Church Life in the Summer Starts with the Children

by John V. Upton, Executive Director

As a pastor, one of my favorite duties was the dedication of babies.  Mom and Dad stand there holding the child.  We present him or her, and the parents say the child’s name.  We ask them if they’ll raise the child in the love of God, and they say, “We will.”  We ask the church if they will do their part to love and nurture the child in faith, and they say, “We will.”  Then we all pray for the child and for the parents. 

Then comes my favorite part.  You take the child in your arms as pastor and walk into the congregation, showing the child’s face to the congregation and the congregation’s face to the child.  This is especially fun if the child has gotten old enough to stare at you and study you and look amused or concerned.  As this walk is made, the pastor talks to the child, tells the child that these people are all his or her new big brothers and sisters, and says: “Don’t they look interesting?” and “All of them are going to love you and watch you grow” and “We’ll listen to you and learn from you” and “We’ll tell you the greatest of all stories.”  Up and down the aisle we go, saying such fun words.

At or near the end of the walk we always say something like this:  “When Jesus was among us in the flesh, he took the children in his arms and he blessed them.  Now we are the body of Christ, and our privilege in his name is to be the arms that hold them and give to them the gifts that bless them.”  When I used to do this, I would think:  “I’ve got a really great job.”

Like so much of what he did, Jesus’ response to children came as a big surprise.  His own disciples were caught completely off guard by him.  It concerns me that today many people share the same assumption regarding children in the church that the disciples shared regarding the proper place for children.  I’m married to a Minister of Children, so I’m often with children, and recently I rediscovered their valued place in the Kingdom.  The disciples thought that children didn’t belong where the big people were busy doing more important things.  They should not interrupt dignified occasions and should not be in our way.  The attitudes prevail that we’ll get to them later or tuck them in the background or have some nice little special interactions on the side.

At this, Jesus became very angry; actually the word is “indignant.”   Jesus was always a fierce advocate for the powerless, and children are radically powerless.  They know nothing of decisions being made by powerful adults that will shape their fate.  What about the extreme vulnerability of children to whatever is said or done in their presence, or never said and done?  The heart and mind of a child are like potter’s clay – malleable, blankly receptive to whatever is impressed upon it, and likely to retain the mark.  So when they are neglected or bullied or shown shallow values or indulgent greed or meanness, these marks are pressed into their receptive clay, and they will just have to wear them for a very long time.  Anything done to children, they have no power to refuse.

So Jesus was indignant when his people blocked children from coming up to him.  And the children came and “he blessed them.”  The word is not the normal word for “bless”; it is an intensified form, and it means he really blessed them; he blessed them powerfully.

There is a reason why church life in the summer begins with children. It begins with the children because this is the one season of life that we all have in common.  Not all of us have reached old age or middle age.  Not all of us have entered adulthood.  Not all of us have been in love or had our hearts broken. Not all of us have had great successes or tasted bitter failure.  But we have all been children.  Our clay was soft, and we were so vulnerable to whatever was given and not given. 

This is what makes VBS, children’s camp, and Backyard Bible Clubs in the summer so much fun, because they allow all of us who were once a vulnerable child to hear again the startling welcome of Jesus.  Those same great arms are open to gather us in and hold us with a new blessing, a powerful blessing, a blessing enough to warm and soften our hardened clay till we are malleable enough to be remade.  That blessing soothes old scars into fading.  Jesus still has a touch upon life that lifts us up from shame and rage and fear and turns us toward the great gorgeous freedoms of forgiveness, trust, and surging joy.  You are still the child whose place is in those arms.  So am I.