Dear Friends,
On Sunday, I had four children squeezed behind the high altar in our chapel, which is actually my congregation’s original nave – which is to say that it’s larger than many chapels. It’s a beautiful space and we’re fortunate to get to use it in our Godly Play program during the year. Unlike the altar in our newer, larger nave, however, there is not really much space for children – and there’s definitely no space for step stools.
Bringing children close to the altar is one of my favorite things. The church that formed me most significantly as an Episcopalian – St. Bartholomew’s in Atlanta – didn’t exactly invite children to the altar, but so many of our young people were acolytes regularly from age 7 or 8 that they came close to it often. My next church, Trinity Wall Street, offered a family service each year where children could draw near more easily. And when I moved back to Massachusetts, I landed at St. Paul’s in Holyoke where my friend and colleague Marisa was regularly inviting the handful of children in the community to join her at the altar. It’s a beautiful practice, one I get to do each week now, but let’s be honest – it’s not without its challenges.
What happens when you invite children to the altar? Well, anything can happen. That’s the heart of work with children in all ways. When I first arrived in Holyoke, I asked why the youngest in a group of siblings didn’t come to the altar. The answer: the previous year she’d bitten her sister during Easter worship and no one knew what to do. This is where the guiding hand of someone who isn’t the priest is key. I added the third member of the contingent back in and, with supervision, there was no more biting.
The Shape of Reverence
I didn’t just have four children behind our tiny high altar on Sunday. That’s just one piece of the story. The other is that I was ushering them into that space for the first time with a supply priest who was visiting with our congregation for the first time. So not only were the children and I working to navigate a tight fit, we were doing so without know exactly what the priest would do. She had welcomed the practice, but we had met 30 minutes before worship. She didn’t know our routines and we didn’t know hers. Our knowledge of ritual only takes us so far.
As this priest and the children made their way through the liturgy, most things went the way we were familiar with. She helped the children raise the elements, I cued the younger ones on where they might want to look or what words they knew. And then we got to the administration of the elements.
In the Episcopal Church, navigating the administration of the elements with small children always seems uniquely tricky to me. I was raised in the ELCA, which does continue to practice a first communion rite – and it doesn’t take place until fifth grade. That makes it easy for the pastor to simply see a small child and bless them. (We also offered grape juice amidst the elements in those tiny shot glass-type cups.)
I assume the ability to read children’s status, so to speak, is similar in the Catholic church, with its second grade sacrament of first communion. But in the Episcopal church, the standard is very much one of (a) baptismal status (for many, this has been thrown into chaos by the pandemic) and (b) family discretion. On the other hand, in this church, I have gotten to witness a particular gift that the pandemic has given these children in their posture towards the elements. Here is what it looks like:
The children ready their hands and receive the body of Christ. And then, this week, the whisper from the visiting priest: do they receive the wine? And my response in return: they will touch the chalice reverently.
And they do. Presenting the blood of Christ, each child reached out and placed their hands gently on the sides of the cup. The care is remarkable to watch. It is an honor for me to get to come close to their gesture of adoration.
The table belongs to all of us. It is where we come close to a particular form of grace. And amidst all of the big and small theological debates, grace is always the heart of the matter for me.
The Confirmation Complex
As a member of various formation communities, I often encounter questions about what confirmation curriculum different churches are using. Confirmation is, to be clear, not exactly my wheelhouse. I joke that I’m finally old enough that teenagers actually think I’m an adult, and while I can work with the middle school and up crowd, they’re not my first choice. They’re typically great kids, but – much like that SNL skit featuring Duolingo for talking to children – I don’t know how to talk to teens. Still, this week’s Epistle made me think back on my own confirmation days.
The Epistle from Romans this Sunday is one of the most iconic excerpts; “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”
Why is this the text that makes me think most intensely of my confirmation? Nearly twenty years later, I certainly can’t tell you what curriculum we used over those two years of weekly class (on top of our Sunday School and Youth Group attendance), I remember catchphrase-like moments, one of which was, “saved by grace through faith.” There were a number of others with accompanying acronyms to help us remember the doctrines attached to our tradition, but that’s the only one I recall. This doesn’t exactly suggest that it was a very formative program, but here I am.
Now, in the Episcopal liturgy for confirmation, we find text that is essentially that of baptism because this is, after all, a reaffirmation of our baptismal vows, vows that we often didn’t make for ourselves. But beyond the laying on of hands by the bishop, a practice that is special but not often well understood by those participating (or their families – catch the requests for Zoom confirmation services), how is this moment of reaffirmation different? Didn’t we just say these vows a few weeks ago on Pentecost or Easter?
I suppose there is a reason many have taken to talking about confirmation as a lesser sacrament. It is, at I said to a group of teens and their families last year, entirely optional. Baptism opened the doors and joined you inextricably to our beloved community. And there are so many other ways that we say yes to God, yet to those vows.
I want to invite you to attune yourself to the many ways we offer that reaffirmation and the way the children and young people around you do so, knowingly or unknowingly. How does the resonance of deep belief show up? What stories are you hearing about their overflowing love for who we are in Christ?
Confirmation includes individual reaffirmation but it also includes our collective witness. So let us witness.
On Deck
What’s going on out in the world? A quick overview as we go out into the week:
You can still register to virtually attend the North American Godly Play Conference in Kansas City, MO later this week! There’s a great app for connecting with folks and managing the streams and recordings and the keynotes are going to be fantastic. (I’ve got a workshop that will be streamed on Friday morning.)
We’re a month out from the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina! It’s an incredible time and the children & families programming dream team (aka a group of Godly Play nerds) has big plans this year. Check it out and if you’re there, drop by wherever they put our tent this year and say hello, because I rarely leave the children’s tent during those days!
I’m very excited about “All Ages Becoming: Intergenerational Practice in the Formation of God’s People,” out soon from Abilene Christian University Press. I’ve definitely got a few cool friends in there and this is going to be a phenomenal resource for this work.
Ordinary Time is soooooo long. As we always joke when we talk about the Circle of the Church Year with children, do you know what they call the Sundays after Pentecost? They call them The Sunday After Pentecost.
Let us be grounded in these green growing days with this “Blessing for Ordinary Time” from Sacred Ordinary Days. Let us lean into the everyday sacred.I have undoubtedly shared Carrie Newcomer’s “Holy As The Day Is Spent” here before, but it does seem like the perfect song for Ordinary Time.
May you cherish these Ordinary Days. May each thing we do be attuned to the holy.
Peace,
Bird