We’re doing something just a little differently at church this week. We usually give First Holy Communion to our fifth-graders on Reformation Sunday, and we give Bibles to our third graders on the following Sunday, All Saints Sunday. This year for logistical reasons, we swapped those days. And I find I like the way this has worked much better. The reason is simply symbolic. Celebrating the Reformation means celebrating the Word of God, in both Biblical preaching the Sacraments. All Saints Sunday is a celebration of the communion of saints, in which we participate when we commune at the Eucharist. More on that next week.
The Reformation had many loci of contention, but these two, Holy Communion and the Bible, were perhaps the two most important. Plenty of people could read the Bible—but they were mostly scholars, like Luther. But Luther believed so much in the liberating and comforting power of the Bible, he translated the whole thing into German, so his people could read the Bible for themselves. It is in this spirit that we give the Bible to third-graders, so that they can be liberated and comforted, challenged, and instructed by it, just as adults are. The Bible is the book of the people of God—so children also ought to read it, be familiar with the stories, and then learn how those stories can interpret their own lives.
I remember, as a child not much older than the kids who will receive Bibles, I was playing dodgeball at school. This was in the eighties, and it was fashionable for kids to wear ties. Now I had made a bad throw, which led, very quickly, to our defeat. One tie-wearing kid turned around and yelled at me. I said, “I like your tie.” I said that because I remembered something I learned at Vacation Bible School, when we read about returning evil with good, as Jesus had told us. It worked—the kid and I remained friends, and we didn’t fight. We kept playing dodgeball. I’ll never forget that moment.
That moment happened because since I can remember, I have been reading the Bible, first in children’s stories, and then in the Bible itself, and I lived in a family that expected that our faith would shape our practical lives. I know that all the things that I’ve regretted in my life I’ve done because I chose not to follow what I learned from the Bible and the expectations of my upbringing. So placing the Holy Scriptures in the hands of our children isn’t just a good ceremony; it’s a fulfillment of our Baptismal vows of living according to our faith.
See you Sunday,
Pastor John
