By Marshall Scott
The robins are eating my blueberries.
This is not a new problem. It was something of a surprise to me when my wife first pointed it out to me a number of years ago. In part I was surprised because the bushes had born for several years, and no robin had appeared. But I must admit I was more surprised because of all those coloring book images of happy robins tugging struggling worms out of the ground. I had seen them pick at worms. I had even seen them poking through the grass, picking up insects. I had no idea that robins ate berries, much less that they would eat mine.
In years past, I’ve been able to prevent most of their predation. I’ve taken time to build a frame – really, a cage – of concrete reinforcing bar and bird netting. I built it large enough that I could move under it to pick myself, and tight enough that birds couldn’t get in. On the rare occasion one did, it was generally sorry enough not to come back.
But this year the cage didn’t happen. This year the spring rains always seemed to fall on Saturday, or at least on every Saturday when I didn’t have another commitment. Too, my wife is lead gardener for the parish’s new vegetable garden, with the produce committed to another parish’s soup kitchen. So, there wasn’t as much time this year to get the cage built.
And another thing: this year the robins waited. They didn’t show up when the bushes bloomed. They didn’t even show up when the berries first became distinctive. No, they waited. They waited until the berries were full sized, and starting to take on some color. Even then they hung back. I took off the first cup of ripe (or at least ripe enough) berries. And suddenly the next day they were there.
And, to make matters worse there are more of them than ever before. In the past it’s been one, and occasionally two. These days it’s three and frequently four. If I’m outside at the right time, I can scare them off with the solid bang of a deadfall peach thrown at the fence behind them. But of course with more rain and less time I’m not out there enough; and like as not that one cup of blueberries will be all I harvest this year.
I find myself wondering if I didn’t teach them this persistence. Several years – probably several generations – of robins have grown up lusting after my berries. For most of those years they’ve been prevented, stymied by the barrier of net and steel. Did they wait to be sure what I would do? Did they wait, holding back so as to lull me into a sense of security; and then swarm in when, caught by time and hoping they really weren’t coming, I didn’t put my guard up? Indeed, did I teach them to want the berries all the more because they were for so long out of reach?
I have to wonder. That seems too much intelligence, too much planning, to attribute to a robin. On the other hand, there have been those remarkable reports about the ability of some parrots to synthesize spoken concepts. So, who knows? Maybe I did teach them or inspire in them the persistence to wait and seize that which had long been forbidden.
I have occasionally wondered if we needed to do the same thing with the faith. We worry about the next generation of Episcopalians. At our lowest we worry about whether there will be a next generation of Episcopalians. I sometimes wonder whether that would change if we made participation in the Church somehow forbidden.
What if, for example, we barred everyone under sixteen from worship? I don’t mean just making them wait for communion. I mean not allowing them in the door. Can you imagine the young teens trying to sneak into church, instead of sneaking out for an illicit drink? Can you imagine them trying to sneak into the side doors of the transepts instead of the side doors of movie theaters? Can you imagine them surreptitiously reading the Prayer Book under their covers instead of one or another sensational magazine? “Reverse psychology” is largely the stuff of cartoons and situation comedies; and yet there’s enough apparent truth in it that virtually every parent has tried it at least once. Think what might happen if we did that in the Church.
We could think of it like so many other things in life. We hold some things apart as “adult,” things which we forbid to “children,” even children of relatively advanced age. And after all, the one thing that every child wants is to be an adult. If we made Church “adults only,” wouldn’t they clamor to join in?
And, you know, there’s precedent, at least of a sort. In early Eucharists the Peace was the point at which those who weren’t going receive left. Those not yet baptized and those under discipline weren’t just prevented from receiving. They had to leave the building. I have to wonder whether some, at least, didn’t look for a window to at least peek in. Couldn’t that work now?
Well, maybe it could; but, not for us. Oh, it might well get and hold the attention of a number of folks; but I don’t think we could take that step. You see, it may be good marketing, but it’s bad theology.
It is bad theology first because we are called to be people of light, and not of darkness. Certainly, Christ is the Light of the World, but there’s a lot more to it than that. The Gospels call us to put our lamp on the stand, and not under the bed or a bushel. They tell us that what is hidden in darkness will be exposed in the light. They call us to walk in the light.
It’s bad, too, in that we have been shaped, perhaps more than we know, by the same desire as the author of Proverbs. Many times that author speaks of raising children. We know best, “Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray;” but we might also claim “And now, my child, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.” And how shall the child listen to our words if we haven’t shared them?
And so we model ourselves on Peter when Christ called him to evangelize Cornelius. When he spoke to Cornelius, Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” As he reported when he returned to Jerusalem, Peter understood God’s intent to be that Cornelius and “all [his] house will be saved.” In light of that mission, Peter asked, “Who was I that I could hinder God?”
This is, after all, the foundation on which we baptized infants. We want them to grow “in the right way,” a way that we publicly proclaim and in which we want them to participate. To that end we make explicit our expectations of parents that they will see “that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life,” so that “this child [can] grow into the full stature of Christ.” To that end we all commit to support them; after all, we all say, “We will!” We seek to bring them into life in Christ, and not simply the club of Christ.
It is also the foundation on which many of us call for full inclusion and full participation of all the baptized in the life of the Church. Until we see the Kingdom, we will all still have room to grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord; and we pray often enough for our departed brothers and sisters that such growth can continue in the Kingdom as well. The Holy Spirit fell on everyone in Cornelius’ house who heard Peter. So it was that in the face of criticism from the circumcised believers, Peter said, “If then God gave them the same [Spirit] that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”
And so we could not in good faith keep the faith from our youngest, whether they are young in years or simply young in faith. Withholding might make for good marketing in its way. It might even teach some to long for something they cannot have. It just wouldn’t reflect God as he has revealed himself in Christ. It wouldn’t express our call that all participate fully in Christ’s Body, the Church. In short, it wouldn’t demonstrate the faith as we have received it.
This is not to say that we can’t help our newest and our youngest siblings to appreciate the wonder and the value of life in Christ, and so inspire them to live in the Body more fully. I think, though, that we will do that more faithfully and effectively by what we give than by what we withhold; by what we demonstrate than by what we hide. It has been said before, but can bear saying again: if we commend the faith that is in us, if we allow the love of God in Christ to shine through us, we won’t have to worry about the next generation of the Episcopal Church. Living in Christ to the best of our ability will so shape our community and our communion that we are able to welcome our newest and our youngest, and to offer them all the opportunity they can desire to grow in grace and to participate in the life of the Church. They will certainly desire, as we desire, to do more and to know more of life in Christ. It’s just that they will desire it, not because it’s been hidden, but because they will see, first in us and then in themselves, the wonder and the mystery of the love God has for us, and the possibilities to know more, to do more, and to be more.
The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.