God establishes the new creation in Jesus Christ. Statement on Sacramental Practices encourages us to extend ourselves beyond water, beyond bread and wine into a people of God. Sacramental symbols act as bridges between our reality and the ultimate reality of God's Reign. Symbolic competency is the ability to link our ordinary, human experience with our experience of the new creation instituted by Christ. When we become alienated from the calling of our baptism, separated from experiencing the body of Christ, we tread the boundary between symbol and ritual.
Rituals then become means to escape from honest participation in the community of the baptised.
Ritualising our sacraments substitutes our intentions for God's intentions. We escape from participating in the new creation. For example, if we approach the eucharist symbolically, our emphasis lies in the encounter with Christ and the transforming power that such a meeting has. Ritualising as a means of escape, approaches the sacraments in an abstract, rational way. Such an affirmation refuses to allow our human experience any linkage to God who is calling forth a new creation, a new age, a new Reign.