This week’s dominant themes of
deciding whom to serve and being prepared to serve well are great
back to school themes. We often
assume (unwisely) that when we speak about making decisions in everyday life
using examples drawn from adult life children will understand and apply them to
their lives. This is a good Sunday to
use school applications assuming that adults will be able to appreciate them
and apply them to their work and community lives (a wiser move since every
adult in the room has experience with going back to school). If it is actually the Sunday before school
begins in your community, check out Back to School in 2012 for more general
ideas. If school is still ahead, you can
be sure children and their parents are already thinking about and preparing for
it. If school started days or weeks ago,
children and their parents are more aware of the challenges of this new year
and may be even more open to these messages.
I Kings 8: (1, 6, 10-11) 22-30, 41-43
The not back to school text
for the day!
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|
N Display or
project a picture of Solomon’s Temple and several of a variety of churches
today. Go for variety - maybe St. Basil’s domes in
Moscow, a huge gothic cathedral, a modern suburban church, a storefront church,
even your own building. ( Go to Art for Proper 11 for a collection of pictures available for your use.) Compare all the ways these buildings differ (colors,
size, shapes) and are alike (planned for worship, usually built using best
available materials). Then go to
Solomon’s admission in verse 27 that no building is big enough to hold
God. List what can be done in church
buildings and their limits – God and God’s plans are bigger than any building
can hold.
N Instead of
thinking about many church buildings, focus on two: Solomon’s temple and your own building. After briefly telling about Solomon building
a temple, recall the building of your own church building. Show pictures of the dedication if available. If your church has lived in more than one
building, bring pictures of all of them.
After telling some stories about important things that happened in your
congregation’s building/s, go to verse 27 and ponder the reality that God is bigger
than that building or any of those buildings.
N Use this story
to do a little worship education about your sanctuary. Start with the
big word sanctuary (maybe printed on a poster).
Then review the names of pulpit, Table, font, and anything else that is
important to your congregation. Point
out why the building is shaped as it is, why the windows are as they are,
etc. If there is art that has special
meaning, point it out and briefly explain its meaning. This meditation on your sanctuary could be a
large part of the real sermon. One conclusion
is to compare the words sanctuary and church.
A sanctuary is a place where people gather to worship. But, a sanctuary is not a church. A church is the people wherever they gather to
worship God and do God’s work.
N Invite
children to draw pictures of the interior of your sanctuary. Challenge them
to be thoughtful about it. From whose
point of view will they draw it? Who
will be the people in it? What will the
people be doing? What pieces will they
be sure to include – Table? Font? Organ?
What else? Before worship cover and
title a bulletin board near the sanctuary and invite children to add their
drawings to the display after worship.
Psalm84
This was likely a song that
pilgrims sang or chanted as they walked toward Solomon’s Temple for annual
celebrations such as Passover. Few
families today make any such trek. Some
youth feel close to this way about going to a summer conference grounds for
annual denominational youth conferences.
So, describe the experience of a family walking together on a long trip
toward the Temple and singing with all the other families walking the road
too. Open the big Bible on your lap to
this psalm, invite the children to imagine they are on such a trip, and ask
them to echo each phrase of verses 1, 10 and 12 as you read them.
Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18
N Invite the
whole congregation to take the part of “the people” in this story. The usual
liturgist serves as the Narrator. A
second reader is Joshua. The
congregation will need a copy of the entire script. This could be done as an Old Testament
Reading or it could be done as an affirmation of faith after a sermon exploring
this story and the call to serve God alone.
N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N
Joshua
24:1-2a, 14-18
Narrator:
Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem. They stood before Joshua and before God. Joshua retold the whole story of their
people. He started with Abraham,
reminded them of the hardships of slavery in Egypt, and recounted the way God
led them out of slavery. He reminded
them that God had been with them while they wandered in the wilderness and had
given them their new homes in the Promised Land. Then Joshua said to all the people,
Joshua: Now therefore honor
the Lord, and serve God sincerely and faithfully. Put away the gods that your ancestors served
beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose
this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the
region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are
living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Narrator: Then the people
answered,
People:
Far be it from us that we should forsake the
Lord to serve other gods; for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our
ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did
those great signs in our sight. The Lord
protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through
whom we passed. And, the Lord drove out
before us all the peoples who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve
the Lord, for the Lord is our God.
Narrator:
This in
the Word of the Lord.
People:
Thanks
be to God.
Based on the NRSV
N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N
N Point to one
of the “big choices” people make to serve God in your tradition – maybe believer’s baptism
or confirmation. This is a
chance to present a familiar ritual the children look forward to as a choice
they must make rather than just a celebration in which they will star. Outline the choice and the work that goes
into making that choice. Then, insist
that we practice for those big choices by “little choices” we make every day. Choosing to include outsiders or say kind
words (even when angry words want to come out) or be a peacemaker among friends
are “little choices” we make to serve God every day. They are the way we get ready for or live out
the “big choices” we make in believers baptism or confirmation.
Psalm 34:15-22
This is psalm offers an
overly simplistic view that God takes care of the good and punishes the
evil. Rather than try to explain your
way beyond that on a day with so much else to offer, I’d go elsewhere with the
children.
Ephesians 6:10-20
N Some use
Paul’s Armor of God image as an opportunity to insist that there is danger out
there and Christians should prepare to meet it.
Others maintain that this is not a call for spiritual warfare, but a
call to trust God as we live each day.
Depending on which way you go, different of the following may be useful.
N If you point
out the dangers in the world, recall the dementors in the Harry Potter
books. They are huge dark creatures that
fly through the air, capture you, wrap you in cold darkness and suck all the
happiness out of you. They can suck your
soul out of you, leaving you like a vegetable.
We don’t encounter dementors at school or around town, but we do
encounter greed, fights between friends, hateful words etc. that are just as
effective at sucking all the happiness out of life and can leave us feeling
like a dried up vegetable. We need to be
as ready to deal with these horrible situations as Harry and his friends had to
be to deal with the dementors.
N Paul used the
image of a soldier’s weapons to urge Christians to be ready to meet the
challenges of living every day. At the
beginning of the school year use the equipment of students to urge the same
preparedness.
Dress
and equip yourself for school with such things as
-
A backpack of
truth - discuss all the good and bad
things we can carry around with us in addition to our school books and homework
and urge students to keep in their backpack only things they would be glad for
God to see
-
A locker of
righteousness – warn about all the trouble especially girls cause each other
decorating their own lockers and leaving notes for each other in their lockers
-
Pencils, pens,
markers to communicate God’s word – make every word you write with them a word
you would say to God
-
Shoes that
proclaim peace – connect to biblical verses about the beautiful feet of those
who come bringing peace with them to whatever shoes we wear back to school
being beautiful not if they are cool but if we bring peace wearing them.
Warning: This is for
the older children. The younger ones see
books as books and pencils as pencils.
You can give them a pencil with a Christian message on it to remind them
of who they are at school, but don’t expect them to see their pencil as a tool of
God or Sword of the Spirit.
Dress
your insides for school. After noting some of the new clothes being
bought for school, encourage the children to gather two invisible things to
carry to school inside themselves.
1.
Fill their brains
with good questions so that they learn everything they possibly can – What? Where?
Who? How? Why?
2.
Fill their hearts
with gentle words, kind deeds, forgiveness, and peacemaking because Jesus is
depending on them. They may be the only
way Jesus can love some of the kids and teachers they meet in class, in the
locker room at the gym, at the table in the cafeteria, and for sure on the bus.
Either
of these preparedness messages will stay with children longer if you give
them something to add to their school gear – a pencil printed with “God
loves you,” a Christian symbol sticker to put inside the flap of their backpack
or in their locker, a trinket to hang on their pack (if they are allowed). The possibilities are endless. Visit a local school supply store or Bible
bookstore.
N Prayer is one
of the best preparations/armor for Christians. Urge families
to add a prayer discipline to their day.
Some
families have a one line blessing or prayer that they say to each other as they part
each morning. Some are delivered
with a hug, others with a high five - maybe “God be with you all day.”
If
parents do not already include prayer in bedtime routines this is a
good time to add it. Suggest that
together parent and child think back over the day to identify things for which they
want to praise and thank God, things about which they need to tell God they are
sorry, and things for which they need God’s help. The parent then voices these prayers with and
for the younger child. Older children
take over the praying first in the parent’s presence, then on their own as they
get older. Some parents conclude by
signing the child’s forehead with a cross or a kiss and saying something like “Remember
always, God loves you and I love – no matter what.”
John 6:56-69
N If you haven’t done
it already in this long series on the bread of life, unpack the image
for children today. Start with food that
is needed to keep us physically alive.
Then point to someone who says some activity is food for them, e.g. church
musicians often say their life would not be worth living without music. Music is their bread. With the children identify other things
people claim as essential to worthwhile life – sports, being out of doors,
etc. Finally, say that John is telling
us that knowing Jesus is the bread of life.
Name activities of your congregation such as worship, church school,
kids clubs, ministries in which children can participate, etc. and describe
each one of them as a source of bread that will make life worth living. Point out that they don’t always feel like
life savers, but insist that over time they are. Encourage children and all worshipers to eat
regularly of the bread of life by participating in these activities.
N Focus not on the
bread but on the difficulty of following Jesus.
Lots of folks gave up on Jesus.
Especially if this is the beginning of your church school year and more
intense activities for children, talk straight with families about the
difficulty of sticking with church. Lots
of people have already given up on it.
Some will start with good intentions to stick with it this year, but
will fizzle out. Encourage families to
work together to make sure they stick with Jesus by sticking with church. (There are obvious ties to Joshua’s “choose
you this day…”)
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