As Sundays in Lent are meant for celebration, this Small Church liturgy is designed to be a mini-celebration for your Small Church. This is a shortened liturgy which was designed to be done around a picnic table or in a kitchen. If possible, this week, move your Small Church outside or gathering together for a meal.
Below there are two sections provided for Small Church, guidance for visio divina and a short reflection on the text. The rest of your Small Church time is for enjoying shared life together.
While lighting a candle to remind you of God’s Presence, have someone read the candle prayer.
As our shared Lenten practice this year we are taking a few moments each Sunday to “pray with our eyes” with the practice of visio divina. More information about this practice can be found here.
This week, rather than using art to guide our prayer, we will observe the beauty of God’s creation.
This practice can be done with adults and children. Below are words which a leader can read to guide the group through a visio exercise (one version is for adults, one is for children, but we won’t tell if you combine them).
Lent is a time of simplicity, shedding of excess, and is a time when we can put down some of the extra baggage that we have been carrying around. As we draw close to God during Lent we are reminded of what is most important in our lives.
Read Luke 18:9-14 together.
This parable reverses who we would expect to be saved and who Jesus says will be saved. The person who is doing all the “right” things (at least on a surface level) is rejected, while the one who an outcast and undesirable by society is accepted.
Pay attention to the only thing the tax collector says, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” He does not build himself up, but rather strips himself down.
There is something about laying ourselves bare before God, not trying to be someone we are not, that is freeing, (because God already sees us for who we really are – and God loves us just as we are).
Let’s follow the lead of the tax collector and take some time to cry out “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” This is a chance to set down some of the extra baggage you have been carrying around.
Take some time to share the ways you have come up short. Confess to God the ways that things are not right in the world. As appropriate, name things just to yourself, or share aloud with the group.
After this time of confession, share these words of grace together:
We are not our faults and failures. We are not our success and achievements. God loves us just as we are. Grace is freely given and there is nothing that we need to do to earn it. We find forgiveness and wholeness through Jesus Christ and share this gift of love with those around us.
There is a funny thing about God’s grace. God loves us, sees us, and accepts us just as we are. We do not have to change who we are to earn God’s love. And yet, as we accept this grace and live into a life filled up with God, we do start to change. We are transformed by God’s love. We are shaped and molded so that we reflect the image of God more and more. Through the Spirit’s presence in our lives we begin to care for those who Jesus cared for – we feed the hungry and cloth the naked, we sit with prisoners and eat with those who are rejected by others. We learn to love our enemies. We begin to care less about pursuing the things that the world tells us are important and we care about the things that God tells us are important.
How do you sit with this confusing, wonderful, frustrating, life-giving truth?
How has your life been changed by God’s grace?
Are you being invited to set down any extra baggage? How are you being shaped more into God’s image?
How does God’s grace help you to show up differently in the world? How do you show up for others in the world?
Holy God, in this season of Lent, may we see the world and ourselves as we really are. Help us to unload our extra baggage, set down the things that are weighing on us. Help us to cry out “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Lord Jesus, as we journey with you toward the cross, we bring everything that we are to you, letting it spill out in front of you. As our hopes, disappointments, joys and fears seep out all around us may we come to know your grace – your love—your acceptance. Gather us – and all that has spilled out – up into your loving embrace.
Flowing Spirit, fill us up, ready us to continue on the journey. A journey where we join you in the work of loving your broken, but beautiful world.
Amen
Today’s passage is a tricky one for kids because they don’t have the same context as we do for what it means to sell all our possessions. And I think more importantly this account can be confused when discussing with kids, because the focus is often reduced to a moral lesson about not being so attached to worldly possessions. Don’t get me wrong, that is a valid focus for this passage, but maybe there’s a more helpful and important idea to explore. Jesus sees this young man’s wealth as a barrier for him knowing Jesus in an intimate way. His wealth, privilege, and comfort are getting in the way and the disciples empathize with the man’s realization that this is impossible; cue the visual of a camel fitting into a needle.
If we imagine wealth as something we accumulate or do to protect ourselves, gain control, or keep as an idol for comfort, we may begin to understand why it is, in fact, so impossible to give up. But how do we venture into conversation with kids about this? I think a child’s understanding of this is going to start with understanding who we were created to be. Not perfection, not without stumbles, dents or mistakes, but instead humans who face the reality of sin in our world and lives, who are in desperate need of God’s grace. The devotional below uses the passage from 2 Corinthians 4 that describes us as jars of clay and I hope this metaphor fosters a helpful discussion for you and your kids!
– Janine Coxford
Reflection: From Seasons of Welcome by the Welcome Table
“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen
Have you ever ridden your bike so fast that you felt like you were flying? Or jumping high on a trampoline? Or skiing fast down a mountain? There is something about going fast or jumping higher than we think we can that makes us feel unstoppable, untouchable and unbreakable. Money can do this too. Security found in money, or stuff or relationships can make us feel secure and invincible.
But we are not made to be unstoppable or unbreakable. Whatever we believe about ourselves, however hard we might try to convince ourselves otherwise, we are both limited and fragile.
2 Corinthians 4:7-10 (NLT)
7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
We are the clay pots that hold God’s treasure. Fragile humans, shaped from the dirt of the ground and the dust of the stars to carry within us the breath and light and spirit of our creator.
How cool is that?
And yet…we spend a lot of time trying to hide our imperfections and our cracks.
Somewhere along the way, we learn that imperfections weren’t a good thing, and so we try our best to keep them hidden. But if you look at a piece of pottery, or one of your playdough creations, you will see lots of cracks and dents that make the piece unique. It is what makes the creation beautiful.
Our cracks and imperfections do the same for each one of us.
When we know that everyone has their own cracks, it helps us better understand each other and have grace for one another when we mess up. We all have broken places, and God calls us treasures anyway.
Embracing this reality allows us to grow and become a new creation at every stage.
We weren’t made to be self-sufficient and invincible, but the good news is like a potter with clay in hand, God knows us intimately and is continually holding, reshaping, and mending the cracks within our lives. Our lives are the treasures of God held in the fragile vessels of clay pots that are continually reshaped and mended, held in the loving hands of our potter and creator.
“Salvation measured by obedience is impossible, but Jesus says, ‘What is impossible with man is possible with God.'”
– Larry Parsley
Loving God,
Like a potter with clay,
you know us intimately.
You are never finished crafting.
We are shaped and reshaped through
the work and love of the potter.
Amen
Littles: Play and create something with playdough. You could even provide some jewels or coins that you can describe as treasure and have the kids add them into the playdough representing the treasure in the jar of clay.
Elementary: Make a playdough or air dry jars of clay. You can give them a jar to cover in playdough or clay, or make it free standing. You could cut shapes or cracks into the sides so they can see the treasure inside or light (candles or other small light). This would be a great visual of why weakness is important for us to be able to acknowledge and receive God’s grace in our lives.
This is a prayer for parents to share together.
A Prayer for Lent
By Kayla Craig in To Light Their Way
O Lord, we come to You,
Aware that we have busied ourselves and our family
With full schedules brimming
With places to go
And people to see.
But in doing so,
We have forgotten You.
And Your love
And the mission You have breathed into our lives.
We have chosen the way
Of instant gratification
And of avoidance,
Choosing an abundance of distraction
Over a reliance on You.
O Lord, we come to You,
Unsure of how best to observe Lent.
But even in our unsteady footing,
We come to You,
Arms trembling with the weight
We have taken on—
Weight that was never ours to hold.
O Lord, we want more than this for our kids,
And we thank You that it’s never too late
For us to reorient our hearts to You.
O Lord, we examine our hearts—
Every worry,
Every shortcoming,
Every harbored animosity,
Every selfish act
Every judgement.
Help us not to pick at our scabs,
But help us rip off the bandage
So that our wounds may heal, O Lord.
Shape our hearts
And the hearts of our children
To look like Yours, O God.
Our culture has beckoned us with shiny objects
And faster internet speed,
And we’ve grown accustomed to more
Instead of a daily repentance to—
And reliance on—You.
Help us to know what to let go of
And what holy habits to seek.
Help us hunger and thirst for Your Kingdom.
May we teach our children what it is to go without.
We humbly admit the ways we need You,
And the ways are many, O Lord.
Help us resist temptation
And ignite in our family new ways
To join You in acts of mercy and love
To those around us,
In our communities and streets.
Illuminate the way, O Lord,
For the paths are rocky and the sky is dark.
Illuminate in us
Our need for Your great light.
And may You shine upon our family’s faces
So that our children
Follow Your everlasting light,
For You are the way.
During this season of Lent, O Lord,
We turn away from the ways of the world
And the lies of the evil one.
We put ourselves and our children into Your hands
And follow You,
The One who leads from death into life
