Communion
And, I suggest, nowhere is this more important than when it comes to communion.
Only 32% (7/22) of our churches allow children to participate in communion. 14% (3/22) allow children to be present, but offer them only a blessing or perhaps juice and a biscuit. Which means that 54% of our churches simply do not allow children to be present at communion.
In the Old Testament, “Exodus 16 … the feeding by God of the people in the wilderness … is not communion but it is for all of them, serving the needs of their hunger and the avoidance of the influence of Egypt. God did not pick which members of the community were to receive this food, it was for all.”[1]
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle recorded by all four Gospels, and “some argue that in John’s Gospel [especially] the story … was a sacramental meal. The language is Eucharistic, and it is carefully located in time as ‘near to Passover’. If they are right then it needs to be noted that it was a boy who offered the bread (and fish) that Christ was to bless, break and distribute.”[2] “It took a small boy to be found and to be prepared to share his small resources with so many.”[3]
For the first Christians, the journey of faith “included everybody; children were present in the earliest Christian communities and were initiated into the faith along with adults. … although there is no explicit mention of children sharing the Eucharist in the New Testament … the Jewish Passover tradition, which would have had a strong influence on Eucharistic sharing, gave children a central role in the ritual. Children were given a place of honour at the Passover meal and often led adults in reliving the Passover experience … By implication, therefore, children were indeed receiving communion from the earliest times of our faith, sharing the worship with adults … Likewise, there is no explicit reference in the post-apostolic era to suggest that children receiving communion was abnormal or problematic.”[4]
Thus, “the only criteria for being fed the Bread of Life are: to come and believe. Children do that just as adults do. In fact, like the boy with the loaves and fishes, they are more likely to be willing and able than many of us will ever be.”[5]
In fact it was not until the 19th Century, and the emphasis brought by the Reformation, that children began to be discouraged from taking communion. “For valuable reasons instruction and understanding were given high priority, but this brought the receiving of communion much more into the adults-only world.”[6]
However, in the modern age, those churches that practise infant baptism believe that such baptism marks a person’s entry into the Church, and there is a growing movement in all these church traditions which argues that, as full members of the church, children must not be rejected from the sacrament. In support of this, “the report of a World Council of Churches consultation, And do not hinder them …, strongly supported the case for children being active participants in the Eucharist.”[7]
“In the Orthodox churches of the East … infant communion is the norm, immediately following baptism. In the East the right and need of children to receive communion remains unquestioned, and they communicate frequently, like the adults, and on equal terms with them.”[8]
In the Roman Catholic Church, “children are admitted to first communion, often in special services, around the age of seven.”[9]
“In 1987 the Methodist Conference in England approved … guidelines which found no inconsistency between admitting children to communion and Wesley’s own practice and teaching … [The] approach of Methodists is that … [children] should be invited to share in the Lord’s Supper if they desire it.”[10]
The Anglican position is varied, but generally moving toward an awareness of the important of admitting children to communion. In the regulations of the General Synod (GS 1696A: Admission of Baptised Children to Holy Communion Regulations 2006) it is stated that where a child has been admitted to Holy Communion (in one church or parish), they shall continue to be “so admitted at any service of Holy Communion … in any place, regardless of whether or not [their new parish has a policy of admitting children to communion].”[11] In other words, once a child has been allowed to receive bread and wine in one place, no other church or minister has the right to refuse them access to the sacrament!
It is only the Baptists who “maintain the … conviction that communion is linked to baptism which follows a mature declaration of faith and commitment.”[12] Clearly, it is our Baptist ecclesiology, which reserves baptism and church membership for those we consider ‘old enough to make up their own minds’, which is, in fact, one of the factors in the marginalisation of children in many of our churches!
One objection, of course, is that “children shouldn’t receive communion because they don’t understand it.”[13] But then not many adults “fully understand … very often … that God’s love is so graciously poured out for me. There’s an element of mystery.”[14] And one author points out “how anomalous it is to insist that children acquire intellectual knowledge of a sacramental act before they are allowed to participate … Sacramental actions work directly on our emotions and imagination; the intellect is only a supplement, important in its turn for full integration of the experience, but secondary in its contribution to our understanding.”[15] Or, as one church leader has remarked: “When people say of children, ‘Will they understand? Will they behave?’ I reply, ‘When you went forward to receive communion on Sunday, did you understand? What were you thinking? Did you feel you were worthy because of your ability to articulate this deep mystery?’”[16]
What we do in church is, most of the time, an entirely “cerebral affair. It’s all words … there’s not a lot of time for silence, there’s not a lot of time for symbolism.”[17] But our children “understand symbols, they understand things they can see and touch … [And] communion is about seeing, touching, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. That’s … very culturally relevant.”[18] So, “if the primary aim of the Church’s ministry among children is their spiritual development, it is impossible to segregate them from the primary sacramental source of spiritual development for Christians.”[19] It is true, then, that “the Church that does not accept children unconditionally in its fellowship is depriving those children of what is rightfully theirs, but the deprivation such as the Church itself will suffer is far more grave.”[20]
And this is the same issue as above. If we want to connect our children with the Christian faith, we can’t afford to separate them from it and teach them about it; we have to allow them to participate in it. “Communion [is] very much … the nourishing meal of the whole body of Christ and to exclude one part because of their age is wrong.”[21] “You cannot [say], ‘Yes, we welcome you to new life in Christ … but, no, we don’t trust you with the bread of life.’”[22]
As a post-script, Wolff-Pritchard notes that “children who have been fed at the Lord’s table since earliest infancy are like children who have had plenty of hugs and kisses – they hardly need to be taught about God’s love in bread and wine, because they already know all about it; they feel it in their bones.”[23]
[1] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.21
[2] White, Continuing the Search (www.childtheology.org)
[3] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.21
[4] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.4
[5] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.22
[6] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.6
[7] Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.127
[8] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.5
[9] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.56
[10] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.56
[11] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), pp.142-143
[12] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.57
[13] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.79
[14] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.79
[15] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.160
[16] Margaret Withers, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.98
[17] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.84
[18] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.84
[19] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.54
[20] The Child in the Church (1976, British Council of Churches), quoted by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.14
[21] Mark Russell, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.78
[22] Bishop David Stancliffe, interviewed by Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.69
[23] Wolff Pritchard, Offering the Gospel to Children (1992, Cowley Publications), p.162
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