Anticipation

I want you to imagine for a moment that you are a kid in your parents garden and are just about to pick the first ripe tomato. I want you to imagine picking that tomato which is red, ripe, and succulent, dropping from the vine into the palm of your hand as though it was meant to be there. Then imagine carrying it into the house, into the kitchen, gently running some cool water over it just to wash the remnants of dust from the skin. Then, now get ready for it, imagine bringing it up to your lips, feeling the tomato skin stretched tightly over the delectable contents inside, tasting its flavor without ever even biting it, smelling its wonder just under your nose as, nearer my God to Thee, comes that first bite of heaven's goodness. Then, just as you are ready to receive heaven's goodness as your own, imagine your mom or dad taking that red, ripe, succulent tomato out of your hand as they tell you that you are not old enough to receive of it, that you aren't old enough to understand what sacrifice God has made for you to taste of God's goodness, and that you haven't studied enough to perceive the inherent meaning of really tasting heaven in quite that way. Then imagine being sent out of the kitchen to play in the sandbox, while all the other adults in the neighborhood, including your older brother, who just called you a 'stupid snot' as you exited the kitchen, sat down at the table and divided the tomato you had just about tasted and ate it themselves, silently reminding you how unprepared, unworthy, and unready you were to even be there watching.

Then, tell me how that differs from what we do when we do not allow children to the Table of grace set by Christ.

Jesus says, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and do not hinder them, for to such as these belong the kingdom of heaven", and, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me", and, "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea." Yet, in the name of 'rightly practiced' faith and tradition, many in the church look Jesus in the face and say, 'Not until they are ready by our standards.' Tell me, where does it say in the Gospels that the disciples understood what it was they were doing at that Last Supper? Tell me, where does it say in the Gospels that the Sacrament of Holy Communion is only for those who are ready? And, who among us are ever ready, ever fully understanding, ever spiritually qualified to sit at that Table?

Yet, we treat the youngest among us like second class citizens, like marginalized lepers in the community, like unclean outsiders, offering them a smell and a look at the Table, a blessing of condescending grace, and feed the adult right behind them. Who died and made us lord of the Table?

It is one of the holy mysteries of the Church that I am not sure I will ever understand, but then, I am grateful I belong to a tradition that is not bound to such traditions. I like eating ripe, red, succulent tomatoes with which God has blessed our earth because, when I was a child, I was offered one at the table and in the garden by those who loved me and wanted only the best of God's abundance for me. How can we ever do any less with the holy, sacred nature of the Body of Christ with the children of the Church?

It is certainly something on which to ponder.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don