All I Needed To Know About Receving Christ, I Learned As A Child
The Very Reverend Sam Candler
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
24 September 2006
Proper 20B
Then Jesus took a little child, and put it among them. He said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me.” –Mark 9:36, 37
Welcome a child, in Jesus’ name! For me, one of the highpoints of Sunday morning is the Offertory Procession at the 8:45 liturgy. As most of you know, not only do we receive financial gifts and offerings at that time, but we also receive personal, physical gifts and offerings. We receive the offering of children.
Children are our gifts, from us, and to us, in the name of Jesus Christ. When the children join us, we are close to the kingdom of God. Jesus knew that children, in their simplicity and in their sincerity, were close to the kingdom. Elsewhere in his ministry, he will say that “unless you do not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, you will never enter it.” (Mark 10.16).
Now, when we welcome a child, we welcome a child’s world – and a child’s world is exquisite in its simplicity.
A few years ago, someone wrote a book titled “All I Needed to Know in Life, I learned in Kindergarten.” Of course, some of the principles in that book were quite serious. Today, I want to title this sermon the same way:
“All I needed to know about receiving Christ, I learned as a child.” But I want to be even more specific. When I say “receive Christ,” I do not mean only the verbal commitment of faith. I mean receiving communion. I mean coming up to the altar rail and receiving the consecrated bread and wine of Eucharist, the spiritual body and blood of Christ.
I like to say that, in the Episcopal Church, we are just like the evangelical Baptists. We, too, have an altar call each Sunday. We give everyone an opportunity to come down to the front of the church and receive Christ. That’s why the priest says, “The gifts of God for the people of God.” The Body of Christ. The Blood of Christ. We Episcopalians want everyone to receive Christ.
But I want to remind us of some child wisdom, some simple wisdom. I am speaking to us adults, but I want all of us to remember the principles we learned as children. When you come to the altar to receive Christ, remember these principles:
1. Gravity is a law of God.
That seems simple enough, doesn’t it? But it startles me to see folks who have not learned about gravity yet. They think that if they hold their hands out tilted severely, the wafer will ignore gravity and stay in their hand.
Well, the wafer does not. The law of gravity is still in effect at the altar. Children, hold your hands open and flat at the altar, and you will receive Christ more easily.
The spiritual corollary to the flat open hand is this: A clenched fist also cannot receive Christ. In the spiritual life, God cannot give us Christ when our hands are closed, or when our hands are clenched, when our spirits are clenched or closed.
2. In the same way, Grabbing does not get you what you need.
There are folks who come to the altar not in the attitude of receiving at all. They come with their fingers out ready to grab, or to pinch the wafer from the priest’s hand.
Trying to pinch the wafer from the priest’s hand does not work. Let the priest place the wafer in your open hand. Don’t try to pick it up from her hand yourself, because the odds are the both of you will collide and miss the hand-off. Be like the relay runner. Let the priest place the baton in your hand.
Receiving Christ is not accomplished by acquisitive grabbing, like so much else in the world these days. Receiving Christ is about not grabbing.
3. It is hard to drink wine when you are facing downward.
Look up when you drink from the chalice. Let the wine flow, with gravity, into your mouth. The wine will not flow upward, against the law of gravity.
I think the only time drinking upside down works is when we are trying to cure the hiccups!
All three of these principles make sense in the natural world, don’t they! God uses the laws of the natural world, laws like gravity and openness.
4. If I cannot see your eyes, I cannot see the real you.
Children have known this since we were infants. If I cannot see your eyes, I cannot see the real you. Don’t wear sunglasses to church.
Adults sometimes say, “Oh, yes, so and so comes to church just to be seen!” That line is truer than they think. God does want us to be seen at church. But God wants to see us as we really are, not in our disguises. We do some to church to be seen: to be seen for who we really are, by God.
And if you are one of the lovely folks who wears a hat to church….If you wear a hat to the altar rail, the chalice bearer cannot see your mouth, unless you look up.
God, too, wants to see us. Look up.
5. Don’t make people wait on you.
If I am at the altar rail, and it is my practice to make the sign of the cross before I receive communion, I do it before the priest arrives. I do not hold up the line with my own personal acts of devotion.
Sometimes, God is reaching to bless us. Sometimes God is right here, waiting to bless us, but we are so busy taking the time and energy doing religious things, that we miss the blessing.
The spiritual corollary is this: Don’t let our religious acts get in the way of God’s blessing right now!
6. It is not the Church’s intention to break up families at the altar rail!
Some families like to be broken up, but most do not. It is one of the hardest jobs of our vergers to know who our families are. The more we come to church as a family, we more people know who is in our family.
And it is a blessed thing to receive Christ together as a family.
7. Be eager. There is nothing so wonderful as a child hopeful and eager to come to communion.
Our ushers are not supposed to get in your way, or delay you. Our vergers and priests are not supposed to slow you down. They are supposed to make it easier for you to get here quickly! God loves our eagerness.
8. Don’t put your fingers in the food.
If you are dipping the wafer into the cup of wine, don’t put your fingers in the cup! Did you know that our fingers carry more germs than our lips and mouths do? Intinction defeats the desire for cleanliness if we let the germs from our hands get inside the cup.
Ultimately, our own emphasis on spiritual cleanliness does allow us to receive Christ more easily.
These are the eight principles. You may have your own principles, and I probably have some more, too. The gist is this: Receive the kingdom of God as a child. The basic laws of gravity and physics, cleanliness and efficiency, which we all learned as a child, are remarkably similar to the spiritual laws of God.
We receive more easily when we are open, and when our hands are flat. We receive more easily when we are looking, not when we are hidden. We receive more easily when we don’t religious acts get in the way. We receive more easily when we are known as families.
The gospel can be much more difficult than this, I know. Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem was a journey to suffering and a giving up of himself.
But in the midst of that journey, Jesus takes time to place a small child in the middle of his arguing disciples. Receiving the gospel can be amazingly simple as well. Welcome our children, today, and welcome the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord.
AMEN.
Comments? Contact Dean Candler at: SCandler@stphilipscathedral.org