From a sermon preached by Fr Johnon 21/07 and 4/08 2002...
From a sermon preached by Fr John"Suffer the little children to come to me" said Jesus. What is your earliest memory of church?
For me, there are three - a holiday club about Guy Falkes, the curate coming to show us the thurible and a sermon illustration about crossing out the letter "I".
What will our children's first memories of St George's be? For some it will be about Holiday Club or Sunday school, but for some it could be being marginalised or left out.
There is an awful phrase, that children are "the Church of tomorrow" - well, yes they are, but they are just as much part of the church today. When they go out to Sunday school with "Voyagers" or "Revelation", it's not "getting them out of the way" while we do the grown up bit: they are doing the Ministry of the Word in the way most effective for them while we do it too. The question then comes up, what happens when we get back together for the Ministry of the Sacrament?
There has for some time been a debate in the Church of England on whether or not children should receive communion before confirmation, and this, legally, is a debate about baptism.
Jesus told us many things about how we should be and relate with each other, but only really told us to do two things: to take bread and wine, bless it, break it and give it - "do this in remembrance of me" - and to "go out and preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to all nations and to baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". The early Church joyfully did both. Whole families - men, women and children - were baptised and joined in the Eucharist.
Baptism is the entry into the sacramental body of the Church, the "plugging in" to Jesus, the dying and rising with him. Originally, baptism (anointing and immersing in water) and confirmation (anointing and laying on of hands) were together in the same service. As numbers of Churches grew and the Bishop could not be there for all of them, the laying on of hands was held back until later, and gradually became more of a rite of Christian adulthood. At the Reformation, confirmation became linked to communion, so bringing about a divorce between baptism and communion that there had not been.
There is no real theological reason why those who are baptised cannot receive communion. If our children are part of the body of Christ, why can’t they receive the body of Christ?
This, of course, raises a whole range of issues -
In our last meeting in July, the P.C.C. passed a resolution broadly in favour - but we want as much feedback and consultation as possible with the congregation, parents, children and everyone interested.
Do talk to me, to Churchwardens and to P.C.C. members.
I began with talking about earliest memories of Church. Let us try to make those of our young people about acceptance, inclusion and valuing in a world where those qualities are increasingly rare.
