To Such Belong the Kingdom - a new look at communion

This discussion paper by Stephen Ibbotson was produced for the 'Living Room' - an occassional series at Altrincham Baprtist Church, where controversial or topical issues can be aired in a safe but challenging environment.

A Study Paper by Stephen Ibbotson

On discovering the need of a rethink

We grow up thinking our parents can do no wrong.

We have a family story about this. We call it ‘Doing a Mark.’ Our eldest daughter was walking down the road ahead of us with her childhood friend. They had known one another all their lives – born within a few months of one another. They got into what we know as adults to be one of those no win conversations, ‘My Dad’s better than your Dad.’ Eventually it got round to that section of debate, ‘My Dad’s stronger than your Dad.’ Rebecca was boasting, ‘My Dad can lift our car up above his head.’ Not to be doubted of course! A second later the rejoinder came from Mark, ‘My Dad can lift our house up by his little finger.’ At this point – much to her credit – Rebecca realised she could not win this one and she backed off from any further claim. It’s the kind of conversation endlessly rehearsed at a meeting of the relevant families when they alight on the bus destined for Memory Lane. But in this case Mark and the rest of the family have learnt all too painfully that Daddy most certainly can be wrong – profoundly wrong – and it hurt.

Any human tradition can be the same. Here I’m specifically concerned with church traditions. They can let us down. Not perhaps in such a marked way as our family story but certainly we wake up and suddenly realise, ‘Is it really like this?’ Or ‘Does it have to be like this?’ When you’re in a tradition you tend to accept that this is the way things are done and you knuckle down as the next generation and just get on with it in fundamentally the same way as your parents, grandparents etc. etc. But occasionally you wake up and something causes you to ask profound questions about the practice in which you are involved. Over recent years I think I’ve been going through such a waking moment with regard to communion.

We did it properly when I was young in our Baptist church in South London. It was still that time when you were each totally sure that your group was the group that had got it right and everyone else was in darkness. You tolerated others but were sure that one day their eyes would be opened. Communion was a solemn affair. Suited men sat round the table looking out on the rest of the church. These were the deacons – hushed tones! A pristine, white, starched tablecloth froze on the table as it displayed a mysterious mound of another pristine, white, starched tablecloth. Under which something was clearly there but not visible. When I saw this I knew we were destined for a longer stay at church than normal as communion was tagged on at the end of the service. All were invited to stay on, but only those that ‘sincerely loved our Lord Jesus Christ and were seeking to follow him’ were to be admitted to the sacred act of eating and drinking. Mr Brooker, a ‘life deacon’ – an ancient patriarch who had faithfully served the church over many years, and honoured by an un-elected place on the diaconate for the rest of his life – would frequently pray at communion. As a child he looked to me like a ‘many-lives deacon.’ When it was his turn to pray the prayer for the bread or wine, it always began with exactly the same words…every time: ‘We are gathered round this festive board.’ The final word thundered from his voluminous frame, with the opening consonant being given its full explosive value. We children would wait and nudge one another as this unending rehearsal cascaded down the years. As older children we would gather in the alleys around the church after the service and practice our ‘Alec McGowan’ of Mr Brooker, the ‘board’ becoming ever more emphatic, loud and deep with each attempt – as deep as unbroken voices of nine year olds would allow.

Then there were the tickets. Yes the tickets! Don’t get excited they weren’t tickets for Old Trafford. No! For the communion service! If you were a member of the church, on being admitted to membership ‘having received the right hand of fellowship’ – which by the way always sounded somewhat threatening to me, something akin to a new wrestling grip that a commentator on Saturday afternoon ITV would mention as the daddy of Big Daddy viced his opponent – you would be given an envelope with twenty-four tickets within it. Communion was twice a month – it still is isn’t it? why? – once in the morning and once in the evening. As a member you were meant to put a ticket in each time you attended, when the second offering bag came round. Yes, you had to pay twice on communion Sundays! Then there was an appointment made by the AGM of members of a Communion Secretary, whose job it was to tally the numbers on tickets against the names of members. You had to attend so many communions in any given time, otherwise the ‘brethren’ would pay you visit and give you another ‘right hand of fellowship’. They checked your regular attendance at communion.

Failure to attend could mean being taken off the roll of members.

Children might be in those services, colouring Daniel and the lions, as Mum & Dad shared in the solemn ceremony – seen but certainly not heard, and never an active participant. It was very much for the grown-ups. Much has changed but this hasn’t. Children are perhaps not even seen now at communion, as they’re involved in their own activity and programme elsewhere. At least as children then we were aware that this was part, a serious part of what it meant to be a Christian believer and we awaited that time, when through baptism and membership, we were admitted to the ‘festive board.’

Is this as it should be? I think not. It’s time for a rethink. And if I were to sum-up what is at the heart of this rethink it is captured by the word ‘inclusion’.

Jesus - food, meals & the Last Supper

The trouble with communion is that having been subject to so many periods of history that have shaped and formed its practice, it is difficult to take a look at it with fresh eyes. But occasionally it has happened, and it has led to a healthy renewal of practice – the Reformation was such a time for instance. Through my study of the New Testament and the times in which Jesus ministered, I’ve become more convinced that we need to take a long, hard look at our current practice of communion. We need to see whether the mission of our founder has something to say to us on the matter. Frequently people start from the letters of Paul, because there you have the earliest indication of how the early church practiced communion. You can easily cull doctrines from the letters, ideas and universal truths, which ‘sort the matter’ – or so we’d like to think. But such an approach is profoundly misleading and open to easy distortion as we read back into such texts our current practice or lessons from other periods of church history.

However, recent studies over many decades of the historical Jesus have cast new light on his ministry. It is here that I believe our starting point lies. What we call ‘communion’, instituted by Jesus as a remembrance and interpretation of his death, arose out of his whole mission and ministry. This simple and seemingly obvious statement is one rich with insight and interpretative significance.

The significance of table-fellowship

Bill Shankley said once, ‘Football’s not a matter of life and death. It’s more important than that!’ Food and meals in Jesus’ time had about the same sort of significance for a good number of people in his day. It’s everywhere within the gospels – one of the main areas of debate between Jesus and his contemporaries. It is essential to understand Jesus’ attitude to food and meals if we’re talking about his Last Supper. The word ‘last’ gives it away. Why ‘last’? It was the last of a whole series of meals he had with his disciples and others. It is not isolated from those other suppers as though it parachuted into existence before their eyes that evening. No it was the last in a succession of suppers that gave this final one an interpretive context. What was that context?

Before the time of Jesus, two Pharisees debated about food and meals. Hillel and Shammai were amongst the most significant Pharisaic thinkers that shaped Judaism during Jesus’ time. For instance of the 341 sayings attributed to them in a later collection of rabbinic sayings called The Mishnah, no fewer than 229 are to do with food and how to conduct proper table fellowship. That’s over two-thirds given over to what seems to us an insignificant area of life – food and meals do not have this weight in our society, even though every other TV programme seems to be some chef throwing a wonder dish together in twenty minutes. Fierce debate and opinions surrounded how, where and with whom you eat. This is apparent in the gospels. Why this emphasis?

In this environment the answer is understandable once you realise the context in which Judaism existed. Leading up to and after the fall of Jerusalem in 587, and then right up to the time of Jesus and beyond, Judah or the Jewish people were subject to foreign powers. The only exception was one short period – the Hasmonean dynasty. During these centuries foreign powers dominated and alien cultures permeated the Jews. Greek culture was the most powerful influence. It threatened the distinctiveness of Judaism profoundly. For instance some Jewish men from the upper strata of society even tried to reverse their circumcision.

The question for many was, ‘How can we maintain our faith and identity? How can we be faithful to God?’ The scribes and Pharisees in particular alighted upon everyday practices to mark out their distinctiveness. Food and meals were top of their list, along with the practice of Sabbath. The portrayal of the scribes and Pharisees as merely legalists is a gross misunderstanding. They wanted to keep God’s people pure and faithful. There was an obsession with cleanliness – outward ceremonial cleanliness matching moral and social cleanliness. ‘This is the way to keep pure.’ It was a way of hedging about their distinctive cultural and religious identity. This throws into stark relief the ministry of Jesus and various debates he had with his contemporaries. The Pharisees wanted to keep table fellowship and cleanliness practices tight and distinctive. You did not have meals with ‘unclean’ people. It was an exclusion for them and an inclusion strategy for the pure and faithful.

Alongside this strategy it was also used to maintain the pecking order within society. To eat a meal was to maintain a certain social order and identity within your own group. Typically you eat within your extended family group, but only with outsiders of the same social rank, to those in a position to return the favour in a reciprocal relationship. Jostling for position at the meal table was not bad manners but the expected norm—a situation accurately reflected in Luke 14.

One of the most extreme groups that illustrated at least the first of these concerns is the community at Qumran. They allowed only residents that had lived within the community for a whole year to eat with them. Only those who had been granted full membership for two years were allowed to share in the ’drink of the congregation.’ And a member that slandered another member was excluded from the common meal for a whole year. Food was not a matter of life or death, it was more important than that for both this extreme group and others less so. Jesus’ ministry and actions of table fellowship must be seen against this background.

Jesus’ table fellowship

The criticism of Jesus that he ‘eat with tax collectors and sinners’ (Matt 9:9-13 cf. Mark 2:14-17; Luke 5:27-32) was telling. Jesus quite deliberately tore up the Pharisees food rule-book. Why? Because he didn’t like the demarcation lines drawn sharply whereby it divided insiders from outsides, the ins from the outs, the okay people from the not okay people. Whereas they were obsessed with holiness, he was concerned about compassion as the supreme value. This was not incidental to his mission and purpose – it was central. Jesus was rewriting the story and destiny of Israel. He felt it was heading for disaster down the wrong track. He saw trouble ahead for Israel if it maintained this purist agenda. He passionately believed it had misunderstood its calling and destiny. Whereas some – the Pharisees – wanted withdrawal behind the fortress walls of purity, others – the social elites – were hopelessly compromised with the dominant culture to save their own butts and maintain their own privileged status and lifestyle. In contrast Jesus wanted a pure Israel, open to the world, holding out God’s salvation as the light of the world, the salt of the earth, a city placed on a hill. He breathed it, taught it, and practised it. He lived prophetically and embodied it in the way he lived his life everyday, and table-fellowship had fundamental significance in this vision to redirect Israel’s destiny.

For Jesus meals were a prophetic symbol, a sign of the opening up the era of God’s favour, mercy and blessing, where the first will be last and the last first. If sacraments are outward signs of inner grace, a means by which grace was imparted, his food and meal ministry was profoundly sacramental. – this is true whether you look at Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), or the woman who washed his feet in Simon the Pharisee’s house (Luke 14:1-14). Both were ‘unclean’ according to dominant Jewish ideology. These were not fortuitous actions and responses but deliberate. Both security and daring in the woman’s heart are amazing, as Simon scowled his disapproval of her and Jesus. What gave her freedom to break the taboos she knew were there as she approached Jesus to do what she did? It was Jesus’ own example and teaching, the genius of a creative teacher, who knew how to use a good symbol to smash the cultural symbols and icons of his time. He was an iconoclast and a creator of a new symbolic world.

So his teaching in parables about feasts and banquets formally describe this view of the Kingdom where the unclean and the cripples – their disability ruling them out of being priests – were compelled to come in (Matt 22:1-14 cf. Luke 14:15-24). This is the nature of God’s Kingdom. Everywhere you look, he’s throwing the door open to the unlikely, the outsider, the not okay person, the unclean. The power of compassion and mercy was stronger than the power of uncleanness to make unclean. The authority and power to have mercy to forgive and include, replaced the fear of being unclean, to divide and exclude. He reverses the power flow, illustrated by the unclean, haemorrhaging woman. Compassion that heals is stronger than uncleanness that contaminates.

Children’s inclusion in the Kingdom

And one such group to whom he opened the Kingdom of God, that he in fact made a model of what it meant to receive the Kingdom and to whom belonged the Kingdom, were of course the children – amongst the very lowest status groups in that society, the overlooked ones. This is a powerful and surprising imaginative leap. Jesus does five things in these acts and teachings. He makes children central in themselves within the Kingdom – they belong to it (Mark 10:14). He makes them a counter example of entry to the Kingdom (Mark 10:15). He makes them counter-example regarding issues of status within the Kingdom (Mark 9:36). He connects the welcome of a child in his name with the welcome of himself and of the Father (Mark 9:37). Finally, he makes them a test case with regard to hindering people from entering the Kingdom (Matt 18:6).

It is significant that Jesus used a low status group as the model of the Kingdom. This was a society obsessed about status, shown in the Gospels by their jockeying for position at the meal table and the quarrel amongst the disciples for places in the Kingdom. But children have no chips to play this game—they’re not even allowed to come to the table to play. Yet it is precisely this group that Jesus picks out as the prime example to counter the status game played at the must-be-seen-at banquets. If they were so central to Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom what does this mean for their place at the feast of the Kingdom?

The weight given by Jesus to children in relation to the Kingdom cannot be passed over in our rush to raid Paul’s letter for neat doctrines that bolster current practice of communion – a highly dubious methodology, in which context and culture are totally ignored in desperation just to get to ‘the idea’, ‘the doctrine’ that settles an issue. Jesus’ use of children at the heart of the Kingdom is a powerful and evocative image. And like any image it has potential for interpretation and imaginative application.

These texts are demanding on those with a strong conversionist theology. They do not fit easily with a traditional evangelical understanding of conversion as a clearly defined event or process. The texts state plainly that the children are not themselves the primary instigators or even respondents, but are relatively passive having been brought by the people for Jesus to bless. It is not surprising therefore that those holding tightly to such theological outlooks are forced to overlay the texts with their own theological construct based on a wholly imagined personal responsiveness on the part of the child. Far more likely is an interpretation on the basis of the plain meaning of the text and one in line with the character of Jesus’ ministry. He cleared centre-stage for a group of people overlooked, ignored and marginalised within the socio-cultural norms of the day—children belonged to the Kingdom. They were to be regarded as in until they ruled themselves out. His actions were acts of inclusion.

It is this practice, this teaching, this dynamic and exciting vision of the Kingdom, which is the source of a new and more inclusive practice of communion. We dare not isolate Paul’s letters from Jesus’ ministry. What was it that changed this Pharisee who came from the most extreme and exclusivist sect of Shammai – the ones who took table fellowship and the fear of uncleanness to the very limits – into the most passionate and inclusivist missionary, who gave his life in the end to open the doors far and wide to the Gentiles? It was the most profound charismatic bonding with this Jesus who had been made Lord and Christ. His writings are saturated with this same spirit, the Spirit of Jesus.

It is only against this background that the last supper Jesus had with his disciples is understandable. To this event we must now turn and reflect on its significance for this new look at communion. A major question we must seek to answer is whether Jesus turned his back on the significance of food and meals that he set out so plainly in his life as an inclusive sign of God’s Kingdom? Did he in the place of this institute a symbolic meal that once again marked off the intentional adult disciple.

Thought swap

Look at these examples of Jesus’ acceptance of hospitality and table-fellowship. Discuss how they would have impacted the different characters and groups involved.

• Matt 9:9-13 (Mark 2:14-17; Luke 5:27-32)
• Matt 15:1-20
• Luke 14:1-14
• Luke 19:1-10

Look at Matt 22:1-14; Luke 14:15-24 What impact would these stories of the nature of God’s Kingdom have made upon their hearers in the light of this background about meals and table fellowship?

Look at the following passages about Jesus and children. He gave this very low status group, a central place in his vision of the Kingdom.

• Matthew 18:1-6 (Mark 9:33-37; Luke 9:46-48)
• Matt 19:13-15 (Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17)

How should this affect our understanding of children’s standing in God’s Kingdom?

How can we communicate the significance of Jesus’ teaching about children, to children themselves and to older people?

Last Supper and a place for children

The Synoptic gospels are explicit that this meal was a Passover. Luke is even more explicit theologically when at Jesus’ transfiguration, he links the events that would take place in Jerusalem with the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. I won’t talk about John’s gospel, which complicates the chronology somewhat, but I assume in this section that the Synoptics are accurate in their portrayal of this as Passover.

The politics of Passover

In Jerusalem it was a big affair – one of the major festivals. It was one of the population spikes in the year as people – mostly men or whole family groups? – flooded into Jerusalem. The sense of tension that comes through the accounts is an accurate historical portrayal. Judah was a Roman empire hot-spot, subject to a military rather than civil governor for years with troops always resident, and plenty of others close at hand. Passover itself was a great story of little people overcoming big bully boys – wonderful for the discontents in a region that was a cauldron of latent, seething revolt. It would have been hated by the Romans, and viewed with deep anxiety by the local ruling priestly class in whose interests it was to keep a lid on the bubbling pot. It was precisely this background of smouldering antagonism and anxiety that triggered Jesus’ powerful feelings and actions in the days leading up to Passover. He saw Jerusalem’s fate spread out within his imagination as it hurtled towards revolt and a devastating response from the Romans – and he wept over the city.

I mention this political background precisely because it highlights his ministry in Galilee. All those table rules the Pharisees and priests spent their time arguing about weren’t just trivial niceties, but part of a bigger picture of how relationships with the Romans should be conducted, who were the purveyors of a threatening Greek culture. They were ‘Gentile dogs’ on holy, God-promised land, and Pharisees were right at the heart of the discontent against them. Theirs was an alternative lifestyle that kept alive the hope that one day the land would be purged of these pagans. But Jesus in contrast was leading a populist movement that removed the boundaries and expressed itself as a radical peace party on the political map of the day. In fact it could be said that he was so committed to peace he even missed the dove end of the hawk-dove scale by a mile.

Where would his position lead? It would lead ‘ Israel’ astray. His position infuriated the Pharisees and disturbed the attempts by the internal ruling priestly class to keep a lid on things. Jesus’ all too public position entering Jerusalem, acting prophetically to cleanse the even holier ground of the Temple of representatives of that ruling elite, drove these parties together. He was a marked man. All this explains the secrecy leading up to Jesus’ celebration of Passover, and the sense of gathering oppression that runs through these powerful gospel narratives. We’re right at the heart of the politics of the day and Jesus made himself public enemy number one at Passover that year. The beginning of what we call communion was not the action of a religious teacher concerned only with personal religious salvation far removed from the political reality of that day. Jesus was definitely on the map of public politics during these decisive hours, and every action had political, cultural and social as well as religious significance. And the words of what we call the ‘institution’ of the Lord’s Supper were themselves an indication that Jesus believed in the power of redemptive suffering and not the course of armed revolt.

Children and Passover

We can’t go into all the background of Passover, but what we do need to note is that it was normally an event celebrated within the extended family. It was a domestic event. Children would have been present and participants. They were to ask the question about what it all meant (Exodus 12:26-27). It was part of the essential story of Israel that formed their identity. The older generations were insistent that this was a core story that had to be passed on to the rising generations. So why did Jesus practice Passover with his disciples only and not with his family?

It was certainly not because he ignored family relationships or children. Rather his calling and mission made the reform and renewal of Israel a priority. The Twelve were a symbolic spearhead of that new movement embodying the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. They were at the heart of the new movement of grace, inclusion and mercy. In fact current family structures under a ruling patriarch – the eldest surviving male – were a profound obstacle to the greater flexibility that his understanding of God’s call demanded. It was part of his general intention to loosen up what he saw as the throttling grip of an oppressive patriarchal structure. Throughout the gospels he challenged people to step out of the coercive restrictions of a father who wanted to control what his son and other family members did – let the dead bury their own dead. People were to love him more than those relationships and put his way before the will of their human father – Luke even uses the word ‘hate’ with regard to family relationships. They were to call no-one father because they had only one Father and that was God. But clearly this cannot be interpreted to say that he was hostile to family relationships and the place of children, because we know he was concerned for his mother when dying as well as the clear place he gave to children in the Kingdom. Children belonged to this Kingdom.

The early Church in Judah and Galilee continued all Jewish practices for years to come while it remained predominantly Jewish. They would have remembered Jesus every time they broke bread and shared the common cup in their daily meals with children present. Perhaps part of the point of Jesus using the bread and wine as the focusing symbols rather than the Passover lamb was that they were integral to the daily meal. This was his equivalent of ‘you shall talk of them when you sit down at home or when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.’ (Deut 6:7) By this habit of breaking bread and sharing the cup he weaved into everyday life the new thread of memory about the power his redemptive suffering. It was to be impressed upon all who shared in the daily meal, children and all. Of course they also would have continued to share Passover year by year with children present, and would have been powerfully aware of the night Judas betrayed Jesus the Messiah years before. Children would have been part and parcel of these on-going habits that formed their new faith. They would have been taught the new beliefs, the new ways of Jesus and brought up within the ways of faith. It does not take much imagination to get back into the day to day life of these earliest believers and how they conducted their life and faith within family and wider groups.

To presume that children were excluded you have to read back the later practice of a Gentile church that had lost touch with its Jewish roots. For instance by the second century, in some circles at least, the Christian Eucharist had been given a different function from its origins within the distinctive table fellowship Jesus deliberately adopted. By then it was being shaped by exclusivist meal culture habits in general society. In Roman culture, your place in the pecking order was displayed in the quality of food offered and consumed. Everyone in that society expected meals to be exclusive occasions in which only those worthy of honour would be given it. So an early Christian writing reflects this tendency. It was used to exclude and establish status within the community. ’Let none eat or drink your Eucharist except those who have been baptised in the Lord’s name. For concerning this also did the Lord say, “Give not that which is holy to the dogs.”’(Didache 9:5) Now a new hierarchy has formed, for the fruit of the vine and the threshings of wheat are to be given as ‘first fruits to the prophets, for they are your high priests.’ (Didache 13:3) You could not have moved further from the spirit and practice of Jesus.

But the very fact that the writer wrote this, indicates that the Lord’s Supper was still used, by some at least, as an inclusive meal. But there was no going back. By the fourth century, when Christianity became the official Roman religion, church communities moved from meeting in the homes they had used as a persecuted group, into consecrated buildings for their worship. They had become the socially recognised religion that helped to bind the Empire together. Communion was by then a purely religious ceremony rather than the subversive sign of a community of believers who stood outside the mainstream of Roman pagan culture. So the Eucharist, in becoming a marker that divided the baptised from those that still worshipped the old gods, lost the element of inclusion that was central in the ministry of Jesus.

Paul’s letters reflect the first steps the Church took breaking out from its Jewish confines. We cannot hold them up as the only and totally prescriptive example of pure practice and doctrine. We also have to remember churches of a very different character that existed back in the originating heartland of Jerusalem, Galilee, and Samaria. What we need to decide is whether Paul says anything that directly contradicts these Jewish origins that would lead us to believe children were specifically excluded from times of shared worship and breaking of bread.

For true believers only?

In response to the proposal I make in this paper with regard to children and the enquiring ‘non-believer’, it is frequently presumed that the original setting of communion within a meal he had with the Twelve, closes the issue for us. This was a meal given to the believing community of the new covenant that Jesus specifically mentioned in connection with the blessing and sharing of the cup. The deduction drawn is that the sharing of bread and wine is for believers and the baptised only. The later teaching of Paul is then used as a back-up that it is totally inappropriate for unbelievers who would even endanger themselves by eating the bread and drinking the wine (1 Corinthians 11:27-29). This interpretation has profound problems.

First it assumes we can project back into this situation later developments that reflect a strong conversionist theology and practice. Such a path again assumes it is easy to identify the believer from the non-believer because the latter have not yet gone through a precisely defined formula and process of conversion and ‘coming to Christ’. Patterns of faith discovery and development is a whole area for reflection in itself but current patterns suggest it is not always easy to define exactly the moment when a person passes from unbelief to faith. And in any case it begs the question whether we should be obsessed with making this judgement of people, as though we are bouncers on the door of the Kingdom!

Second, and even more problematic for the person troubled with this proposal, is that we know that at least one of the Twelve was not a true believer, and what’s even more telling is that the Gospels tell us Jesus knew this person was not a true believer – Judas. And yet Jesus included this ‘non-believer’ within the meal that disclosed the new covenant. Clearly something is going on within this meal which is different from the agenda that such objectors presume is happening. The presence of Judas is a problem for an interpretation that Jesus thought ‘his supper ‘ was to be made a fence and marker between believer and non-believer. It is so embarrassing that strange strategies are adopted to get round it. Was Judas there at the precise moment of inauguration of the Lord’s Supper? Careful examination of the text leaves a choice. Judas’ presence either undermines the presumed theory or we need to do violence to the plain meaning of the text.

Third, it is an argument from silence in which the description becomes prescriptive. First it assumes that children could not have been present at this meal – perhaps quite valid but still an assumption if we consider the host’s circumstances. Does the mention of Jesus’ desire to share this Passover with the Twelve specifically rule out others being there? The language may point in this direction – and I think this reading is most likely – but other readings cannot be ruled out. And if the description of this meal with the twelve male disciples is used as prescriptive for subsequent practice, on what basis are women to be included? Clearly such objectors hold that there is another basis on which the meal is celebrated and opened up to the whole of the new community – that of faith. Clearly neither silence nor description is used by the Church to determine current practice. Other theological considerations determine the matter. But the question is what theological considerations.

Fourth, therefore, traditional lines of argument have to make this supper uniquely distinctive. They have to distance it from Jesus’ general ministry in which his unique use of symbols of meals, food and cleanliness was so central to his whole understanding of the Kingdom and its gospel. I believe this is an impossible argument to justify historically, needing some very adept footwork to make the cut between the two. This is even harder when one considers that this very meal was the one that pointed to the new covenant, which speaks of blood ‘poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’ It is precisely the meal that opens up the Kingdom by pointing to the significance of his death as the means of forgiveness and therefore inclusion of ‘many’. In short, the meal that for Jesus opens the door, is turned into a boundary marker. Even worse is when extreme exclusive faith communities make it a gateway of apartheid by which the separate development of true believers and suspect ‘unbelievers’ can be maintained!

There is very strong theological foundation that inclusion is part of the core meaning of this meal.

I believe the theological argument for children being present at and participants within this sacrament is strong. If Jesus made them a model for entry to Kingdom, their presence does not merely remind the new covenant community of their on-going task of passing on the life and values of this Kingdom community, they are themselves an embodiment of those things at the very heart of kingdom life. To welcome the children is to welcome Christ and all who seek and want to be a part of this Kingdom movement. Communion becomes a means in which we proclaim and enact the gospel as well as celebrate and confess it. If this is true, then it might even mean there is no reason not to offer it to those at the threshold of faith, those searching for their way in to the life of faith.

This said, we must remember that it is specifically a meal of the new covenant established for that community. What I argue for here is not indiscriminate communion in which all and sundry participate. Rather it is a valid sign of that Kingdom and the gospel, and can be used to point people forward along the way, however tentative the steps being taken by any individual. There is much in favour of a considered and thoughtful offering of these signs of the Kingdom to men and women, young and old as they start on the way of Christ. It would speak profoundly in terms of the same image Jesus used in his own gospel ministry of welcome and inclusion, of grace and the mercy of God. It is the sign of forgiveness and of open access to God’s grace and presence. What better way is there to share and communicate this than in a symbolic manner of food and drink together with the other means of word and deed?

However it is given by Jesus to the reformed and re-constituted community of Israel (Luke 22:28-30), and as such it must be offered by that community which consciously seeks to follow Jesus and his approach of grace, welcome and inclusion. It is an invitation to join the feast by those already feasting. This is sufficient to guard its purity and seriousness. It is the true practice of Kingdom grace, love and inclusion, not the application of a thought-police policy that enquires into the precise spiritual status of each believer. And those we would most want

Thought swap

Do you think Jesus’ general conduct of table fellowship ministry has any significance to the way we should practice communion?

What are the implications of Judas being present at this meal, being included in what has become for us communion, and in Jesus’ knowledge that he was going to betray him?

The earliest Jewish believers would have continued to practice Passover annually in their homes with their families, at which undoubtedly they would have recalled the words of Jesus over the bread and cup that fateful night. What is the significance of this today for families and children in particular?

Communion & churches of the Gentile mission

The only direct information we have about the early church’s practice of the Lord’s Supper is found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. This troubled church with all its life and problems has provided rich picking grounds for subsequent generations on a whole range of issues in the early churches with which Paul was involved as a missionary to the Gentiles. However his teaching on the Lord’s Supper has to be understood within the context of his wider calling as missionary to the Gentile world.

Paul’s call and the communities of the Gentile mission

His mission, and the theological understanding that under-girded it, helped to turn the small and insignificant Jewish sect into the origin of the world religion Christianity has become. The Jewish people at the time of Jesus were the least successfully integrated people group in the Roman Empire. Yet from them came this faith-movement of predominantly peasant and artisan classes, which spawned through the Gentile mission, the most successful communities that integrated Jew and Gentile. Roman society for all its power to integrate the elites of various conquered peoples throughout the growing and vast Empire, was never successful at integrating the Jewish people – they stuck out like a sore thumb. Precisely where Rome’s power was weak, the early Christians were strong. They demonstrated in these communities, the power and freshness to include and welcome people from all backgrounds. The spirit of Jesus to welcome, include and integrate lived on in these tiny communities where Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female found their place. This spirit we believe to be God’s Spirit at work both in Jesus and amongst the early Christians.

Whilst not specifically dealing with the matter of the Lord’s Supper, his letter to the Galatians throws interesting light on how Paul understood the issue of table fellowship and how he developed its practice from its original significance preserving Judaism’s identity, into the new setting of the Gentile mission. Paul refers to a key incident of table fellowship practice in Galatians 2:11-21. He outlines theological principles upon which this change of table fellowship was to be practiced. Clearly Paul had argued with Peter at Antioch that table fellowship was an enacted sign of the opening of God’s gospel to the Gentiles. For him it was a matter of crucial principle that could not be compromised under any pressure or circumstances. He had turned away from his Pharisaic practice of using the Jewish law to demarcate Jewish identity. Why?

I have already mentioned the significant nature of his conversion from the extreme aggressive exclusivism of his brand of Pharisaism, to become the leading trailblazer of this amazing leap taken by early believers to reach beyond Judaism. His experience on the Damascus Road had revealed to him a deeper underlying principle of faith. The voice of the risen Jesus that confronted him assumed a profound identity with the ordinary people that he was now persecuting (Acts 9:5). The Pharisees had a term for such people who were Jewish but did not keep the Law in the strict way they did – they were ‘people of the land’. But it was precisely these people, who didn’t take the Law with the seriousness he had, who were now demonstrated to be the people that were in a profound sense to be identified with the One who now confronted him. They were the ones who had uncovered a sounder basis of relationship with God – it was by faith in this crucified and despised Jesus. It totally floored him literally as well as metaphorically! His whole view of the world and how things worked between God and humans had collapsed.

The very reason behind his trip north to Damascus was that these followers of Jesus had crossed the most precious of boundary markers – that between Jew and Gentile. Gentiles were now coming to faith in Jesus and they were not being required to take on themselves all the practices of Jewish identity and culture. So after this devastating encounter he had to rebuild in his mind and heart his whole mental and spiritual world. And this touched his eating habits as a once ‘extremely zealous’ Pharisee – his self-description in Galatians 1:14. His own practice of table fellowship became a continuation of the trajectory marked out by Jesus in his Galilean ministry. What’s apparent from his letter to the Galatians is that this was not just his personal practice but that of the whole church in Antioch. From this time he defended this open table of Jew and Gentile as of the essence of this new era of the gospel. Again table fellowship was a sign of inclusion and grace. And within this table fellowship, bread and wine would have been given their special significance as they remembered Jesus Christ. It is a revealing incident because it shows that meals, which carried symbolic and theological significance in Jesus’ ministry, continued to do so when churches broke from the strict confines of Jewish culture.

The Lord’s Supper and idolatry

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians confirms this picture. As this is the only place where Paul taught about the meaning and significance of the Lord’s Supper, it is difficult, without cross-references to other letters he wrote, to build any comprehensive picture of his understanding of it. Therefore we can tell generally where he stood, but it is not easy to be precise how much the teaching in Corinthians would be significantly broadened, if we had access to more of his teaching on the subject. What is clear is that Paul is dealing with specific circumstances in the Corinthian church that needed his corrective teaching. Therefore we can’t build too much on Paul’s teaching, as though it was a formal and comprehensive coverage of this matter – it is not. This letter is despatched from a concerned Paul, who heard they were in danger of departing from a true practice of the gospel in a number of ways, including the way they shared the Lord’s Supper.

Underlying his teaching about the Lord’s Supper in chapters 10 and 11 are two distinct issues – first idolatry and then factionalism. Paul starts a section about their life within an idolatrous environment, with a clear warning of their spiritually vulnerability. He introduces his teaching with a severe warning to the believers (10:1-15). Like the slaves delivered from Egypt they cannot presume upon their spiritual standing because they participate in what they regarded as ‘spiritual food’ and ‘spiritual drink’ ( 3:10). What lies behind the language of this opening warning, is probably the language of converted Gentiles who had worshipped the gods of the Roman-Greek culture, before they confessed Jesus as Lord. In that culture food was used to ‘participate’ in the cult worship of the god. It was spiritual food and drink that brought them, so they believed, into close contact with the god being worshipped. For instance, invitations on papyri have been discovered ‘to dine at the banquet of the Lord Sarapis’ – Sarapis being one of the numerous gods on offer in this veritable supermarket of faiths. The clear implication is that the host of this meal will offer spiritual food and drink to participants. It is this background in pagan idolatry from which many of the members of the Christian church had come, that lies behind some of the obscure references in chapter 10.

To us – who have no immediate problem with the kind of idolatry Paul refers to here – it seems as though he touches on the Lord’s Supper in 10:14-17, then spins off into obscure stuff about idolatry and head-covering, having a bash at women on the way, only to return to what interests us again in 11:17-33. No, all of it is to do with encouraging distinctive and appropriate worship and life-habits for the believers who confessed faith in the one God through Jesus Christ, in an environment saturated with pagan idolatry. In passing, this is what lies behind what seems like patriarchal, even oppressive teaching about women’s head gear (11:2-16)! In pagan worship – particularly the excessive forms of the cult of Dionysus – women were often used in orgiastic rites as sexual objects, where they let their hair down, food and drink flowed, and a hedonistic party was thrown! These rather sober and seemingly repressive verses were in fact an amazing guarding and dignifying of a woman’s standing within the Christian community, albeit within a patriarchal world-view that is now inappropriate.

To return to our theme, his argument is that Christians must flee any connection with idolatry, he uses the Lord’s Supper as an illustration to bolster his argument. The Lord’s Supper is not the main subject but incidental and supportive of his focus on idolatry. He’s trying to establish the gulf that exists between the Lord’s Supper and the kind of spiritual experience on offer at local pagan temples. ‘You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.’ He assumes the Corinthians understand that once they participated in idolatrous worship that gave them one kind of spiritual food, but now they have a totally different kind of nourishment from their oneness in Christ as they share in the ‘participation’ of his body and blood. It is incompatible to participate in both. But as we shall see later, it was precisely the lack of oneness at Corinth that concerned him.

The Lord’s Supper was a ‘participation’ (language used of pagan food worship) in the body and blood of Christ, a place where ‘we all partake of the one loaf’ ( 10:15-17). Paul says it is impossible to have ‘a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons’ ( 10:21). Yet the implication is that this is precisely what some of them were in danger of doing, genuine believers who had many right beliefs and been converted – ‘Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?’ ( 10:22) We should not use this precise language out of context to support a meaning not in Paul’s mind. He is not defining here who is in or out of the meal – he is not saying anything about those who genuinely believe as disciples and are ‘in’ and are ‘participating’, and those who do not believe that are ‘out’ and not participating’. He’s certainly not addressing whether children should be included or not. He’s worried about presumably some in the community who might violate the very essence of the Lord’s Supper through mixing their newfound faith with a little bit of idolatry on the side. The relevant thing is that he used the Lord’s Supper as a boundary between believer and unbeliever, not to keep unbelievers out, but to keep believers in! In 10:23-33 he deals with meat bought from the market and the impact on unbelievers who discovered a believer eating meat previously used in pagan worship. The point in this section is that he didn’t want an unbeliever to be confused and put-off by careless eating habits. Once again he showed concern for the ‘outsider’ - everything had to be done with an eye towards their inclusion.

The Lord’s Supper, factionalism and social status

In chapter 11 he returns to the Lord’s Supper and, as it had been with Jesus, the distinctive thing about their table-fellowship was to be its inclusiveness. It was to be a demonstration of the power of genuine community in which everyone was honoured and dignified, no matter what background and social status they might have in society. And it was precisely this enactment of genuine community that was under threat in Corinth. Divisions were appearing ( 11:18), people of higher social standings were insensitive to others of lower social status ( 11:21-22). The teaching about the Lord’s Supper is embedded within the struggle to form a distinctive holy, loving and inclusive community within a society that failed or at best was weak in doing this.

So Paul teaches that the Lord’s Supper is an alternative meal – a genuine meal in someone’s home – that was outwardly similar in some ways to pagan worship meals at a local temple, but inwardly and in terms of observable practice, a totally different experience – the experience of community. This is clear from his teaching we have already considered in chapter 10. His use of the word ‘body’ slides between identifying it with the body of Jesus, the body of the loaf and the body of the Christian community, the body of Christ. Ever since the Damascus Road encounter, when the voice of Jesus identified the body of Christian believers with himself, Paul identified the body crucified on the cross with the body of believers. It became for him the body of Christ. This sliding use of language is especially clear in 10:17; 11:24, 27, 29. The time of remembering the Lord’s suffering and death is a participation in an act of genuine community making and maintenance. So in chapter 11 he emphasises ‘when you come together’ ( 11:18, 19, 33, 34) and that there should be no ‘division’ or ‘differences’ ( 11:18, 19). This meal is a meal that establishes, embodies and maintains the community of Jesus Christ. If it doesn’t do this it is not the Lord’s Supper.

They were meant to have swapped their pagan worship that slipped into self-centred, ugly divisions and even orgy-like behaviour, for participation with the Lord Jesus in his supper, where he is host, and where genuine community and love was to be experienced and touched. He even goes as far as to say that in the light of what it had become – even though they ‘believed’ – it was not in fact the Lord’s Supper that they celebrated ( 11:20). This is a huge smack in the eye for us trained to believe that the ‘belief’, the ‘right idea’ is everything. Provided people have faith and believe aright it’s okay. They did and it wasn’t! Paul says they weren’t sharing in the Lord’s Supper because it wasn’t in line with Jesus’ tradition of table-fellowship. This is despite the fact that clearly elsewhere he calls them church (1:2-9). What destroyed it was their exclusion of people, their destruction of the essence of what it should be. It is a warning to us that we do not make an idol of having the right belief system, the right idea, or having gone through a particular conversion of experience to become true believers. These Corinthians had done that and what they were doing, even though they said the right words, and believed the right things, it was not the Lord’s Supper! In fact it brought them into spiritual jeopardy ( 11:29-32), just as flirting with idolatry did.

So when Paul talks about eating the bread and drinking the cup ‘in an unworthy manner’ and of being ‘guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord’, about the need ‘to examine himself’ before eating and drinking, and of not ‘recognising the body of the Lord’, it has nothing whatsoever to do with having the right beliefs and having gone through the right kind of conversion experience. They had all been there, done that and got the tee-shirt! No it was not their believing that was a problem, it was their actual practice of this table-fellowship. It should have been inclusive and it wasn’t. So Paul points out that it was not the Lord’s Supper at all. So much for a simple understanding that the Lord’s Supper is for believers only! They were believers, but they were eating unworthily, they were guilty of sinning against the body and blood, of not recognising the body of the Lord, and of failing to examine themselves.

So what exactly was going on? It’s quite clear. People, especially the poor, were being excluded and forgotten ( 11:20-22). Roman hospitality and meal practice throws light on to this. As it was a common meal that is being referred to, the setting almost certainly would have been the home of one of the more affluent members of the church. Roman dinner parties were often in two parts. The first section was a meal of a number of courses after which there was a break when other guests of lower status arrived when drinks and a few desserts were served. It may well be that this pattern was retained at Corinth and the more well-to-do arrived early for the full bash, and then when the poorer people came along after work, they shared the bread and cup. This may be what lies behind the direction to wait for one another ( 11:21, 33). Or even worse would have been actual discrimination within the meal itself. However what happened in Corinth, and Paul’s direction to this particular church, may well have influenced the development of later practice that eventually separated the actual celebration of the Lord’s Supper from a proper meal. This was perhaps the start of a long journey from a genuine meal without any predominant religious ritual, to what eventually turned into the highly stylised and symbolic meal we have today in our various denominational traditions. What we’ve got to get out of our minds is the way we have experienced communion for generations as a highly organised and powerfully formed religious service in specially dedicated buildings. To read these verses correctly we’ve got to forget Mr Brooker and his ‘festive board’, or what’s gone on in cathedrals and churches the length and breadth of Europe and the Western world for centuries.

The place of children and unbelievers

It would be a brave person indeed to conjecture that within this meal culture children were excluded from participation not just from the general meal but also the elements of the bread and cup. This is especially true in the light of the fascinating shaft of light cast by 7:14 on the place of children within this particular community’s life. Paul’s throwaway remark— ‘otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy’— borrows terminology from his Pharisaic past, where there was an obsession with what makes people ‘unclean’. Paul is quite specific – the faith of just one parent brings children into the orbit of the clean and holy. For the Pharisees, it was the holy and the clean that made fit table companions! This is the direct implication of this verse. It would be for those that disagree with children taking communion to prove something to contrary. My contention is that children would have been around and natural participants within these exciting gatherings.

Regarding those not yet believers, there’s an interesting reference in 14:24 to an unbeliever coming in to a gathering of the Corinthian church. The concern is that the unbeliever should not be alienated and excluded. The passage is about tongues as a sign for unbelievers, a sign that they are outsiders, under God’s judgement and beyond the community of faith and the Spirit. Paul uses a quote from Isaiah (28:11,12) which implies that if Israel would not listen to the word that was understandable through the prophet sent to them, then God would speak to them through the strange language and the tongues of Assyrian oppressors. The sign for unbelievers is a sign of judgement that they are outside the realm of grace and the Spirit. Paul’s concern here, as he developed the inclusion Jesus enacted in his Galilean ministry, was also for inclusion of unbelievers within the experience of the early Christian community. They should not be made to feel alienated and under judgement as an outsider, but given opportunity to respond to the word of God. Tongues were alienating and therefore their use needed controlling, with the unbeliever in mind. It may well be that Corinth had common meals for believers only and other meetings for those being attracted to this new faith. Or it could be that there was only one kind of gathering. In which case it is possible unbelievers turned up whilst the bread and the cup were being shared. Whichever way, it

Thought swap

What happens when you take what was a real which ‘communion’ was a part, into special church buildings where you strip it down to bare symbolic essentials. Is this likely to change its character and significance? Might the place of children have been affected by this change?

Discuss the implications of 1 Corinthians 7:14 on the place of children within communion.

John Finney, Bishop of Pontefract, has found that the average time for someone to find full faith today is four years. When is it appropriate for someone on this journey to take communion if they wanted to?

So what? Questions & suggestions

Finally I want to answer some key questions that arise from this theological exploration and sketch some suggestions of what this might mean for current practice.

The two poles

I believe we have to keep two things in balance. First we have to take account of the grounding of the Lord’s final supper with his disciples being rooted firmly within the ministry of Jesus’ table-fellowship. This prophetically symbolised the opening of God’s rule of blessing to the ‘people of the land.’ Jesus’ whole vision was to turn Israel around to shoulder once again its God-given mission to be a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6; Matthew 5:14). Following his death and resurrection, Jesus set the renewed community, on a pathway that threw open the door of welcome and inclusion to the Gentile world. Luke tells us it was Stephen, Philip and Peter who pushed open that door and looked out on the other side for the first time, followed more programmatically by the theologically minded evangelist and self-styled apostle to the Gentiles, Paul. The Lord’s Supper became in his understanding the embodiment of this new body of Christ, fashioned through his death on the cross (Eph 2:13-15) to bring the first-fruit of a new humanity, the new man (Eph 2:15) formed by this life-giving spirit, the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45). The body of Christ broken and embodied in the one loaf became the body of Christ, indwelt by the Sprit and endowed with gifts, and in which Jew and Gentile live in reconciled fellowship. The Lord’s Supper must be about inclusion.

But second, and now on familiar territory, the Lord’s Supper was the supper of the new covenant community, the meal that pointed to the death out of which this community was fashioned. When we celebrate it as the community of disciples, it is the sign through which we receive in these elements the grace of mercy and the forgiveness that is always necessary to form and sustain the community of forgiven sinners. This is no ordinary meal, but one with the powerful presence of the crucified risen Christ at its heart – a presence that accepts, heals, forgives and then commissions us to go to carry God’s message of welcome, inclusion and forgiveness into our fragmented world. It is the place where love bids us welcome and we must sit and eat and where we are to ‘feed on him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving’. So we dare not treat it lightly or flippantly as if it were a mere trifle. This is serious, joyous stuff. We must hold both open inclusion and intimate communion, if the practice of the Lord’s Supper is to animate our life and form our habits. These are the twin poles between which we live our life of faith and along the axis that joins them. We must express at one time greater attention to inclusion and at another greater attention to communion, but always attention to both.

I also want to keep in mind the traditions we have inherited from previous generations, and while I want to challenge certain things, I want also to respect and maintain what we have inherited.

What about believers baptism and communion for children?

If children are to take communion what does this mean for baptism? If communion is not used as a fence to exclude but an invitation to welcome and teach the significance of Jesus’ death, surely the same case can be made for baptism? My reading of the New Testament leads me to believe that baptism and communion work in totally different ways.

While I have argued the Lord’s Supper retains a strong element of inclusion from Jesus’ practice of table-fellowship, baptism was the mark of the person stepping out as a disciple of Jesus. The antecedents of baptism – Jewish proselyte baptism and that of John the Baptist—had a similar significance. In the first of these, a Gentile converting to Judaism would be baptised as they were cleansed of their heathen past, before submitting to circumcision. In the second, John took the shocking step of saying that as well as heathens needing the cleansing ritual of baptism, now the children of Abraham needed it in preparation for Israel’s coming messiah! No wonder he caused a stir! Baptism was a moment of personal definition. As Christianity became a missionary faith, so baptism became the marker of a person submitting to the way of Jesus. It was that moment when the individual stepped out from the crowd, confessed Jesus, and took up the cross to follow Jesus. Everything in the New Testament points in this direction. There is therefore no justification for arguing that if communion is offered to children, then what about our practice of baptism; surely it leads to infant baptism which must not be made a fence but become an invitation as well.

In church history some have argued that baptism was a direct replacement of the rite of circumcision. Just as circumcision was the mark that brought children into the nation of Israel, so baptism does the same. This has always struck me as the practice of infant baptism desperately and anxiously looking for a theology, without any justification in the New Testament.

What about unbelievers?

The very description of ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers’ shows the problem. It assumes that there are two clearly distinct groups. While there are those that believe in Christ and those that do not, it is not easy to be sure where one ends and the other begins when someone is on the journey of faith. What is obvious is that we are not dealing with the situation with which Paul contended in Corinth – where the practice of pagan idolatry was clearly distinct from the ways of the new community formed in that city. To confess Jesus as Lord was serious in a society that expected from the time of Emperor Augustas to confess that Caesar was Lord. The vehicle of pagan temple worship was used for these political and ideological ends. There was a clear demarcation line between belief in the Roman-Greek gods and the confession of Jesus. This is stating the obvious. But it is worth stating if we contrast this with the present day.

Whilst we are dealing with a post-Christian society, there is often in people at least a residual awareness of Christianity, and even an assumption on the part of the seeker they are already Christian in their belief in God in some way, or they have had some Christian background, and maybe even undergone infant baptism. Certainly they have not popped along from the local temple involved in idolatrous worship. They are drawn by their search that arises from personal need and spiritual yearning, with possibly a belief in Jesus in some way. To be consistent within a policy of the Lord’s Supper for believers, you have to develop a system of checking the spiritual standing of every participant. This is clearly not going to happen in today’s environment – the thought is horrifying! If someone comes searching for faith or within an already existing faith that is only dimly understood, why should they not be included, especially if this invitation is explained at communion as part of Jesus’ gospel? That moment, as personal need gropes to find the way forward in questioning faith, can become a time of powerful encounter with the One they seek but know not yet. What understanding do you need in order to make sharing in the Lord’s Supper valid? What of those who have severe mental health disability? Are such people excluded because they do not have even the foundations of a theology? What does faith like the grain of mustard seed mean in this context? I doubt many would want to take a hard line on consideration.

Practical suggestions for consideration

• We should consider ways that children can regularly share in communion. By regular I would suggest ‘family’ communion takes place at least three times a year. Present practice of children having their own activities cuts them off from this central habit of the Christian faith. Nearly all children that come regularly to church have parents that have a Christian commitment of some kind. Children should sit within family groups when they are in such services.

• As this teaching is not likely to be embraced by all, because many will be naturally suspicious of a new suggestion that questions centuries of practice and tradition, the decision whether children receive communion should be a matter for parents to decide. Whether or not they receive communion children should be included within an act of blessing of each person or family group.

• Children should take key parts within this service. In line with the role of children in Passover it would be good for a young child to ask the question in Exodus 12:26 ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ or similar wording. There should be an explanation of its meaning for all age-groups.

• To help parents with this decision I believe the mechanics of a service can help an orderly and considered response by parents. Before a family communion there should be preparation by informing parents well in advance and material outlining the church’s position should be distributed. In this material parents should be encouraged to talk this matter over with their children to help understanding and gain clarification about how a family will respond at the actual service. When the time arrives to receive the bread and cup, a whole family group should come to one of the places where they are offered both the bread and the cup, and parents should indicate whether their children are to receive just a blessing.

• What about children who come without parents and with no explicit Christian commitment? How should they be treated? Clearly this needs careful forethought. I would suggest that once a child comes without their parents, we should consider having a ‘sponsoring family’. It might be the family the child has come with, because normally children would come through an existing relationships. But even if not, a family would be asked to make links with the family from which the child has come. When such a service is planned, well in advance, the sponsoring family would need to make contact with the other family and explain what was going to happen. The whole family could be invited. However a simple explanation would need to be given about its significance and that the options should be offered. The parents of the child would then be encouraged to think and give a response as to whether and how they wanted their child included in this. It could become am evangelistic opportunity if thought through well.

I am uncertain about separate communions children’s and younger young people’s groups, even if supervised well by the leadership of those groups. I am not against it completely but there are real practical and cultural/theological difficulties that need consideration. For the following reasons I feel cautious.

• Most important in my mind is the way in which we need to underline the importance of family life within today’s society. As the Church we have a special responsibility within society to uphold both marriage and family life – an institution that is under pressure from all sides. Our recent cultural history has increasingly removed responsibility for rearing children from the family and giving it to other social institutions. This is particularly true of the education system where schools have a key role in passing on values as well as knowledge. This is not wrong in itself, but the effects of this may be negative in that it leads to further erosion of the place of the family. In this environment the Church is often understood as the key institution to pass on the faith of the older generations to the younger. Whilst it does have a role, it should not take that active and primary responsibility from parents. The Church needs to train and encourage parents to pass on the faith. If the Church can not do this with their own young it undermines the credibility of the faith. If we see our main responsibility as the Church to provide high quality children’s ministry directly to the children, we add unwittingly to the erosion of this responsibility with many parents. Children’s ministry within the Church must first and foremost be to support, equip and encourage parents in their role as evangelists and disciplers of the faith. This primary role should take solid and specific form and not just be given lip service. I am all in favour of a local church developing an active, imaginative and creative children’s work, but at its heart should be fostering parent(s) in their own role. The practice of communion is one such habit that could be taken back into the home as a means by which parents are encouraged to express their own responsibility. Anything that helps this should be maximised by the Church, given the increasingly low esteem in which marriage and family life is held in our society. We should focus effort here as it builds the crucial mentoring and spiritual guidance role of parents. This could become a distinctive practice that models something both healthy and attractive in an increasingly individualised society that has made idols of the values of freedom and personal choice.
• As the Church of God’s Kingdom we are an inter-generational community. The Church is a community in time, and within our local communities we learn and understand in one another, from whence we have come as human beings, and where we are bound on the journey of life. If this is true, there should be places where the community comes together to express its cross generational life. I would argue that communion is such an opportunity. The meal, which should embody the formation and sustenance of the community in the way Paul understood, is surely a time when this should be manifested. Hiving the generations off without giving priority to this seems to fall in too easily with the mood of the times.
• The confusion of pressure that comes from a peer group also complicates the matter. While parents might be involved in a decision for their child to take communion, when it actually comes to the time for it to take place, I do not see how you can avoid stirring up confusing issues within the children themselves if removed from the family. We have to ask what we feel is to be gained over and above a communion shared with family members, and for that matter what may be lost.

We need to think about developing the practice of communion within the home. There are a number of ways this could be done.

• Many are already familiar with small groups sharing in communion. This should be further encouraged and developed through development of material for use in this context, and the sharing of good practice amongst group leaders.

• We should also encourage family groups to have their own communion. We could encourage families to set aside a regular evening where they have a meal with or without guests within which the breaking of bread and sharing of the cup takes place. Simple suggested forms and ’liturgies’ could be developed that families could use or adapt for themselves. Within its general role of helping parents to bring up their children within the faith, teaching could be given that shows the potential for learning and understanding that such a habit provides.

• There could be similar forms or liturgies for use when Christians are holding a dinner party with fellow Christians.

• I see no objection either to having bread and wine used as discreet signs of faith even when non-Christians are present. Like in the days of the Jacobite Scotland who toasted the King over the water by passing their goblet over a jug of water, so those ‘in the know’ could share this discreet sign of the Lord’s presence as they share around the meal table.

Thought swap

Go over the various suggestions in the last section and talk about each one in turn, sharing what you think. Try to capture one another’s ideas and suggestions.

Share where you were at before you started to think about this issue?

Share ways in which your thinking may have changed or has not changed?

Is there anything you should consider doing either as individuals or as a group in the light of this teaching?

Write down any agreed actions here and review it in the few weeks time to see what action has been taken.

Wrapping it up

I wrote this because I believe it is helpful at times to take a fresh look at ways we do things in the Church. Our natural tendency is to go on with those ways that have been handed down to us, especially with something so central to the worship of all churches. I want to offer these proposals for consideration and further development in a spirit of openness.

I hope this short study will help to provide some biblical and theological foundation for individuals who may be wondering about whether their own children should share in communion. I also now come across a number of churches that are changing their practice of communion with regard to both children and the searching unbeliever. I believe such changes are healthy and clearly there is something in the air, because many do not seem to have consulted with one another. However I find that while people feel this seems the right thing to do, they have not yet worked out the foundations for such a change in practice. I think practice always becomes better if we reflect theologically on that practice, and these are my personal theological reflections.

They are not offered to become a source of division. I understand that people may feel very differently about these matters. They should not become matters that divide our fellowship, for it was through Christ offering his body that this fellowship of believers has been made one. May Christ’s Spirit of freedom, respect, inclusion and tolerance live amongst us.

Books that helped me

Marcus Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus, Harrisburg: Trinity 1998

James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, Edinburgh: Clark. 1998

Jurgen Moltmann , The Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit, London: SCM 1977. The Way of Jesu,s London: SCM 1990

Wolfgang Steggemann, Bruce Malina, Gerd Theissen Eds. The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels, Minneapolis Fortress 2002

Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, Edinburgh: Clark, 1982. The Religion of the Earliest Churches, Minneapolis: Fortress 1999

N T Wright, New Testament and the People of God, London:SPCK 1992. Jesus and the Victory of God, London: SPCK 1997