Sermon by Marjorie Brown on Holy Communion before conformation on 5th July 2009

I have tried to find a link between the readings set for today and the subject I want to talk to you about, but it was really a strain so I had to give up. I urge you to meditate on the readings yourself in the week ahead, but for our reflection today I want to quote another, very short text, from Acts 2.42: the first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers”.

Since the earliest times, the Church has met on the first day of the week to do this: to hear the apostles’ teaching in the scriptures, to share fellowship, to pray, and to break bread. The name we give collectively to these four actions is the Eucharist, meaning thanksgiving. Although the first Christians were Jews, observant of the Sabbath on a Saturday, they met on Sunday for this purpose because it was the day of resurrection. They thought of it as the eighth day of creation, the day when God did something just as new as when he created the universe. On this day, Sunday, he raised Jesus from the dead and invited us to be raised with him into a new life that begins now and will never end.

So on this day we meet as a Christian community to do what Jesus commanded – to take bread and wine, give thanks, break the bread, and share the elements. We don’t do it on a Thursday, as if we are re-enacting the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday in a symbolic way. We don’t do it on a Friday, as if we are offering Christ’s sacrifice on the cross on Good Friday all over again. We do it on Sunday to celebrate what God has done and continues to do for us. He feeds us with heavenly food, uniting us with Christ in the Easter mystery of the resurrection. Through this meal that we share, God forms into the Body of Christ to serve the world.

This helps us to get a perspective on the whole matter of receiving Holy Communion. Jesus invites us – he is the host, not the priest or the Church. We notice in the gospels that he was shockingly inclusive about the people he invited to his parties – publicans, sinners, prostitutes, beggars on the roadside, even Judas (to whom he specifically gave bread at the Last Supper).

Those who have been baptised have been united with Christ in his death and in his resurrection. They are called to a new life, in fact to eternal life beginning here and now. If we really believe that, then we should act as if we do. To baptise someone and then turn them away from receiving the sacrament of the altar requires strong justification. It appears to deny their baptism.

One of the reasons that has been given for doing so is that children are too young to understand the sacrament. This may well cause us to ask who does understand so great a mystery? Is faith about head-knowledge or the desire of the heart? If we ban children, should we also stop admitting to communion those who are learning-disabled or suffering from dementia?

Another argument is that children do not show due reverence for the sacrament. In practice it is often children who approach the altar with awe and joy and adults who treat it as a routine or casual action.

A third argument is that young children are not able to make proper preparation for receiving the sacrament. The penitential part of the service provides the opportunity to reflect on our sins and express our contrition. Children of seven or eight and older are well able to understand the concept of right and wrong and the need for forgiveness. This is taught very well at St Paul’s School to primary age children.

When we receive holy communion, we are accepting our calling to be part of God’s transformation of the whole of creation. The eucharist expresses our solidarity with the poor and our responsibility for the stewardship of the earth. It also gives us a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, because we are on the threshold of heaven as we sing God’s praise with the angels and saints and all who have gone before us. At every eucharist, we join with all the living and departed, the angels and archangels, with Christians in every situation of joy or suffering throughout the world today – but we limit the fellowship to adults and teenagers who have been through the rite of confirmation.

The New Testament Church welcomed whole households to baptism and communion. The Orthodox Churches of the East have never stopped doing this. In the West, children were gradually excluded over the centuries. As dioceses grew larger, baptism was done by the parish priest but the anointing with laying on of hands was separated out and reserved for the bishop’s infrequent visits. Children still received communion following baptism, though, because baptism was clearly the way you became a Christian. In the 16th century the English Prayerbook stated that communicants should be able to say the catechism (confirmation was not insisted upon as a prerequisite). In the 19th century, confirmation finally became the official “gateway to communion” and has remained so. We think it has been like this for ever, but really it is less than 200 years.

Since the 1960s there has been a recovery of the theology of baptism as complete sacramental initiation. Other Churches have changed their practice of admission to communion as a result. At present, the Anglican Churches in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and USA admit baptised children. Methodist and URC churches in Britain do the same. Roman Catholics admit children from the age of seven or thereabouts, and of course Orthodox children have never been excluded.

It seems to be only Anglicans and Lutherans who see first communion as a sort of rite of passage after the age of puberty. There are good precedents for giving young people a ceremony of adulthood in their teens, but is it right to withhold communion until this point?

The spiritual nurture of children requires more than moral teaching: membership of a community is vital. Children copy the models they see. It is not enough to be told about joy and fellowship – we must experience it for ourselves. Children aged seven to eleven enjoy being part of a group and are quick to notice when they are excluded. It is no surprise that teenagers leave the Church in droves when they feel they have never been welcomed.

The Church of England, in this diocese, does allow children aged seven or eight and upwards to be admitted to communion, after careful teaching and preparation, if the PCC votes for it with congregational support and if the Bishop has given permission. But if we at St Mary’s decided to do this, what are the possible difficulties?

Once a child has been admitted to communion, they must not be refused in other churches, so a ceremony of admission and a formal register must be kept, and each child must be given a certificate of communicant status that can be shown to clergy in other churches.

Some parents of children aged seven and up may prefer them not to be admitted to communion. There may be confusion about which children have been admitted, so clergy need to know the children well. This should happen anyway!

Some people worry that the rite of confirmation would lose its importance and attraction. Being confirmed is an adult decision of commitment to discipleship. It would gradually become usual for people to wait to make this commitment until they are sixteen or eighteen or older. They could then choose to do it for themselves, based on their experience of being a full part of the Christian community, and not to please their parents or to be part of their peer group. At present, the first communion that candidates receive on their confirmation day is sometimes also their last – this is a situation that must not be addressed.

Parents of children preparing for communion, if not already confirmed themselves, might take this opportunity to seek confirmation, and they would be invited to join a group to find out more.

I want to end by outlining what the process might look like. After the service is over I invite you to stay in your seats if you want to have the opportunity of putting questions or comments.

The PCC meeting on 15th July will hear from a lay minister at St Mary’s Kilburn, where children have been receiving communion for several years, and will have a final discussion and vote.

If the vote is to proceed, we will petition the Bishop of Edmonton for permission. In September, a letter would go to all parents of children in Key Stage 2, inviting them to enrol their children in the programme. This would be followed up by a meeting for parents in October.

On Advent Sunday, 29th November, children in the preparation group would be welcomed in church. They would have six sessions of teaching on Sunday mornings during the normal service time. On the 31st January, the feast of Candlemas when Christ was presented in the Temple, would be formally admitted to communion for the first time. This would be a great day of celebration with the involvement of parents and godparents and a parish party.

Older children who are not yet confirmed, in years 7 and above, could choose to be admitted to communion or to join a confirmation class. The age of confirmation would gradually move upward. Year by year the minimum age for confirmation would move up until it becomes a rite of adult discipleship in the late teens at the earliest.

Finally, I want to say something very personal. I was admitted to communion myself at the age of ten, and over the many years since then I have found that this sacrament has been the heart of my spiritual life. Through holy communion I have experienced forgiveness, renewal, challenge, fellowship, thankfulness, and simple resting in God’s presence. When we receive a great treasure we long to share it, and it is my heartfelt desire that we will soon be able to do so with the baptised children of our community, so that they may grow up knowing the joy of God’s unconditional love and welcome.