Sunday Celebration of All Saints Day, Nov. 4, 2007
Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10; Psalm 14,Revevlations of John 7:2-4, 9-17: Matthew 5:1-12.
All preachers and teachers are welcome to use this essay with a simple acceditation.
No further permission is needed. Please note - this is intended to be a sermon directed toward younger children.
Do you get lost in the Bible readings sometimes? I do. Some of them are very hard to understand because the language they were written in was a kind of poetry instead of in everyday language. What we are going to do today is to use todays language to make it easier to understand what the Bible stories meant.
First is the reading from Ecclesiasticus. Can anyone say that? This reading is about really, really well known people who became famous while they were still alive. Some of them are remembered - even to today - because they were very smart amout many, many things and others heard about or read about their thoughts. Others are remembered because they wrote beautiful music and words that everyone would sing. Still other people became famous because they were very brave and were heros to their people. Their memory and their work life on because they had many children and followers who re-told their victories and wisdom and musical pieces.
There were some people who were less well known even though they too were brave, or wrote well, or made up music because they were known by their farmilies and friends. God reminds us that just because fewer people knew them or what they did does NOT mean that people will forget them. They will be remembered too, because God and others considered them very holy and worth remembering: of all the things they left behind, their love of others will be remembered most!
The most important message I can give you today is one that very much relates to all of you sitting in front of me today. There is one line in Jesus' famous speech entitled "The Beatitudes" which very much relates to you and to other, bigger people in different places in the world. It's one line that is in St. Matthew's version of this sermon. The special statement that Jesus made is: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth'. How many of you have heard the word MEEK? Don't feel bad if you haven't heard it or don't know what it means. The word meek sometimes meant humbly patient or spiritless. Today one might give it the meaning of 'not having power'. You are all under 14 and powerless to drive a car. You are powerless to vote. You are powerless to make life changing decisions for hundreds of other people. However, you, the meek, will eventually become the ones who inherit this earth and all that is in it and on it. When you inherit the earth, you will be responsible for its resources. You will vote for those people you believe will be just in their governing. You are all saints in the making -- every single one in this church is a saint in the making. Saints make mistakes sometimes. They goof off sometimes. What they do more than anything else is love God and work, play, think, create, imagine, learn - all as a way of saying Thank You to God. Gratitude is something that each saint shows. Whether it is Saint Francis or Saint Aunt Shirley (who never bothers to use her saint title).
So bend and stretch now, little saints of God. Practice saying THANK YOU in a zillion different ways. You are the ones - meek but for the Love of God - who will inherit the earth!
All preachers and teachers are welcome to use this essay with a simple acceditation.
No further permission is needed. Please note - this is intended to be a sermon directed toward younger children.
Do you get lost in the Bible readings sometimes? I do. Some of them are very hard to understand because the language they were written in was a kind of poetry instead of in everyday language. What we are going to do today is to use todays language to make it easier to understand what the Bible stories meant.
First is the reading from Ecclesiasticus. Can anyone say that? This reading is about really, really well known people who became famous while they were still alive. Some of them are remembered - even to today - because they were very smart amout many, many things and others heard about or read about their thoughts. Others are remembered because they wrote beautiful music and words that everyone would sing. Still other people became famous because they were very brave and were heros to their people. Their memory and their work life on because they had many children and followers who re-told their victories and wisdom and musical pieces.
There were some people who were less well known even though they too were brave, or wrote well, or made up music because they were known by their farmilies and friends. God reminds us that just because fewer people knew them or what they did does NOT mean that people will forget them. They will be remembered too, because God and others considered them very holy and worth remembering: of all the things they left behind, their love of others will be remembered most!
The most important message I can give you today is one that very much relates to all of you sitting in front of me today. There is one line in Jesus' famous speech entitled "The Beatitudes" which very much relates to you and to other, bigger people in different places in the world. It's one line that is in St. Matthew's version of this sermon. The special statement that Jesus made is: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth'. How many of you have heard the word MEEK? Don't feel bad if you haven't heard it or don't know what it means. The word meek sometimes meant humbly patient or spiritless. Today one might give it the meaning of 'not having power'. You are all under 14 and powerless to drive a car. You are powerless to vote. You are powerless to make life changing decisions for hundreds of other people. However, you, the meek, will eventually become the ones who inherit this earth and all that is in it and on it. When you inherit the earth, you will be responsible for its resources. You will vote for those people you believe will be just in their governing. You are all saints in the making -- every single one in this church is a saint in the making. Saints make mistakes sometimes. They goof off sometimes. What they do more than anything else is love God and work, play, think, create, imagine, learn - all as a way of saying Thank You to God. Gratitude is something that each saint shows. Whether it is Saint Francis or Saint Aunt Shirley (who never bothers to use her saint title).
So bend and stretch now, little saints of God. Practice saying THANK YOU in a zillion different ways. You are the ones - meek but for the Love of God - who will inherit the earth!
posted by Joanna Depue | 9:35 PM
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