Pentecost 3B
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In other churches where I’ve served, the Sunday School has
used the Godly Play curriculum. Have you
ever heard of it?
Godly Play is a church school curriculum based on the
principles of the Montessori Schools.
It’s a very interactive way of teaching children that attempts to meet
them and their sense of wonder and curiosity where it very naturally is at that
early childhood stage of development.
In the Godly Play curriculum, the teacher doesn’t lecture
the children, or assign tasks for them to accomplish. Instead, the teacher sits with the children
in a circle on the floor and serves more as a storyteller, and then as a
moderator. It’s a lectionary-based
curriculum, so children learn the same basic stories that are told in church,
but they hear them in a different way - with visual aids. After the story is told, the teacher helps to
guide the children into a deeper understanding of the story by presenting “wondering”
questions. The teacher doesn’t put
anyone on the spot, but opens up discussion on the topic by “wondering” about
the story that’s been told.
“I wonder why Jesus would have done that.”
“I wonder what the blind man first saw.”
And so on.
It provides a space for the children’s imaginations to open
up and to discover the deeper meanings of the stories we all know and study.
One of my favorites of the tools from the Godly Play
teaching resource is its approach to parables.
All of the visual aids for the various stories have a box. But parables have special boxes. Their boxes are painted gold - because, as
the program says, “parables are a gift”.
Sometimes they may seem a little harder to understand than
some of the other stories, but they are a gift.
It may take a bit more digging or unwrapping, but there’s beautiful gift
hidden inside.
Part of why the parables work so well for the Godly Play
method of teaching children is that they inspire the imagination. They often bring up as many questions as they
answer. And Godly Play isn’t just about
depositing information into supposedly empty young minds - it’s about teaching
these minds to engage the Christian story - to engage the challenges and the
questions of our faith - to build literacy.
Parables lend themselves to that kind of teaching. Jesus wasn’t interested in building up the
faith tradition of the mustard seed. The
mustard seed itself wasn’t what was important.
What was important was the ability of the faithful to revision how they
experienced their faith. They needed to
think bigger than the limits of their faith had previously permitted. They needed bigger imaginations.
And so do we.
The thing about big truths is that they usually can’t be
captured in simple facts. Truth is often
much bigger than any fact.
It’s been said that the life of Jesus as a whole is a kind
of parable. Jesus’ life is about more
than just the details of his existence.
It points to some bigger, deeper meaning that goes beyond just the
details of the story.
That’s what parables do.
They’re not just about the story, but about the truth - the gift - that
lies beyond the story.
Seeds make for a good starting place for parables. Seeds, like parables, contain more within
them than is immediately evident.
This morning we heard two parables of seeds. In the first one, the point seems to be that
the seeds grow - not from the inspiration or direction of the farmer - but
apart from any human interaction. The
farmer can play a role in the germination of the seed - in the sowing - but
once that role is accomplished there really isn’t anything more that he can
do. He must wait for the processes
beyond his control to take over.
Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like that. We can have a role in it - in making space
for it - but its flourishing requires forces that are beyond our control.
Moreover, we hear that this kingdom of God isn’t just like
any seed, but like a mustard seed - a tiny seed that grows into a significant
shrub. Its yield is so much bigger than
its initial product would ever suggest.
Though the tiny seed may have appeared insignificant, the shrub it
produces becomes something big enough to cast shade, and to provide shelter for
the birds.
The kingdom of God is like that - as is our role within it. We take these seemingly tiny steps - we sow
these tiny seeds - and there is no end to the wonder that can come of them
through the mystery - the unimaginable gift - of God’s intervention.
I suppose Jesus could have said it that simply: the steps
you take in bringing about the kingdom of God will yield unimaginable
rewards. The things you do, through the
intervention of God, will produce more than the simple things themselves.
Perhaps it would have been easier if Jesus had just said it.
But like the children in the Sunday School, we all learn in
a deeper way when the answers are discovered and discerned and not just simply
heard or passed on.
A parable is a gift.
It’s a gift because it gives us the chance to work through
the big questions of our faith and our relationship with God.
We’ll hear more parables in the weeks and months ahead. I wonder what gifts we’ll find… Amen.
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