Jeremiah 18: 1-11
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| God did not decide we only need 2 arms and reshape us. |
F Working with clay is the best
accompaniment to a sermon on this text.
Either set up a potter working at a wheel while you preach. Or, give the children (or all worshipers) egg
size lumps of clay to work with as you preach.
You might even work with a lump as you preach pondering the process as
you work the clay.
F “Have Thine Own Way, Lord” is an old
hymn that is not in many newer hymnals.
But, if it is in yours it almost demands to be sung with this text. Since the second verse adds the totally
separate washing image and the third verse is about healing rather than molding,
either delete them or introduce the hymn by focusing attention on the first and
fourth verses. Read through them and
introduce them as an important prayer asking God to keep working on us.
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
F Explain that when Middle Eastern people write poems
they rhyme ideas rather than sounds. A
poem is a collection of ideas that may repeat each other or build on each other
or say the opposite of each other. Psalm
139 is a poem about how well God knows each one of us. To help children hear
each rhyming verse and to emphasize that God is with us at every age of our lives
have the passage read by a collection of readers
of all ages using the script below. Readers stand in a line stepping up to a microphone to read
their verses if amplification is needed. There are enough verses for 11 readers. Smaller groups of readers could read two or
more verses each if needed.
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
Reader
1: Lord,
you have examined me and you know me.
You know everything I do;
from far away you understand all my thoughts.
Reader 2: You see me, whether I am
working or resting;
you know all my actions.
Reader 3: Even before I speak,
you already know what I will say.
Reader 4: You are all round me on
every side;
you protect me with your power.
Reader 5: Your knowledge of me is
too deep;
it is beyond my understanding.
Reader 6: You created every part
of me;
you put me together in my mother’s womb.
Reader 7/1: I praise you because you
are to be feared;
all you do is strange and wonderful.
I know it with all my heart.
Reader 8/2: When my bones were being
formed,
carefully put together in my mother’s womb,
when I was growing there in secret,
you knew that I was there-
you saw me before I was born.
Reader 9/3: The days
allotted to me
had all been recorded in your book,
before any of them ever began.
Reader 10/4: O God, how difficult I find your
thoughts;
how many of them there are!
Reader 11/5: If I counted
them,
they would be more
than the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.
Good News Bible (TEV)
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
F To further explore this idea, share St.
Patrick’s Prayer. Children savor
all the concrete places Christ is around us.
To emphasize them and the closeness of Christ, have worshipers follow
hand motions you add as you read. Turn
your hands to the various directions as they are named. Then point to the parts of the body as they
are listed. Because it is a simple prayer,
print it on card stock, perhaps featuring a cross or picture of Jesus. Give cards to children to put some place they
will see it often – maybe in their backpacks or lockers at school or in their
room at home.
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Christ Be
With Me
Christ with me, Christ
before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my
right, Christ on my left,
Christ where I
lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise,
Christ in the
heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the
mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye
that sees me,
Christ in every
ear that hears me.
Saint Patrick
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Two somewhat similar ways to read this
passage in worship:
F Tell the back story. Imagine Moses with all the people on the edge
of the Promised Land. Recall the escape
from Egypt, the 10 Commands, the 40 years in the wilderness. Point out that Moses is old and has appointed
a new leader to take the people into the Land God promised them. This is Moses’ goodbye speech. Then read the text, or ask an elderly man who
is well known in the congregation to read it.
F Invite children forward and meet them
on the steps with the big Bible. Ask how
many of them have been told to make good choices. After briefly talking about what people mean
when they give you “the good choices lecture,” point out that the first “good
choices” lecture is in the Bible.
Briefly tell the story of Moses leading the people out of Egypt and
through the wilderness. Recall God’s
opening the sea for their escape, providing food and water when it was needed,
and giving them the 10 Commandments to show them how to live. Explain that the people are now right on the
border of the Promised Land. Before he
hands leadership over to Joshua, Moses gives the people some advice about
living in their new homes. Then read the
Deuteronomy text using your voice and facial expressions to emphasize the
choices Moses is offering the people.
This is better as the “real” reading of the text for the entire
congregation rather than as a children’s time.
F Behind all this talk
about making choices is the fact that what we do matters. Children need to hear that message
repeatedly. It matters when they do good
things that make life better for the people around them. And, it matters when they do selfish, mean
things that cause trouble. What they
choose to do and not do does make a difference.
Knowing this is one of the building blocks of self-identity and healthy self-esteem.
F The hard part about “choosing life” is
that instead of making one big choice that you make once and then go about your
business, you have to choose life in lots of little choices that you make every
day. For example, given the choice between getting an A or an F on your
report card, most people would choose the A.
But to get that A requires lots of choices every day, like, "should
I do my homework or play a computer game?"
The only way to get the A is to choose to study every day. In the same way, if we want to live in a
happy family, we have to choose to help out sometimes rather than do we want to
do all the time. Likewise, if we want to
choose God’s ways, we have to make that choice over and over again every day.
Psalm 1
F The over
simplification of the difference between good people and bad people in
this psalm appeals to children who do not yet realize that almost no one wears
a totally white or black hat. So direct
the psalm to children. The adults, who
struggle with the nuanced differences between the good and evil, will listen
and get the psalmist’s point too.
F To make the comparison visual, have the psalm read by two readers. Reader 1 (the “good” reader) wears light or
white clothing and Reader 2 (the “evil” reader) wears dark clothing. They begin standing back to back in the center
of the front of the sanctuary. Each one
turns to read or recite their verses facing the congregation then returns to
the starting position. This is most
effective if the readers recite their verses from memory, but good readings are
OK too.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Psalm 1
Reader
1: Happy are those
who do not follow the
advice of the wicked,
or take the path that
sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of
scoffers;
but their delight is in
the law of the Lord,
and on his law they
meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in
its season,
and their leaves do not
wither.
In all that they do, they
prosper.
Reader 2:
The
wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that
the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will
not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the
congregation of the righteous;
Reader 1:
for
the Lord watches over the way of
the righteous,
Reader 2:
but
the way of the wicked will perish.
NRSV
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
NOTE: I used the NRSV in the script
because this psalm is well known in this version. For a translation with an easier vocabulary
for children look at Today’s English Version.
Philemon 1-21
F Consider reading the whole book in
worship for the sheer joy of having read a whole book of the Bible. Invite worshipers to follow along in their
pew Bibles as you read.
F Before reading the book, introduce it and
set the stage so children can follow:
Name
the characters briefly describing their relationships to each other -
Paul
who wrote the letter.
Onesimus, the runaway slave who had become a Christian and a friend of Paul, and
Philemon,
the Christian owner from whom Onesimus had run away.
Explain
the punishment for runaway slaves
Then read the book with dramatic
inflection to emphasize the greetings and all the ways Paul tries to get
Philemon to do what he wants.
F Enjoy the fact that we do not know how this
story ended. List reasons
Philemon might welcome Onesimus back but still as a slave or welcome him back
and free him or punish him as a runaway slave.
Help children understand how much money Philemon would lose if he freed
Onesimus. Imagine what Philemon’s slave-owning friends might say to him if he welcomed Onesimus. Be sure the children know that this was a
very hard choice.
F This story might be presented as a case study in the
choice making called for in Deuteronomy or for the discipleship described in
the gospel. Just as Philemon is called
on to make a hard choice, we can expect to face similar hard choices. It is just part of being a follower of Jesus.
Luke 14:25-33
F Children hear little else in this passage as it is
read beyond the call to hate your mother and father, wife and children, sisters
and brothers. That call scares them even
more than it scares adults because children are so very dependent on their
families – especially on their parents. The
challenge is to find a way to recognize their fear without saying “Jesus didn’t
really mean that.” One way to do this is
to introduce the reading as one of the scariest things Jesus ever said. Tell listeners in advance that Jesus said that if
we want to be his disciples we must put Jesus first even first before our
families, our own safety, or our stuff.
Admit that people have struggled with this ever since Jesus said
it. Suggest that everyone hold hands for
courage as you listen to Jesus’ words. Promise
that you will talk together about what they mean.
F Use this passage to insist that being a disciple is not easy. It is NOT about just being nice or sweet. It is about loving people, even enemies, and
forgiving people who do awful things to you and people you love, and taking
care of people who are not nice to you. Disciples
must be brave and strong. Sooner or
later every follower of Jesus has to do something hard. We don’t often tell children this. But it is true and they need to know it.
F It is a good Sunday to tell the stories about brave
disciples making hard choices.
Rosa
Parks sat down on a bus in
Montgomery Alabama and went to jail for it.
For 382 days black and some white people refused to ride the Montgomery
buses until the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was illegal. Rosa, by Nikki Giovanni, is a
Caldecott Honor book about this. It
takes about 10 minutes to read. To
shorten it, delete some of the early pages starting with “I said give me those
seats” and shorten pages with extraneous details here and there. (Another book that would be more appropriate
with younger children is Rosa’s Bus, by Go S. Kittinger, which tells the
story about the bus on which Rosa rode.)
Eric
Lydell was an Olympic runner who refused to run the race he trained for because
it was scheduled for Sunday morning and he believed running on Sunday would
dishonor God. His story is told in the film "Chariots of Fire." The film is too long for worship, but the story it tells is not.
Some lovely ideas - going to use the Alice in Wonderland story tomorrow evening. By the way, the spelling for Eric Liddell has suffered from typos.
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