One of the ways we include children in worship at the church where I serve is to include children in worship.

Sounds fairly straight forward, don’t you think?

Yesterday was a great day to do that. Lots of motion, movement, 5 senses. The whole shebang. During the short Ash Wednesday service we hold before/during choirschool time, we start outside near a portable fire pit on the front patio. A wood fire is started and the kids and parents and whoever else from the congregation wants to attend (grandmas and grandpas, singles, prayer partners, teenagers, visitors, etc.) gathers with us.

We give the fire pit a nice wide berth because there’s always a little bit of a wind and besides the smoke, there’s sparks. It takes a minute or two to get “the shorter kids” toward the front where they can see the action. Moms and dads will hold the littlest ones up so they can see over the elementary aged kids. Yesterday, one of the grandpas pulled up in his wheelchair. Pastor starts with a brief explanation of what we’re going to do. We explain it every year. Because kids don’t know this story by heart yet. They don’t really remember last year until they’ve done it ten or eleven times.

“Today is Ash Wednesday and we use ashes in the service to remind us about death. Not a very pleasant thing, I suppose but everybody’s going to do it, one day. The ashes are traditionally made from the palms from last years Palm Sunday. Do you remember walking into church last year with palms?” (Some nod;  some just stare at him.)

“We’re going to burn these palms today, but we’re going to use different ashes during the service. Ones that aren’t still hot.” (Chuckles from the parents. Wide eyed I-got-a-crazy-idea looks from the 4th grade boys.)

“The Lord be with you”

“And also with you!” we reply

He reads a short prayer. The fire helper puts dried out palms on the fire. We ooh and aaah at the flare ups and dodge smokey bits of floating palm ash. I remind everyone of the ASL for “Jesus” and “Lord” and we sing a song as we follow the church administrator back into the building. She’s carrying the cross. The kids all love her, and hang out in her office on Wednesdays before choir and try to score M&M’s from her secret stash. Today’s her birthday and we sang happy birthday to her before we came outside.

Come into God’s presence singing Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord!

Over and over we sing that little sentence. We enter the sanctuary through the middle doors and past the baptismal font. Before we started singing and walking I told the kids that they could stop at the font and touch the water. If they wanted to they could trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads and remember that was done when they were baptized. Big kids helped littler kids reach the water. Parents helped the littlest. Everyone found a seat.

It took a long time because there were a lot of people pressing to get close enough to dip their fingers in the water. And then they had to find a seat.

We switched songs.

You have put on Christ; in him you have been baptize. Alleluia! Alleluia!

This is a song we sing when people (babies usually, in our tradition) are baptized. The kids know it from being in church (and not sequestered in Sunday School.)

Finally, we’re all in our seats. I read a couple verses of Psalm 51 [show]Psalm 51 Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. [51:1]Have mercy on me,(1) O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. [2]Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! [3]For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. [4]Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. [5]Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. [6]Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. [7]Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. [8]Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. [9]Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. [10]Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right(2) spirit within me. [11]Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. [12]Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. [13]Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. [14]Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. [15]O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. [16]For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. [17]The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. [18]Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; [19]then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. Footnotes 1. [51:1] Or 'Be gracious to me' 2. [51:10] Or 'steadfast'
. “This is the word of the Lord!” I sing. “Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks be to God!” they sing back. They know this exchange because we’ve taught it to them – over the years. As they’ve grown up. They don’t need handouts or notes. They know it by heart. Because we’ve taught it to them. We sing it a couple of times to teach it to the little ones. they don’t know it yet. But they see the big kids sing it. Every little kid watches bigger kids. That’s how it works.

Pastor leads an “echo” prayer. Then he says “The peace of Christ be with you always.” “And also with you!” we reply. Then we get up out of our seats, look each other in the eye and shake a hand and say “The peace of Christ be with you.” or “God’s peace be with you.” or something like that. Earlier this year we showed kids how to do this. They’ve done it in church (because they’re not sequestered in Sunday School.) We keep doing this until it feels like it’s time to stop.

Then the pastor talks about the cross. We look for crosses in the sanctuary. In the windows, behind the altar, on the tablecloth, even in the ceiling fan! He tells us (again this year) that the cross is a symbol we use to remember how Jesus died and that even though he died, God made him alive again and that today we remember that. And we remember that we will die by tracing that sign of the cross on our foreheads with ashes. And we remember that even though we’re going to die, God is going to make us alive again, just like he did for Jesus. So if you want to (you DON’T have to) you can come up and one of us will put some ashes on your head in the shape of a cross and we will say “Child of God, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

The lines form. I trace ashy crosses on the foreheads of dear, sweet, silly children. And they run to the side where we have large mirrors propped up on the front row of chairs. So they can look and see what it looks like on thier head.

One little boy comes back. His cross is faint. “Sister, can you make mine darker?” “Of course!” I bend down and this time I say, “Child of God, remember: even when you can’t see it you are marked with the cross of Christ, forever.” Unfazed, he runs back to the mirror to see.

One of the elders of the congregation is pushed in his wheelchair to the front of the line. He doesn’t speak anymore. Can’t really raise his head and is lost to his wife of so many years through the ravages of dementia. “Child of God, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” The kids in the line look a little shocked. Did I just call him “child“? They soak it in.

A little later, a Mom holding little twin toddlers comes up. The one isn’t too sure about me. We haven’t really met before. One doesn’t want the ashes. One watches solemnly as I put ashes on Mom’s forehead and call her “child of God” and then nods when Mom asks her if she wants some too. And everyone goes over to the mirror to see what it looks like to be a child of God, marked with ashes.

It’s all a noisy mess. I can’t even really look to see what’s happening because I’m focused on each new person in the front of the line. The adults have the same look of hope and bewilderment and wonder as the kids. Am I really a child of God? What does that even mean? With a few, I can see recent grief or intimacy with the reality of death we’re talking about so casually here. Or at least I think that’s what I see in that look. A couple mumble “thank you” mostly because it seems like you should say something when someone puts ashes on your head and reminds you of your mortality.

Once everyone is done and back in their seats we sing another song – this time a Taize prayer song. Then we pray a short prayer, say the Lord’s prayer together and sing a sending song.

If anybody asks you who I am, who I am, who I am; If anybody asks you who I am, tell them I’m a child of God!”

And we’re done! Off to choir or dinner or whatever awaits for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

30 minutes. 120 or so people – 90% of which were children. Prayer, singing, teaching, Word of God, promise, praise and a little lament. All mixed together, turned to ash and smeared across our faces. Real and mysterious; tangible dust and intangible promise all rolled into one.