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The last time communion was served at our church, our three-and-a-half-year-old R reached his hand out to take the sacraments. As Steve gently told him that he couldn't have the bread or juice, he leaned over and whispered to me, "It's hard to say no when he's asked Jesus into his heart about a thousand times." I felt the awkwardness, too.
It started last summer, when our five-year-old T prayed the simple and unsolicited prayer, “God, please you be in my heart, and help me do good things." Although I thought this prayer was sweet and certainly a heartfelt response to a recent punishment, I didn't know whether T really knew what he was saying, so I explained the five-year-old basics of what it means to ask Jesus into your heart. Then I asked him if he’d like to ask Jesus to come and live in his heart, and he replied, “But I already did, Mama!” The next morning he woke up with the words, "I a new boy!" and ever since it has been clear to Steve and me that the seed of faith had indeed taken root in his life.
As T exercised his newfound pleasure in praying at meals and bedtime, R picked up on the excitement. He began to pray, "JesusGod, please you be in my heart" at every opportunity. He occasionally talks about Jesus' death on the cross and is impressed enough with God's greatness that he'll sometimes announce, "I'm God!" while wrestling with Steve, because God is obviously the greatest Superhero of them all, right? (Does that fall under the category of "being imitators of God" or sacrilege? I like to think it might elicit a grin from God. Surely Amazing Superhero from an awestruck three-year-old beats a Decrepit Old Grandpa or Lightning Rod Thrower from sarcastic adults. It's better than Bibleman, at any rate.)
Hero worship and Bible trivia aside, we've sort of assumed that Rowan has not yet "officially" received Jesus into his heart. The words are the there, the information is there, but repentance has yet to replace the indignation or smirks that are his typical response to his own naughtiness. Hence the communion rejection. And hence the question, who are we to determine the state of his heart?
I think we have good reasons for making our kids wait to take communion until we're assured that they will take it with seriousness and at least some understanding of what's involved. Even with T, we walk him through it every time, talking about the bread and the juice and the thankfulness we have for what God has done. But I have sometimes wondered, how will we know when the time comes that R is ready?
Kathleen Norris views "conversion as a daily and lifelong process." (44) Believers have long debated whether conversion is a process or a point, with the real question being about where we draw the line between conversion and sanctification. Sometimes I feel like chalking it all up to semantics. Like T, I asked Jesus into my heart at a very young age and never questioned my faith in all my thirty-five years. I tend to view my own conversion more in terms of having a specific starting point, but this is limited to my own perspective - my decision was a result of a process already in place, and initiated by God. The "point" of my conversion has also stretched out into my present, and I trust, will continue into my future as long as I live. Bit by bit, little pieces of me are being converted, drawn into the light and redeemed. Thank God that He allows time to work out His salvation within us, deeper and deeper into our souls! I couldn't handle so much transformation in an instant.
The problem is that we sometimes would prefer to know exactly where a person (more often than not, someone other than ourselves) stands in spiritual terms. We'd like to think it's a helpful way to know and understand a person better, but it more often is a means by which to label and categorize who's in and who's out. It is a tool which helps us decide how to behave around a person. It's so much easier to deal with sheep and goats when you know who's who, right? Kathleen rejects the idea of conversion as a "a product we consume" (42) and challenges those who would try to define the mechanics of conversion too narrowly. But we humans so like to have things nailed down, defined, compartmentalized, checked off the lists of our own making. To refrain from what she refers to as the "idol called 'This is the way we've always done it'" leaves us in a much more tenuous position, one which forces us to acknowledge the unknowable and move foward anyway. It might even force us to shift our attentions from others' conversions to our own. She writes
Maybe the real scariness of conversion lies in admitting that God can work in us however, whenever, and through whatever means God chooses. If the incarnation of Jesus Christ teaches us anything it is that conversion is not one-size-fits-all. Christian conversion is, in fact, incarnational; it is worked out by each individual within the conmmunity of faith. (42)People often mean well. I once had a man challenge Steve and me to "throw away the birth control and let God be in charge of how many children you have" because this is what God had told him in a powerful way. I truly believe he was transformed by his obedience (resulting in a total of nine children). What he failed to acknowledge is that the ways in which God works are as unique as each person He has created. I believe what the man really wanted us to experience was the joy of following God's calling in our lives. His mistake was in trying to define our calling in terms of his own. I do this sometimes when I think every twentysomething Christian should go to Regent College for at least a year - it was so incredibly transformational for me, surely it would be for everyone! But God has such unique paths for each of us to follow.
Along with the incarnational individuality that Kathleen writes about comes divine unpredicability, which can mean a loss of human control over both people and situations. It's hard to relinquish our attempts to control in this way, but it must be done. In humility and reverance, we must continually place our trust in the Spirit. This means believing that He is working in people, and that His ways are better than our ways, and uniquely suited to each soul, which He knows so well and we do not. Regardless of which shade of converted a person is or isn't, my responsibility is the same: to welcome that person into the love of Christ. Leaving the mechanics of conversion to God, we are freed to experience gracious and authentic relationship with others who are different from us. We can help rather than hinder what God is doing in others - and in the process become more aware of and receptive to what He is doing in ourselves.
I'm not too sure just what this means with regard to R. For now, the communion is still off-limits, but we'll trust God to show him and us when he's ready. In the meantime, maybe we can be on the lookout for what we can learn from this little one, who views God as a Superhero and likes to tell Him jokes when he prays. What mystery, how God works in the heart of a three-year-old! What glorious wonder that He would make His home there!
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