Page 3 - Presbyterian Connection, Spring 2020

presbyterian.ca
SPRING 2020
Inviting Children to the Lord’s Table
Connection
PRESBYTERIAN
3
Connection
Presbyterian Connection is a quarterly newspaper published by the national office of The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
Barb Summers: Editor Sarah Curd, Managing Editor
Thank you to all volunteer
contributing writers.
For submissions, questions and
feedback, please email
connection@presbyterian.ca or
call 1-800-619-7301 ext. 243. ________________________
SUBSCRIPTIONS
The Presbyterian Connection
newspaper is free of charge to
all members and friends of The
Presbyterian Church in Canada.
For address changes, to subscribe
or unsubscribe, please contact the
national office or go to
presbyterian.ca/connection. ________________________
The Presbyterian Church in Canada
50 Wynford Drive,
Toronto, ON M3C 1J7 1-800-619-7301 connection@presbyterian.ca presbyterian.ca
The Presbyterian Church in Canada is a community of over 800 congregations in Canada. To find a congregation near you, visit presbyterian.ca/church-finder
Moderator of 145th
General Assembly:
The Rev. Amanda Currie ________________________
Presbyterians Sharing is the national church fund that supports the overall mission and ministry of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. The Presbyterian Connection newspaper is funded in part through gifts to Presbyterians Sharing. ________________________
PWS&D is the development and relief agency of The Presbyterian
Church in Canada. ________________________
ADVERTISING Stuart Teather
Fenn Company Inc.
P.O. Box 1060, King City, ON L7B 1B1 1-800-209-4810 ext. 23 presbyterian@churchadvertising.ca
The national office of The Presbyterian Church in Canada is on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, Petun, Seneca and, most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit Indigenous peoples.
MESSAGE FROM THE GENERAL SECRETARY
PRESBYTERIAN
By the Rev. Ian Ross-McDonald, General Secretary
Life and Mission Agency
The first time I celebrated com- munion was with people living with Alzheimer’s and dementia in a resi- dence in Chatham, Ont. During the hymn, one woman sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” so enthusias- tically that Lenore, the wonderful pianist, transitioned from the hymn she was playing so everyone could join in the singing of the lullaby. A resident accepted the bread as if it were from a tray of canapes. While serving the wine, someone lamented loudly that the wineglasses were too small. Near the Table, Ruth, a joyful and wise retired Christian educator and elder who had accompanied me to the nursing home, was danc- ing with a resident who had asked for “the pleasure of the next dance.” The traditional service I planned had become a party and people were taking second and third helpings of the bread and wine. Was the service done decently and in good order, as instructed in 1 Corinthians 14? Prob- ably—the people were built up and fed and blessed in the joyful mystery that deepened our union with Christ and each other, as Living Faith says. Far from being a disturbance, the dis- ruptions had become the means of grace along with the bread and wine.
Today, only I am still alive of those who experienced that remarkable celebration. Yet every time I cele- brate communion, the people from the service are present around the Table in some way. Their presence, and Christ’s, are part of the feast but I always wonder who is missing. In many congregations, it is the chil- dren who are not gathered around
the Table.
In 1987, the General Assembly en-
couraged Sessions to invite baptized children to the Lord’s Table. “We come to the Lord’s table not because any individual goodness gives us a right to come, but because Christ welcomes us. He loves us, gave him- self for us, and invites us to receive his body and blood to our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. Baptized children may participate, with parental permission, the Ses- sion’s approval, and have received instruction in the meaning of the Lord’s Supper” (from A Catechism for Today).
There are reasons congregations do not invite children to the Table. Some rightly believe children are not yet able to comprehend the meaning and specialness of the Lord’s Sup- per. Remembering what we have learned about all that Christ has done for us is an important feature of communion. But remembering and knowing aren’t the whole matter, otherwise my friends in the nursing home would have been denied the sacrament. (The same could be said if the concern is that children will cause disruptions in the service.) Can anyone understand the mystery in which Christ is really present with us, or how a little bread and wine is a feast that tastes like grace? At the Ta- ble, Christ said, “Take, eat. Do this in remembrance of me.” Those around the Table at that first Last Supper couldn’t have comprehended what Jesus meant. They just ate. Some of the most important things in faith are best learned by doing more than through instruction, like prayer.
A colleague writes, “Children will grow into an understanding of the- ology; but they already understand
what it means to be offered a gift. Children need to be taught about the Reformed tradition; but they already understand the wonder and delight of a feast. Children need instruction about symbolism, but they know goodness and love when they taste and see it. Children have an innate sense of spirituality and mystery and we have to be careful, as those who have taken baptismal vows for our children, not to trample that sense of wonder and openness to God. We can teach them to approach the sac- rament with a sense of awe and talk about what it means. In the bread, they can meet Jesus. In the family of faith, they have a place with us around the Table. The Holy Spirit will take care of the rest.”
In the early church, communion was likely celebrated whenever the community gathered for worship and children must have been present in those gatherings. At times in the Mid- dle Ages, lay people received com- munion on an annual basis and often just bread. John Calvin thought this practice of only celebrating rarely was “an invention of the devil” and wrote
that “... the Lord’s Table should have been spread at least once a week for the assembly of Christians, and the promises declared in it should feed us spiritually,” and “... we ought al- ways to provide that no meeting of the Church is held without the word, prayer, the dispensation of the Sup- per, and alms” (Institutes Book IV. XVII). Nevertheless, by the 1800s Holy Communion was celebrated in some places only rarely and often of- fered to a select few.
Conversations about how and when Holy Communion is celebrated and who is invited to the table are worth having regularly to hear what the Spir- it is saying in congregations. There are many good questions that have to be wrestled with, and there are people and resources (visit presbyterian.ca/ worship) in the church who can help us learn what our communion prac- tices mean, how they have changed and why. Customs and practices may change but the God who we taste and see is good; and who was made flesh in Christ and is present among us by the Spirit at communion remains the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.