflections at  markofstmark.blogspot.com )