CHILDREN & COMMUNION?

THE VICARS’ BATS or THE VICAR’S BATS
Three vicars were talking about their problems with bats in their vicarages.

The first said “I don’t have a problem: I go into the loft with a shotgun and blast away: no bats, no problem!”

The second said “Oh I couldn’t do that... I take a tissue paper lined box into the loft, put the bats in the box, the box in the car and drive 40 miles to the woods where I release them. Trouble is by the time I’ve driven home the bats have beaten me back and they’re still in the loft...”

The third says “I have a fool proof system for getting rid of bats which doesn’t involve shotguns or car journeys: I take the bishop into the loft; I baptise the bats, he confirms them and we never see them again...”

SERMON SERIES

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been considering the various issues associated with admitting children to communion before Confirmation.  Penny started us off by showing how the Eucharist came out of the Jewish Passover festival and how the whole family was involved in those celebrations - the very old and the very young.  Last week Elaine led us in thinking about how God accepts all of us as we are - God doesn’t wait until we’re old enough, or clever enough, or middle class enough or whatever - “While we were still a long way off you met us in your son and brought us home” we say in one of the post communion prayers.

SO WHAT HAPPENS TO CONFIRMATION?

This morning as we continue our theme it has fallen to me to talk about what happens to the sacrament of Confirmation if we do admit children to communion before Confirmation.

To do that it might help if we familiarise ourselves with the sacrament of Confirmation...

Confirmation is in some way us taking on for ourselves the promises made on our behalf at our baptism - probably when we were too young to understand for ourselves what was going on.

IT ALL STARTS WITH BAPTISM

Baptism is the complete and full sacrament of Christian initiation. Nothing more is needed for salvation. Baptism is not about naming us, it is about God claiming us for his own and our (or our parents & godparents) responding to that. The reason we baptise children too young to speak for themselves is as a reminder that before God we are helpless and vulnerable, and God didn’t wait for us to be old enough, or clever enough or acceptable enough, or whatever before he came to find us. This is called “prevenient” grace - grace which goes before us - and because of this we trust that God is greater than our poor responses to this grace: that’s what Elaine was talking about last Sunday.

CONFIRMATION: AN ADULT THING?

Confirmation is a public YES to God. God has said a very public YES to us at Calvary; this is our response to say that we want to be known as disciples. It doesn’t mean we have all the answers, or that we’re perfect - it’s about expressing a desire to continue to walk with Jesus and continue to grow and learn and be transformed. Traditionally it’s been linked to “adult” membership of the church - you are allowed to be on the Electoral Roll (and therefore the PCC, and entitled to vote at Church meetings), but it’s also something about taking on an adult understanding of life and faith.

At Confirmation the bishop lays hands on the heads of the candidates and asks for the special filling of the Holy Spirit to strengthen our discipleship and give us wisdom to live for God as an adult disciple. So Confirmation is about adult membership of the Church and the responsibilities which go with that.

But if we think that receiving the Eucharist is linked to that we run the risk of establishing a false link between Eucharist and understanding which suggests that we can (or should) only take Eucharist when we understand it. If we do that we fool ourselves into thinking that we’ve arrived, that we understand God.

It has been my experience that the longer I journey with God, the more I ponder the Eucharist the more in awe of God’s self giving love I become, the more I realise how little I know, how little I understand, how great is the Father’s love for me...

CONFIRMATION & COMMITMENT

If we separate Eucharist from confirmation then Confirmation becomes more a sacrament of Christian commitment. It becomes the occasion when people baptized as infants put their "personal signature" on their parents' decision, or “confirm” that they want to be known as Christians. So it also becomes a sacrament of identity.

In the early days of the Church no distinction was made between Confirmation and Baptism. The apostle presiding over the little community baptized new members, anointed them with oil and offered them the Eucharist for the first time in one rite of initiation.

As the Church grew and spread throughout the world, the apostles' successors, the bishops, could no longer personally baptise every new Christian. They delegated the rite to priests. Still, the bishops made regular visits to local communities to confirm the priests' Baptisms with a second anointing. And that - in a nutshell - is how the separate sacrament of Confirmation was born.

BIRTH, BREATH & NOURISHMENT

With Baptism and Eucharist, Confirmation shapes us as Catholic Christians. Each of these sacraments focuses on a different aspect of our life as believers: birth, breath and nourishment.

• Baptism is about new birth - us becoming members of the Church.
• Confirmation is about the breath of the Holy Spirit being breathed into and through us.
• Eucharist is about our nourishment - our food for the journey.

Sooner or later, we have to come to terms with our birthright identity. (“I’m a Perry... or a Londoner... or a woman...”) It's one thing to know the traditions of a family, a people or a Church. It's another to choose them, to claim that identity.

Human commitment is always a signature on a blank cheque. The vows made on a wedding day have to be rethought and remade many times over the years. Our faith commitment undergoes similar stress and change. Every time we brush against mystery - the wonder of birth, the pain of loss, the frustrations of everyday life - our concept of God changes a bit. We have to choose belief all over again.

Life is strewn with broken promises, but we keep on making and receiving promises because we believe that commitment is possible. And we know that because of God’s commitment to us and the way that will never be broken. Confirmation is the "seal" of God's promise. It marks us as God's property, a people set apart. Confirmation is indeed a sacrament of commitment, but the commitment we celebrate was God's before it was ours: it says more about God’s faithfulness to us.

It is much less a sacrament of human commitment than a sacrament of faith in God's fidelity to us.

CONFIRMATION AND WITNESS

Confirmation is about becoming a witness. The nurturing Holy Spirit who soothed and encouraged us as younger believers is the same Holy Spirit whose breath becomes voice and helps us to speak about what it means to be a Christian: be a witness.

What happens next? Next week Fr. John is preaching about Eucharist and mystery; the following week Celia is preaching about Eucharist and preparation. All preachers are producing notes which will be at the back of Church for you to take away of you want to think things through further. A proposal will come to the PCC in the summer and be voted on.

If it is accepted and we decide to explore this further we will write to the bishop to gain his permission. If this happens we will start preparing the older FROGs who express an interest and at a special service we will admit those children to communion who have expressed an interest and completed the course.

SO WHAT FOR US AT ST JOHN’S?

What will it mean?

We will still encourage people to be confirmed; it will still involve the bishop in exactly the same way as it does already, but we will have broken the link between taking communion and being confirmed and we will have moved away from the idea that taking communion is in some way dependent on us (our age or maturity or understanding or intellect) - it reminds us that it is only by God’s grace that we have this gift, and that God looks for a response of love from us.

It is different from the situation we grew up with. The Church is a different place from what it was like when we grew up. Things have changed - some things for the better, others for the worse. Different emphases are being placed, different things stressed. We are being encouraged to grow up as disciples: to take responsibility for our own spiritual development and not be spoon fed... We are being encouraged to think for ourselves, to own the faith, to witness and share that faith with others. This may well be very different from the church of our youth.

We live in a different society, and we are trying to encourage all disciples - young and old - and trying to equip disciples for living a life of faith in today’s fast changing world. Part of that is our developing understanding of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, and out of this consideration has arisen the issue of children and communion which faces us today. I hope that we will have the courage and wisdom to respond positively to this opportunity to grow disciples and work with God to extend the kingdom of God here in this place. 

Fr Andrew Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea