More than once, a reluctant young boy at the dinner table has been exhorted to eat his lima beans, or his spinach, so that “he can grow up big like his daddy.”
Growth is one of the goals that eating serves. There are many other blessings associated with eating and drinking, but growth is certainly one of them.
Although Christians have their differences over infant baptism, we need to remember that in a certain sense all baptisms are infant baptisms. Everyone comes into the Church as a babe, desiring the milk of the Word, as the apostle Peter reminds us. If we follow this out we should learn to see ourselves as a large congregation of toddlers in high chairs.
We must not get caught up in an optical illusion. The fact that most of us are physically mature—or perhaps most of us, I am not sure anymore—sometimes distracts us. We tend to equate physical maturity with spiritual maturity, and the Bible doesn’t do this at all. This is the mistake the disciples made when they tried to shoo away the little kids, provoking the Lord.
“We are big and strong; we understand the ways of God.”
The scriptural response is clear. “You are big and strong, and that is why you have barely started.”
We gather here to eat and drink. We eat and drink for many reasons, but one of them is to grow up into a godly maturity. We should come to this Table expectantly, wanting to be more and more like the one who is seated at the head of the Table, our Lord Jesus. We must stop worshipping at the shrine of endless adolescence. We must stop wanting to regress. God has set before us a glorious future, and we should be oriented to that future.
We take this meal on the first day of the week. This is a future-oriented day, the foundation of all the other days. It is a future-oriented meal, the foundation of all your other meals. Look forward, therefore, to maturity.