Crowded Altar

The kids' rug was crowded yesterday. Sometimes so was the altar. Not really crowded, there was plenty of room, it was just that Aron's kids made their way up to him a couple times during the service, adding an extra person or two at the altar.

It was wonderful. I don't know if I can find the words to explain it...but I felt it. There was something good about it. Something moving about it.

I can very much appreciate the benefits of formality, adherence to rules of ritual, silence and solemnity, etc. But there is also something good and right about the freedom and presence of the kids Sunday.

What is that good and right thing? My (hopefully not too rambling) thoughts and theories to explain my sense of it follow.

Jesus' words, "suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not." This makes sense. How could Aron, as a priest or as a father forbid the presence of his children with him as he ministers in a service? He couldn't. They belong there. "For of such is the kingdom of heaven." The kids help us realize that this service isn't just about something that we as adults access through our abilities to think and believe and act in a formalized manner. It's about real life and it has to touch us and apply where the rubber meets the road in day to day life and relationships - otherwise what does it mean?

It reminds us that church (at least ideally) is an egalitarian thing. The meanings of church and the Christian community apply to everyone, not just those who can sit still and quiet long enough, or who can understand enough, etc. The way we conduct church should reflect that.

It reminds us that the gospel talks about the importance of us all being as little children. It's not just the priest's kids who belong there on the altar. We all do. The kids' presence just helps us see that. On the one hand I understand the importance of designated roles in which people serve as bearers of religious symbols and the meanings they convey. Yet on the other hand, sometimes those roles separate us too much from each other and from some aspects of our spiritual lives. All of us - laity and clergy alike, children and adults alike, healthy and sick alike, women and men alike...and those fitting many other dichotomies in which we think - all of us, like the kids on the altar, are wandering around in holy places, both profoundly aware and profoundly naive of that which surrounds us; holy places of both religion and life in general that speak of the ultimacies of life & death, that are filled with the presence of the divine, that are infused with struggle as well as grace and love. We are all moving about in this holy place of life with things to receive and things to give.

The image of a little girl at the altar next to her parent celebrating the Eucharist and the deacon standing behind, can be a powerful image.