Giving It One More Chance: a children’s sermon on the parable of the fig tree

March 7th, 2010

This week’s lectionary texts include an under-discussed parable, the story of the unproductive fig tree and the gardener who suggests that all it really needs is a little more manure. There are lots of resonances here as we approach Holy Week: Jesus cursing the fig tree on his way into Jerusalem, Mary Magdalene mistaking Jesus for the gardener on Easter morning. And there are lots of applications for our Lenten journey, as well: if we’re not succeeding so well in our attempt at spiritual practices and fasts (uh, daily posting, anyone?), we should give them one more chance before calling it quits.

In talking about this parable with the kids tomorrow morning, I’m planning to bring back the potted Alleluia we buried on Transfiguration Sunday. It’s a risky sermon because it depends on getting the “right” response to a question — what if the kids agree that it’s best just to give up and start again? We shall see.

You might remember that we buried a word in this pot, a very happy word, a word we are not allowed to say until Easter. We can’t say that word out loud now, because it’s the very serious season of Lent.

Well, it’s been three whole weeks now since we planted it, and NOTHING has happened! Nothing has grown! All I see here is dirt! I am SO mad about this. I really thought something was going to grow by now. What is taking so long? It is so frustrating! I am so mad that I think maybe we should just turn this pot upside down, dump out all the dirt, and start all over again. What do you think? Do you think I should give up?

(hopefully, at least one kid will say no)

Why do you think that? (talk for a minute with the kids) Hmm, do you think I should wait a while before giving up? Maybe give it another chance?

You know, this reminds me of a story Jesus told once. He said there was a man who was growing a fig tree in his garden, because he really wanted to eat some figs. But for three whole years, there were no figs on the tree. He was really angry, and wanted to chop the tree down.

But before he could do that, his gardener said, “Wait. Let’s give this tree one more year. Let’s water it, and fertilize it, and take excellent care of it. Maybe it will grow some figs then. Let’s wait and see.”

Lent is a time for waiting for Easter to come. Sometimes we don’t see what we hope for right away. But we can’t give up. We have to give it time. We have to give it another chance. Let’s give our pot full of dirt another chance. We’ll wait until Easter and see what happens.

Let’s say a prayer together: Dear God - please help us - while we wait - and show us - the great things - you have in store for us - Amen!

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The Best Part

February 23rd, 2010

There was puke on the front steps of the church again this morning. I don’t know how often that happens - I’m usually not the first one here - but I do know that it’s happened the last two mornings that I’ve gotten here first. Nothing like a good look at vomit first thing to start your morning off right.

I should add that it hasn’t been the best of mornings, even before I got to church. I usually get to sleep in on Tuesdays, but today a crew was scheduled to show up at 7:30 to drill a hole through the concrete floor of our bedroom to install a new HVAC system in our building. So I got up early and left early - but not so early that I wasn’t treated to the melodic sounds of heavy drilling as I brushed my teeth. Beyond that, I’ve been having a (totally normal, I know) burst of anxiety as my calendar keeps rolling on toward May 6: “This is the last week of February, and next month is March, and the month after that is April, and I could conceivably have a baby in April, and then my life will never, never be the same.”

And then someone threw up on our steps. Awesome. Last time this happened, I dodged responsibility and our business administrator took care of it when she came in. I felt like it was definitely my turn this time, no matter how disgusting. I headed back to the kitchen and set a bucket in the sink, filling it up with water. And suddenly a song came into my head, a song on the face of it stunningly inappropriate for the circumstances - Susan Werner’s beautiful, devastating May I Suggest: “May I suggest to you this is the best part of your life; this time is blessed and shining, almost blinding bright.” (Seriously, if you don’t know this song, go listen to it right now, before you finish reading this post.)

I sang a few lines out loud in the kitchen, waiting for the bucket to fill, and then hauled it out to the front steps, where a man sat waiting for our food pantry to open. I greeted him, and then sloshed the water over the mess.

“Where’s your maintenance guy?” the man asked. “He called off today,” I said, ruefully. We laughed for a minute, joking about how maybe our custodian, feeling queasy, had exacted revenge upon us, knowing he wouldn’t have to clean it up.

Then the man said, “Are you pregnant?” I nodded. “Your first?” I confirmed it, and he smiled. “Best part of your life,” he said. “You’re going to have the time of your life.” He went on to tell me that he and his wife had eight children and adopted two more, that kids will teach you patience and remind you how to have fun, that babies come to you “straight from Jesus’ side,” that Jesus said we have to become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven and that kids remind us how to do that. “You’re going to be great,” he said. “This is the best part of your life.”

These days are blessed and shining, almost blinding bright.

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Old Palms and Real Fire: a children’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent

February 21st, 2010

I’ve posted two possible children’s sermons already for the first Sunday of Lent, but I don’t plan to use either of them in the morning. Instead, I’ll be using the words below to invite the children, belatedly, into the ritual of Ash Wednesday. (Because our Ash Wednesday liturgy takes place on a weekday at noontime, there are never children present.) Like burying the alleluia, this is the second year in a row I’ve done this with the kids. Last year they were wide-eyed with wonder at the idea of actually burning the palms. “You’re only going to pretend to have fire,” one of them said, confidently, but no — with the help of a large tray of sand, a small crucible of folded aluminum foil, and a lighter, we actually burned them. (Warning if you’ve never burned palms before: they smell kind of … suspicious. Not unlike other, um, herbal materials you might have smelled burning in the past.) Be sure, of course, that the kids are standing far, far back from the burning palms and that you emphasize that they are not to try this at home! This is a good time to have another couple adults on hand to provide adequate supervision.

(Show last year’s palms.) Do you remember these? What kind of branches are these? (Palms!) Last year, on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, we had a parade with these branches. We marched around and waved our branches and shouted “Hosanna!” as we welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem. It was such a happy day. Do you remember that?

Back then, the branches were green and fresh. But now - feel them - they are crunchy and dried out and turning brown. They wouldn’t make a very good parade any more. It would be a sad parade, with these dead, dry palms.

But these palms are still good for something. We can crumple them up, burn them a fire, and make ashes. Ashes are the black dust that’s left over when you have a fire. Long, long ago, ashes made people think of all the parts of their lives that were not good enough - all the parts of their own lives that seemed dusty and burned up. Maybe they felt sorry that they had said something mean to a friend. Maybe they felt sorry that they had taken something that didn’t belong to them. When they looked at the ashes, they thought about how sorry they felt. And so, to show everyone that they were sorry, they put ashes on their heads.

We are beginning a new season in our church year: the season of Lent. Lent is a time when we get ready for Easter. If we want to celebrate Easter right, if we want to be completely filled with joy and happiness, we need to be new people, filled with the new life that God gives. First, we need to look at our lives and ask if there’s anything we are doing that needs to change. If there is, we feel sorry, and we try to change our ways. God loves us so much that God helps us change into new and better people.

On the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, we gather together to tell God that we’re sorry and we want to change. As a sign, we put ashes on our foreheads, just like people did long ago. The minister draws the ashes on us in the shape of a cross, because we know that Jesus loves us always, no matter what. That’s always a good thing to remember. I’m glad we saved these old palms, so they can help us think about how much God loves us, even when we’re feeling sorry.

Today, we are going to make ashes out of these old palms out on the front steps of the church. It’s cold outside, so you can watch from inside the front door while I burn the palms. We are using real fire today. Remember, you should NEVER, EVER use real fire for ANY reason without a grown-up watching carefully. When the palms turn into ashes, if you want, I will draw a cross on your forehead, so you can show that you want to be a new person, a person who’s ready for Easter to come.

Let’s say a prayer together: Dear God - bless these palms - and bless the ashes - they will become - Help us to say - that we’re sorry - and help us - become new people. - amen.

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Charting Spiritual Disciplines with Lenten Calendar Banners

February 20th, 2010

img_79201During this Lenten season at Smithfield UCC, we are focusing on spiritual disciplines. Each Sunday, Senior Minister Doug Patterson is going to challenge the congregation to try a specific practice during the week. For instance, the first week’s focus is Silence, and the “homework assignment” is to spend three 20-minute periods in silence — not reading, not doing the dishes, just being still and listening for God’s voice. Meanwhile, during Pilgrim Adventures with the kids, I’ll be introducing the same practice the grown-ups are talking about upstairs, and I’ll give them a similar challenge (five minutes of silence seems like a lot when you’re only five years old!).

To kick this off, we’re having a special intergenerational workshop this Sunday morning, in place of our regular Smithfield School classes. I’m planning to begin with a quick trivia game to introduce some basic facts about Lent. Then, working in household groups, we’ll be making Lenten calendar banners to chart our progress in the six spiritual disciplines. Here’s how the banners work:img_7919

  • Cut a long, narrow piece of white butcher paper, approximately 10.5″ x 43″. (If you have purple butcher paper, that would be even better; we just have a giant roll of white. Such a roll is an investment well worth making, by the way.)
  • Print outlines of the letters “L-E-N-T” in a large font (I used Maiandra 250 pt) on dark purple paper. Cut out the letters and glue them to the top of the banner. (Dark purple paper can be hard to find … mine is from a ream of Astrobrights paper in assorted colors.)
  • Cut six 4.5″ squares of the dark purple paper. Glue them beneath the lettering, leaving approximately 1 inch between each square.
  • Glue a small envelope (3 5/8″ x 6 1/2″) below the dark purple squares, with the flap facing out. This will be the pocket to hold upcoming Sundays’ cards and the star stickers that will track your progress.
  • Using light purple cardstock, create a 3″ square for each of the weeks of Lent. At the top of the square, print Sunday’s date; at the bottom of the square, print the spiritual practice for the week (e.g. “March 7 - Charity”). Leave space in the middle of the card. This would be much easier if you can find sheets of lavender cardstock; I couldn’t find any, so I had to wrestle with my printer until I got it to print on 3×5 index cards.
  • img_7921With colored pencils, fine-line markers, or other art supplies, illustrate each spiritual practice in the center of the card. I found some of them much easier to represent than others — fresh veggies for “Health” was pretty straightforward, but what to draw for “Silence”? (I settled on a snow-covered landscape, remembering the deep silences of Lake Sunapee in midwinter in my childhood.)
  • Apply Velcro tape hooks to the center of each dark purple square, and the matching loops to the center of each light purple square, so that you can mount each spiritual practice on the calendar when that week arrives. Place the cards in the envelope at the bottom of the banner.
  • Add a sheet of multicolored star stickers to the envelope. Decide which color star will represent each member of the family.
  • Bring the banner home and hang it in a place where you will see it often: on the fridge, on the back of the front door, etc.
  • On each Sunday in Lent, gather as a family to remove the card with that day’s date; use the Velcro to attach it to the banner. As the week goes on, when you have completed your “assignment,” add your star sticker on that week’s square. Use the banner to chart your family’s progress as you experiment with spiritual disciplines, together with your church community!

Special thanks to Greg for his tremendous help with late-night brainstorming as we came up with this idea. I think these will be fun to make on Sunday, and, even more importantly, they will help our families make the connection between church and home during the season of Lent.

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Ashes and Stickers: a children’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent

February 19th, 2010

If the alleluia burial doesn’t strike your fancy, here is another children’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent.

(Just before calling the children to come forward, put two stickers on your face)

What’s new? What’s going on? I see a lot of you looking at me kind of funny. What’s so strange? (duh, you have stickers on your face.) Oh, that. Right. (take off stickers and look at them quizzically) You know, this is the second time this week that people have looked at me strangely for having something on my face. Let me explain.

You see, this past Wednesday was a day called Ash Wednesday. It’s the first day of the church season of Lent. Lent is a time that we spend thinking about how we can grow to be better people, closer and closer to God. We feel sorry for the things we’ve done that haven’t been good. We try to pray more and to be kinder to others and not to take more stuff than we need. We’re doing this because we need to get ready, because in forty days we will have the biggest and best day of the whole year: Easter! When Easter comes, we need to be ready to party.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. It’s called Ash Wednesday because when people come to church that day, the minister puts these on their face, right on their forehead. (show container full of ashes) See? These are ashes. They’re the dust that’s left over when you have a fire. Way back in Bible times, people put ashes on their body to show that they were sorry for the things they did that were wrong. When we put ashes on ourselves today, it shows that we want to start over with God and start to live a better life.

Now, let me tell you: when I had ashes on my face on Wednesday, and I left the church and walked down the street, people looked at me like I was really weird! When I got on the bus, nobody wanted to sit next to me, because I looked so funny.

Sometimes other people think that the kinds of things we do in church are really crazy. Like wearing ashes on our heads. Or … loving our enemies. Or praying for people who hurt us. Or giving our time and money away for free. Or hanging out with all kinds of people, even people who are different from us, because we know God loves everybody. Sometimes it’s good to do things other people think are crazy. And maybe putting ashes on our heads every once in a while can remind us of that.

I wonder if you would like a sticker for your face today to remind you of how sometimes being a part of the church means you do things that seem a little crazy to other people. (give out stickers. You could, alternatively, give out ashes; the kids have no context for the “remember you are dust” language at this point, so you might say something like, “follow Jesus always” instead.)

Let’s say a prayer together. Dear God - thank you - for making us strong enough - to do things - that might seem crazy sometimes. - Help us to love everybody - and to do good - and to be better people. - Help us get ready for Easter - Amen.

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Burying the Alleluia: a children’s sermon for Transfiguration or the First Sunday of Lent

February 18th, 2010

Last night, just as I finished writing this post, our cable modem went on the fritz. I’m trying not to interpret this as divine judgment against the “daily posting in Lent” plan. Hmm.

Bearing in mind that I am dust and that to dust I shall return – and therefore not having particularly high expectations of my own success – I’m going to attempt this whole “daily posting during Lent” thing. Can’t hurt to try. To start with, I’m going to offer three different children’s sermon options for the first Sunday of Lent. I used this first one at Smithfield this past Sunday, for Transfiguration, but it could very easily be adapted for the first Sunday of Lent instead (especially if you’re part of a not-particularly-strict liturgical community that won’t mind a little Alleluia shouting at the start of worship). It’s based on a children’s sermon I heard Molly Baskette preach at First Church Somerville in 2007, complete with imaginative “catching” of alleluias. You can read more about the tradition of burying the alleluia here.

Supplies you need: large plant pot, potting soil, small box, white banner reading “Alleluia”

We have talked before about how the church tells time. Here in the church, we have different seasons from the rest of the world. Instead of having seasons like summer, winter, fall, and spring, we have seasons like Advent and Easter and Epiphany. Every season has a different mood and meaning. And every season has a color. What color do you see in the church today?

White! Today is a special day called Transfiguration. It’s the day we celebrate the moment when the disciples finally realized just how special Jesus is. They went up a mountain and suddenly saw Jesus standing there, with his face shining, and two very important people, Moses and Elijah, standing next to him. The disciples knew then that Jesus was the special Son of God. Today is a very happy day.

When we are happy in the church, we sometimes shout “Alleluia.” Alleluia is a word that means “Glory to God” in Hebrew. It’s a word that we shout when we’re happy about all the wonderful things God has done. Let’s shout “Alleluia” together on the count of 3 … 1, 2, 3, ALLELUIA!!

But next Sunday will be different. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of the season of Lent. The color for Lent is purple, a dark and serious color. Lent is a quiet, serious time of year when we get ready for Easter. It is so quiet and serious that we don’t shout “Glory to God.” We do not say the word “Alleluia” at all. We go without it, so it will seem even more special when we hear it again on Easter Sunday.

So, you will not hear the word “Alleluia” again in the church until Easter. For the next forty days, no one will say that word. We are going to put the Alleluia away. In fact, we are going to put Alleluia in this box and bury the box in this pot. And we won’t dig it up again until Easter.

So, let’s catch some Alleluias in the box. I need your help. Can you say “Alleluia”? (As the kids say “Alleluia,” pantomime “catching” them in the box.) Ok, I think I’ve got them all – here’s the Alleluia (show banner). We’re going to put it in this box, and then let’s sprinkle some dirt over it. (Be careful with the dirt pouring … I spilled so much that on Monday morning the church custodian thanked me for providing him with job security.) Goodbye, Alleluia. We’ll see you on Easter.

Let’s say a prayer together: Dear God – be with us – in the happy times – and the serious times too – Bring us to Easter – when we can say “Alleluia!” — Amen.

I’m going to use our buried Alleluia every Sunday in Lent this year; as a congregation, we will be learning about spiritual practices, and so each week we will water the Alleluia, symbolizing our nourishment of our relationship with God by our practice of the disciplines. And then, on Easter Sunday, the Alleluia will burst into bloom! I’ll have an array of flowers inserted in the plant pot; each child will have one to take home.

Stop by tomorrow for another possible children’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent.

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Links to Start Your Week

February 15th, 2010

I’m thinking about maybe trying to post here daily during Lent, kick-starting my way back into more frequent blogging. However, since my other vague Lenten intention involves reducing the time I waste online, I’m not sure how this is going to shake out. Two days left to decide if I’m looking at feast or fasting!

Speaking of using my online time more wisely, I finally got around to setting up a Google Reader account, so now I can catch up with all the blogs I follow without clicking through to each of them. What took me so long? Following my favorite sites — from excellent Godblogs to friends’ personal updates to cute pictures of baby animals — is now a streamlined, easy process. I don’t miss anything, and neither do I waste time clicking on sites that haven’t been updated in ages. Sweet!

Here are just a few of the Christian-education-related posts that have caught my attention recently:

  • I was struck by the opening quotations from Jeff Gaines in this post on A Church for Starving Artists. Moving from a fact-transmission model of education to a spiritual direction model is not only a matter of curriculum (though I do think the new UCC Faith Practices resources might help); it’s also a shift in our attitudes and expectations as educational leaders.
  • I’ve long been a fan of the “Ask the Matriarch” Thursday feature on Rev Gal Blog Pals. This week’s question concerned the thorny issue of attendance, which we’re struggling with this winter at Smithfield as well.
  • This post on Theolog questions whether youth belong in youth groups, or if teenagers should be integrated into the broader church community. (My personal opinion: why not do both?) There is a lot of thoughtful discussion in the comments.
  • I cannot remember how I found my way here, but this post from last February on a blog called Journey Through the Field of Life has forty fun suggestions for Lenten practices.
  • Pearls Before Swine, my favorite comic strip (and frankly, pretty much the only consistently funny traditional strip out there at the moment) had a moving tribute to the author’s father-in-law last Sunday. File this one in the “funeral homily” folder.

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The Elijah Song

February 9th, 2010

This fall, as we studied the books of the Bible with our small children at Smithfield during Pilgrim Adventures (more about Pilgrim Adventures here), I realized that neither kids nor adults spend enough time reading the great stories in the books of Old Testament history: Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles. So, at the moment, we’re in the midst of a five-week unit on the prophet Elijah.

My husband Greg told me he knew a song about Elijah that I should use, and then racked his brain trying to remember it. My Google searches weren’t helping much, either. Finally he realized: it wasn’t a song about Elijah at all, but a song about Eliza: Li’l Liza Jane. So, it fell to me to re-write the lyrics. I’ve been teaching the kids two or three new verses each week, to match that day’s story. We’ll be finishing up this Sunday, so here’s the song in its entirety. It doesn’t pretend to be great poetry, but it’s pretty catchy.

WEEK ONE: Meeting Elijah (1 Kings 17:1-7)

Knew a man from Israel, prophet of God
And his story I will tell, prophet of God

Chorus: Oh, Elijah, prophet of God
Oh, Elijah, prophet of God

Ahab chased him from the land, prophet of God
Ravens brought food to his hand, prophet of God (chorus)

WEEK TWO: Elijah and the Widow of Zarepath (1 Kings 17:8-24)

The widow had run out of bread, prophet of God
Elijah made sure she was fed, prophet of God (chorus)

When the widow’s son was sick, prophet of God
Elijah prayed and healed him quick, prophet of God (chorus)

WEEK THREE: Elijah and the Priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:1-46)

The other priests had gods of stone, prophet of God
Elijah said, “Trust God alone,” prophet of God (chorus)

The priests of Baal could start no fire, prophet of God
God made Elijah’s flames grow higher, prophet of God (chorus)

WEEK FOUR: Elijah and the Still, Small Voice (1 Kings 19:1-18)

Elijah hid inside the cave, prophet of God
He wasn’t feeling very brave, prophet of God (chorus)

God wasn’t in the wind that shakes, prophet of God
God wasn’t in the fire or quake, prophet of God (chorus)

God spoke in a still, small voice, prophet of God
Elijah heard and he rejoiced, prophet of God (chorus)

WEEK FIVE: Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 19:19-21, 2 Kings 2:1-18)

Elisha put the mantle on, prophet of God
He’d preach when Elijah’s gone, prophet of God (chorus)

While Elisha wore that cloak, prophet of God
Elijah left in wind and smoke, prophet of God (chorus)

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A First Peek at “Faith Practices”

February 3rd, 2010

scarrittGreetings from Nashville! I’m here at the Scarritt-Bennett Center enjoying the Partners in Education National Event, a gathering for educators (lay and ordained) from all over the United Church of Christ. Partners are the designated education gurus in their conferences, serving as consultants for churches seeking advice on curriculum selection, program design, volunteer recruitment, and other tough topics. (If you’re reading this and your church is part of the Penn West conference, give your Partners a call! We’d love to help you out.)

It is humbling to witness the years of experience and expertise represented in this group. These people know Christian education inside out. They’ve lived through decades of innovation and experimentation in educational resources in the United Church of Christ. I have so much to learn from them.

The main event here is the unveiling of the UCC’s brand new set of resources (”we’re not calling it a curriculum, but it’s rich enough that it could function that way,” said Ken Ostermiller, the denomination’s Minister of Curriculum Development), which will debut this fall. It’s called Faith Practices. And let me be the first to tell you: Faith Practices is sweet. I can’t wait to get started using it at Smithfield.

It’s also hard to explain, which is going to be its biggest liability; it takes a little while to wrap your head around what exactly it is, how it’s structured, and what it will take to get it working. Let me give that a try:

Instead of being structured around a sequence of Bible stories, or around the designated lectionary texts, Faith Practices is organized around spiritual practices - stuff we do to express our faith. Rather than teaching about Christianity, Faith Practices teaches how to be Christian; it’s a dramatic, well-nigh Copernican, shift. Spiritual practices are, of course, somewhat trendy in the mainline church at the moment (see the work of Dorothy Bass, among others). But they’re trendy for a reason: spiritual practices are ancient, time-tested ways to grow in faith, effective in a way that no worksheet or (dare I say) cotton ball sheep could ever be.

For the next six years, the UCC is going to publish resources on four practices each year. The first year will focus on Hospitality, Living Stewardship, Keeping Sabbath, and Playing & Living Joyfully. There will be unique resources available for each practice for twelve different “components” (age/setting groups), such as young children, older children, youth, young adults, adults, intergenerational, worship and arts, etc. And here’s where it gets really cool: within each component, there will be fifty-four suggested activities, with each activity taking about 15 minutes to complete. The activities will be grouped into a suggested sequence, but ultimately it’s up to the user which ideas to select for any given session. Faith Practices could be the only resource you need for a full year’s worth of weekly hour-long classes for all the age and interest groups at your church. Or, you can mix and match the activities and use them for shorter-term classes, in retreats and group meetings, within worship services … there are lots of possibilities. Given the very reasonable price ($600 buys you one year of access to everything: all 54 activities in all 12 components of all 4 practices, a total of 2592 activities!), you might also use Faith Practices as a supplement to another existing curriculum.

Let me give you an example, because I know this is unwieldy. Today in a workshop, I experienced one session of the Keeping Sabbath materials, targeted to Seekers & New Church Participants. This session was meant to take place about halfway through a unit on Keeping Sabbath, after the concept had been introduced and studied in scriptural and historical context. We completed three activities: tracing a finger labyrinth, slowly and reflectively walking through the chapel sanctuary, and singing and reflecting on favorite hymns of praise. After each activity, the participants had time to reflect on what we had just done, sharing a few words about what we noticed and how this activity might connect to the theme of Sabbath.

Too often, especially when writing for children, curricula seem to suggest activities just to fill up time and give something fun to do: today we’re making footprints out of clay because we learned about following Jesus. The activities often don’t relate very closely to the actual learning objective, or they make a metaphorical leap that’s beyond a child’s cognitive understanding (today we’re decorating light switch covers because Jesus lights up our lives!). The activities might be fun, and they might teach something, but they don’t actually help participants to grow in faith, which is what Christian education should be all about.

In contrast, in Faith Practices, the activities are the objective. Today, we did not learn about Sabbath; we experienced Sabbath. We didn’t just talk about Christianity; we acted like Christians. These new resources offer the possibility of cultivating real faith in new and exciting ways in our local churches. I hope that UCC congregations can overcome the program’s complex structure to put Faith Practices to work this fall.

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How Great Thou Art, in spite of everything: a children’s sermon about the earthquake in Haiti

January 17th, 2010

Our senior pastor, Doug, is on vacation this week, so I had the opportunity to preach at the Wednesday noontime service. I outlined the sermon on Monday night. I planned to talk about the wedding at Cana, this week’s gospel text, and how Jesus’ first miracle is to bring joy. I started off by talking about the YouTube laughing baby, how maybe as adults we’re a little jealous of that kind of mirth. But such joy is possible, even for us: Jesus works to make the ordinary things of our lives, the jugs of water we already have on hand, into joyful new wine. At the end I brought it all home by referring to the “laughing baby” in the manger and the glad tidings of great joy to all people. Sermon, check!

But then the world changed. On Tuesday night, of course, a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti. For me, the severity of this event didn’t really sink in until Wednesday morning, too late to start thinking about a new sermon, so I went ahead and preached the totally inappropriate homily about joy at the noontime service. Not a strategy I recommend to all you readers out there. In retrospect, it would have been better just to light candles and say prayers and be together in silence.

Tomorrow morning, though, there’s no excuse not to face the earthquake and the inevitable question it poses: where is God in the midst of such tragedy? I don’t think children are too young to be asking that question. In my children’s sermon, I aim to tell the story of the earthquake in terms the kids can understand, drawing on the experiences of our Global Ministries missionaries, Kim and Patrick Bentrott, as described in their excellent blog, Adventures in Life. I have never met Kim and Patrick and hope I do them justice here; in case you two ever read this, thank you for sharing your story, and thank you for your service.

bentrottsThis is Kim and Patrick, and their son Solomon. Kim and Patrick are missionaries. Do you know what it means to be a missionary?

A missionary is a person who goes to live far away to help the mission, the plan, of God. God’s mission is to make sure that all people have enough to eat, that all people have safe places to live, that all people are cared for when they are sick, and that all children can go to school. Kim and Patrick are from Kansas, in the United States, but now they live in Haiti, an island in the Caribbean Sea. The money that we give here at our church to One Great Hour of Sharing helps Kim and Patrick do their work.

Kim is a doctor, so her work in the mission of God is to help sick people. In Haiti, she takes care of the sick and also teaches people who want to be nurses. And Patrick is a teacher. His work in the mission of God in Haiti is to teach young people and also to teach people who want to be ministers. Solomon is only a baby, so he doesn’t have a job yet. His work in the mission of God is to grow up to be strong and faithful and ready to help others.

This week something terrible happened in Haiti. There was an earthquake. The ground shook so much that houses and schools and hospitals and churches and other buildings fell down. Many people were hurt. Many people lost their houses and all their things.

Kim and Patrick and Solomon were not hurt in the earthquake, but many of their new friends in Haiti were hurt. The nursing school where Kim works fell down. The school where Patrick teaches fell down. The apartment building where they live fell down. All of the places where people lived and worked and studied in their town were crushed into a pile of bricks and dust.

On the night of the earthquake, people didn’t have houses to go into or beds to sleep in. They slept outside in the park. Kim said that you could see the stars so much more clearly, since all the bright electric lights were not working. People were scared and sad, so they didn’t fall asleep right away. Instead, they started singing. The song they sung was called “How Great Thou Art.” It’s a song that says how good God is.

God is good. God promises to be with us and to love us always, even when terrible things happen. In the Bible, we read, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea.” God will always be with us to help us, no matter what, just like God is in Haiti right now to help all the people there. God’s love never ends. And we can be part of God’s love by praying for people in Haiti today. Let’s say a prayer together now.

Dear God – You are good – even when times are hard. – Thank you – for helping us – in times of trouble. – Thank you – for Kim and Patrick and Solomon – who work to do your mission. – Please be in Haiti – with all the people – who need your help. – Amen.

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