She was probably about two, a bundle of energy though respectfully contained in her Sunday best. A puffy black dress which complimented her cheeks, decorated with ribbons from head to toe. When she was unable to solicit the attention of someone else around her, she was in her own little world, content, laughing and playing. Then what was this? Something is happening. Men are walking around with shiny trays. Oh, I had better pay attention. Oh one is coming my way, it’s full of small crackers. Oh goodie. But just then grandma brushes me off and grabs the plate away from my view. Something is going on, and I’m missing out. Was I bad? Am I going to be in trouble when we get home? Then grandma whispers something in my ear about how it’s not for me. Why not? Then everyone seems to be eating together. A few minutes later, the men come again, this time with little cups. Again it’s not for me. The joy is gone. But it’s ok, soon I will be whisked off to my own world to color and play, junior church I think they call it.

How sad, I was crushed. But this is the message we send to our kids every month as we participate in communion with, or should I say without them. They are not in the fellowship. They are not in the group. They have to wait outside while the grown-ups go through their motions. Just then I remembered the words of Jesus, “Let the little children come to me.” We think we are all important, that our inclusion in the Church, the people of God is an adult thing. Children don’t know anything, they can’t participate or contribute on the same level as an adult so just forget about them. Until that one magical day when they reach the ‘age of accountability’ and can chose salvation for themselves. But this is not the picture Scripture paints. We are fallen, sinful, dead. We don’t go up to heaven or even reach up, and make fellowship with God. We are going about in our selfishness and He comes down to Earth for us. We don’t do anything, it’s by his grace. Yet we push our children to the outskirts of the body, always treating them as circumspect. “I wonder if little Lucy is really saved. . .” “I don’t know let’s test her. . .” No! “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Sinite parvulos venire ad Me (‘Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me’) Frans Francken II. c. 1640

But we like to pride ourselves for our decision to choose Christ and it impacts how we view our children. We think we made some sort of reasoned decision at church camp, that one night. Or perhaps it was in our twenties when we found ourselves at the bottom of the gutter, we made the choice to pick ourselves up and turn our lives around. But we forget that the gutter is our natural state. Or even worse, a people at it’s worst isn’t mixing up concrete and building gutters, without the hand of God we are cavemen. It was the hand of God, at the behest of his son Jesus, who reached down and pulled us out of that gutter. We evangelicals love a good turn around story. And those can be real. God does often work that way. But an even better pattern is for the next generation. He saves millions by placing them in Christian households and sparing them the pain and anguish of that sordid gutter lifestyle.

“For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.” Romans 4:13-16

We used to look ahead in this country. Political debates were often couched in terminology about the children and the future. Even those have mostly blown away by the evil wind sweeping our nation, the same wind aborting millions of those children, aborting our future. At the beginning men laid down their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor so that generations and generations could go ahead of them and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Today we sacrifice our children for our own momentary pleasure. Today we stare at our own feet, we can’t even pass on the basics of our faith to our own children. Something which almost no other culture has ever had trouble doing, we can’t manage. The Jews didn’t teach their children to form a council every generation and decide if they were going to be Jews for another round. God told them to “train their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”, oh wait that’s from the New Testament. The Old Testament says to “train a child up in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” God says “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.” But what if they didn’t make the right decision at the campfire that night? Paul tells us we are part of that covenant, we were grafted into Israel, we are children of Abraham. But we are also under a New and glorious covenant. Do you think this applies any less to us? The purpose of the New Covenant was not to exclude our children if they didn’t make a decision, it was to graft in all the nations to the tree of Abraham. It was to expand the Old Covenant to every tongue and tribe and nation.

“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” Romans 3:27-31

I think we can learn a lot from having those children at the table, rather than whisking them away to feed their infancy, let them learn to sit still and be part of this body. But we can learn from them as well. (It’s another wonderful paradox. Male vs. female, old vs. young. We like to be in groups of people just like ourselves, but the magic happens when we join the two sides of the paradox in tension.) That joy on her face, before it was taken away, that’s how we should view the Lord’s table. It’s not a mechanical requirement, it’s a blessed gift. The King of the Universe, Jesus the Christ has invited us to celebrate with him at his table. Regardless of how the battle looks outside, down here on earth, we know in reality it’s over. Jesus won. He conquered death, the final enemy. The Kingdom of God is at hand. And he asked us to celebrate at his table. He doesn’t lord it over us until we make a decision. Who are we to deny our children? Because they can’t make a decision? You are the parent, make it for them, choose life. Reach down to them as Jesus did and bring them up to your level. Lay down your life for them. Treat them like they are part of the party, offer them the bread and wine. Train them up in the joy of the Lord, so it’s all they ever know, so they wouldn’t think of ‘choosing’ anything else. Why is the default position to treat them like an enemy? Even the Matrix gets this right. Adults have to make a choice, the red pill or the blue pill. But after you choose freedom, and leave the Matrix, your children are born in Zion. They are freeborn children of Zion, they can’t choose to go back into the Matrix, that’s crazy talk. So, why do we pretend that we are facilitating some sort of neutral territory on which our children can decide if they want to go over to the dark side or not? It’s really insane. Especially given the history of it not working, at all. Our kids have enough against them, God already made a world where evil can look as enticing as good, we don’t need to be on the wrong side fighting against them.

Supper in Emmaus. Paolo Veronese. c.1559

Historically Christians treated their children as Christians. Just like how Jews treated their children as Jews, Americans treat their kids as Americans, and the Smiths treat their children as Smiths. That’s just common sense. You don’t choose your country or your gender or your family. But we are fine with our Children choosing inhumanity, being connected back into the Matrix, because it preserves our notion of free will. And so we have sacrificed our children on this alter for the past few generations. We perpetuate the insane idea that every generation rebells, it’s just how it is, so go with it. We will cast out some nets and see if we can’t catch a few as they wash down the gutter into the sewer. They might have some sensational conversion stories. Well that is one way to reproduce. But it doesn’t make much sense, and it betrays that we worship James Dean and Steve McQueen, and not Jesus the Messiah.