The Cookie Tree
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
As the calendar turns to August, stores are featuring back-to-school sales -- which means that children (and their parents) will be enjoying the last few fleeting days of summer before they soon return to the classroom. It's an opportune time to reflect on the difficulties children face in many places around the world, especially Darfur, where there is an epidemic of malnourished children. Unfortunately, the photojournalists' images of emaciated youngsters are all too familiar. Many of these children suffer from a condition known as "marasmus," which literally means something like "wasting away" -- although it's a much broader issue than mere physical malnutrition, having to do with emotional nourishment as well. In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Barbara Jurgensen tells about a native tree that offers great assistance in combating physical malnutrition. Yet as long as war and its horrors persist, hunger and emotional devastation will also persist. Barb suggests that in a sense all of us suffer from marasmus, for we feel an inner emptiness that can only be remedied by the attention provided by God, who Hosea describes in this week's Old Testament lesson (11:1-11) in the tender imagery of a doting parent. Team member Paul Bresnahan offers a different perspective on this week's Gospel lesson, which is all about the spiritual perils of becoming overly attached to wealth. The new federal law raising the minimum wage takes effect this week -- and while Paul notes that the people who work at jobs effected by this legislation are not wealthy by any means, the visibility of this issue, especially when considered together with countless stories about exorbitant CEO salaries, highlights our national obsession with wealth.
The Cookie Tree
by Barbara Jurgensen
THE WORLD
Have you heard of "the cookie tree"?
In tropical areas of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres there's a fast-growing tree whose leaves contain, per 100 grams:
Over twice as much potassium as bananas
Over twice as much protein as cow's milk
Over 3 times as much vitamin A as carrots
Over 3 times as much calcium as cow's milk
Over 7 times as much vitamin C as oranges
It's the moringa tree, whose leaves are harvested, dried in the shade to preserve their vitamin A, and put through a sieve to make a powder. A few tablespoons of this moringa powder added to cookie dough -- or cereal or other foods -- each day can bring a severely malnourished child back to health in a few weeks and keep them healthy.
Relief agencies are discovering that this ancient tree can provide help for today's enormous problem of trying to feed multitudes of hungry people of all ages around the world.
THE WORD
This week's passage from the book of Hosea (11:1-11) gives us a marvelous picture of our Lord who cares for us as a loving father or mother cares for their children, holding them, feeding them, teaching them to walk, cherishing them.
Our Psalm text (107:1-8, 43) pictures a person wandering in the desert, hungry and thirsty, their soul about to faint. When they cry to the Lord, he hears them, and cares, and leads them to a town where they can get help. We see here the hesed, the incomparable, absolutely steadfast love that the Lord has for each of us, his people.
The alternate Old Testament reading (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 -- the well-known "Vanity of vanities" passage) reminds us that those who choose to live their life away from the Lord, without the new life that he can give us, will find that "their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest" (2:23). For them, all is vanity, and it is an unhappy business that God has given them to be busy with (1:2, 13b).
Our New Testament texts call us, as our Lord's followers, to be on guard against all kinds of greed in our lives, for our life does not consist in how many things we own (Luke 12:15). "So if you have been raised with Christ," our Colossians text urges us (3:1, 5), "put to death... greed (which is idolatry)." We are, with our Lord's help, to put aside our greed and to help with the needs of others.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
I've always been fascinated with the passage from the book of Revelation (22:2) that talks about a marvelous tree that we will see someday in the heavenly city, a tree whose leaves will be for the healing of the nations.
Have you ever seen any such tree here on earth? I haven't. I've seen trees that give fruit, like apples and oranges and peaches; and trees that give nuts, like walnuts and pecans; and trees like the maple tree that can provide us with syrup and candy; and trees whose bark provides us with a wonderful spice, like the cinnamon tree.
But I've never seen a tree whose leaves are not only edible but tremendously nutritious -- and even healing for such terrible diseases as malnutrition. I never heard of such a tree until recently, when I learned about a tree that grows in tropical areas around the world.
It's called the moringa, and apparently for a long time people in the tropics have been picking the leaves of the moringa, drying them, pulverizing them, and adding a little of them to foods they were cooking or baking, such as cookies.
It was not until recently when scientists began analyzing the leaves of the moringa tree that we found that they truly can be "for the healing of the nations." They've found that the leaves contain, per 100 grams:
Over twice as much potassium as bananas
Over twice as much protein as cow's milk
Over 3 times as much vitamin A as carrots
Over 3 times as much calcium as cow's milk
Over 7 times as much vitamin C as oranges.
Children who are dying of malnutrition can be given a little of the moringa powder with each meal, and in a few weeks they can be returned to health.
In Columbus, Ohio, the city Parks and Recreation Department has been providing all summer both breakfast and lunch for needy children at churches and other centers around the city. During the school year, the children are given both breakfast and lunch at their schools, and food pantries throughout the city help further with the needs of their families.
And around the world, various relief agencies, including those of many religious denominations, are working to provide food to people in refugee camps and in areas where war and drought and other disasters have demolished the crops. The news about the moringa tree's gifts is causing many of these agencies to begin planting moringa trees and teaching people how to make use of them.
It's a hungry world. Every year, according to Lutheran World Relief, 6 million children under the age of 5 die as a result of malnutrition.
The hungry have to be fed. Jesus said: "I was hungry and you gave me food.... Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:35, 40).
In some parts of the world, the people may have enough food, but it's not as nourishing as it needs to be. There's a name for the physical disease caused by a lack of the essentials of good nourishment: it's marasmus, from the Greek marasmos, which means "wasting away."
There's also a psychological disease called marasmus, caused by a lack of emotional nourishment, by a lack of being hugged and spoken to lovingly.
Babies with health problems who need to be kept in a hospital nursery for weeks can literally waste away unless someone picks them up regularly and holds them and talks to them and gives them loving attention.
Our Old Testament passage from the book of Hosea tells us that our Heavenly Father, the Lord God of All Creation, is the one who, as he did with the Israelites, picks us up in his arms, lifts us lovingly to his cheeks, feeds us, and leads us with kindness.
"When Israel was a child," the Lord says, "I loved him. I taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms, I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. I led them with cords of human kindness" (Hosea 11:1-11). And our Lord does the same for us.
The Psalmist tells us that we are each like a person who's been wandering in the desert, hungry and thirsty, our soul fainting within us -- and that we cried to the Lord, and he led us to a town where we could be given all that we needed (Psalm 107:1-8, 43).
Is there any one of us who doesn't need all this? Maybe all of us have marasmus, a lack that nothing here on this earth can fully satisfy -- a lack, an emptiness, a hunger that can only be filled by a Father who loves us so completely, so unfailingly.
The book of Revelation (22:2) tells us that when we reach the heavenly city we will see the river of the water of life, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. And on either side of the river is the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
All of us have a deep hunger -- not just people in war-torn places, but all of us. All of us need not only good food to nourish our bodies; we need the Lord to nourish our inmost being. He who hung on a tree for us can be for us the tree of life.
ANOTHER VIEW
Greed and Idolatry
by Paul Bresnahan
The Gospel tells us this week to guard against all kinds of greed. If it is true that the love of money is at the root of all evil, then this is very good advice indeed. Life in America makes that ideal difficult, however. For instance, at the same time that the Gospel tells us to be against all kinds of greed, the minimum wage increased from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour. While that may not be evidence of greed, it is an indication that the index of our life's well-being is fixed, at least in part, on our hourly pay. It is the first increase in the minimum wage in more than 10 years. Some feel the adjustment is long overdue, and many others feel it will have an adverse effect on the economy. And as I write this, Joe Naccio, the ex-Qwest executive, has been convicted of insider trading. In short, that means that while investors in his communications company watched their investments tumble in value from $60 to $2 a share, he "wisely" traded out his shares at a point that gave him a $52 million profit. Is there any greed in this dynamic?
Whatever the case, let me suggest that we have not altogether freed ourselves from idolatry and the "Golden Calf" mentality of our spiritual ancestors. Many of us grew up in homes where we were taught to believe in the "almighty dollar," whether we were children of the working class or of management and the middle class. I am a product of a "mixed marriage." My mom came from a long line of "blue collar" folk and union people. She married into "management," and I remember vividly being snatched out of the coziness of the old neighborhood when they got married. Suddenly I found myself in a new subdivision complete with a privacy fence, an outdoor barbecue, and a sense of alienation between us and our neighbors.
There was a cost/benefit ratio for me in the experience. In the old neighborhood schools few of us went on to college. In the new development everyone was "expected" to go to college. We had lots of homework, and suddenly there were lots of books around to read. That was not the case in the "old" family. I became the first in my family to go to college, and I considered that a bit of an achievement then and still do now.
I was rescued from a life sentence of minimum-wage jobs. Most of the attractive union jobs held by my "old" family have gone overseas now. And I have gone on to the comfortable life of a respected clergyman. My family had appealed to me not to go into the church business. I protested. "I like people," I said. "Then go into personnel at least," they pleaded.
Whether we were union or management, we all believed in the "bottom line." It was all right to go to church as long as you didn't take that too far. I took it all the way to the priesthood. That was way too far in the minds of my kinfolk. We were a "born-again" secular family, whether union or management, and we believed in the power of the "greenback."
This week's Gospel goes on to say that even when we lay up treasures for ourselves in our vast storehouses, our very lives are vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life. We live and die. We are healthy and we get sick. We prosper and we lose our resources. Just like the marriage service teaches us, in vows we so often take for granted and without a full appreciation of the truth they proclaim: we take each other for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, and until we are parted by death.
It seems to be dawning on many that as America grays, and as we hoard our wealth or health or even life itself, all we manage to do is to tighten our grasp around the tangible. The tighter we grab onto what we have, the more likely it will sift through our fingers as sand falls from a clenched fist. Have we forgotten that who we are and what we have is not ours but God's? Have we forgotten the simplest fact about us -- that we are "dust" and to the "dust" we shall return? This is what the Gospel is trying to remind the rich man in today's proclamation. You may indeed store up for yourself all kinds of grain in your vast storehouses, but if you forget that you belong to God, you risk endangering all that you have and all that you are. That's a risk we all face. We delude ourselves into thinking that what we have is "all mine." It is not -- it is all God's. We can do with it as it pleases us; but if it doesn't please God... I shudder to think of the repercussions.
Some gifts are temporal and some are eternal. Among those that are eternal gifts are the gifts of life and love and eternal life. Those are the things that matter. Those are the things that shall endure. Sometimes we think that if we give God 10% we're even. That could not be further from the truth. Everything we have and all that we are is from God. The 10% some give and some don't is merely the biblical injunction to proportional giving... and proportional giving cheerfully! My dear friends, 100% of it belongs to God. There is a turn of phrase in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer's marriage service that I'm fond of. As the bride and groom give one another rings, they make this pledge: "I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you." That's the ideal of the intimacy of human love. What a wonderful way to live in partnership with another human being -- as friends for life, as partners whose very souls touch in the co-mingling of their lives. That image befits our intimacy with God as well. The plain and simple truth in the matter of our spiritual intimacy with God is that everything we have and all that we are is also God's. God is there at every moment knocking at the door, willing to be an open heart to us, eager to respond to our most humble and urgent requests. Yes, everything we are and all that we have in life is from God. As we live out our lives, we decide moment by moment how much we truly want to belong to God and to God's beloved. Nothing, absolutely nothing, goes with us... except for the thing that matters most -- eternal life!
So while we have this breath to breathe, let us do ourselves the favor of doing it wisely and in the fear of God. As Paul advised rightly, let us "seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." Let us put off the old self and put on Christ as we would a garment. Let us clothe ourselves carefully as we would any wardrobe; to look our best, only let us remember that we are to present ourselves to God in the purity and in the joy of heaven.
ILLUSTRATIONS
I recently visited a couple who are planning on joining the church. They were telling me about their grand-son-in-law, who I had met when I did the matriarch's funeral this past May. A native of India, he returned there last month to attend the wedding of his older brother. It was a typical wedding, with family and friends gathered to celebrate the love which brought the couple together. A typical story.
It was what happened after the wedding which was not typical. After the ceremony, the wedding party departed the church, but not to go to a big, fancy, expensive reception. No, they went to the local orphanage. And when they arrived, they announced that in honor of the joyous day, the families were giving full college scholarships to two of the residents of the orphanage.
The families could have accumulated a lot of memories, a lot of videos, a lot of pictures, a lot of bills by throwing a lavish reception. Instead, they chose to change the lives of two young people.
-- Thom Shuman
***
The problem with a person who experiences marasmus is that we seek the wrong things with which to fill ourselves. In his book Credo (Westminster John Knox, 2003), William Sloane Coffin reminds us:
"There is in other words a difference between having a friend and being a friend, between having success and being successful, between getting an education and becoming learned. If we use knowledge, music, art, sports, and eminently others -- if we use them just to enrich ourselves, then paradoxically we impoverish ourselves, at least at our very core. For all things then become as clothes: they cover but they do not touch or develop our inner being, and we become as those who believe they can only become visible when something visible covers the surface.
"But if we give ourselves to art, music, sports, knowledge, and eminently to others, then we experience that biblical truth that 'he who loses his life shall find it,' shall find life being fulfilled, and find that joy is self-fulfillment, self-fulfillment is joy" (p. 1).
***
The Sidra Emor contains legislation for Aaron, his sons, and future generations of priests, and also for the people as a whole (Leviticus 23). Most of the people were farmers, and the legislation spoke about the harvest; one notable purpose was to ensure that poor people were treated with kindness: "And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger" (23:22).
Kind -- the word has a familiar ring. It has another meaning, also familiar -- kind as in kin -- "related to." It is easier to be kind when we remember that you and I are kin, and akin.
Sometimes we find fulfillment through the simple act of being kind to another person.
-- Rabbi Chaim Stern, Day by Day: Reflections on the Themes of the Torah from Literature, Philosophy, and Religious Thought (Beacon Press, 1998), p. 207
***
In our Colossians lesson, Paul speaks about putting to death several qualities, including "greed," which he then defines as idolatry.
The June 12, 2007 issue of Christian Century reported the following story: "Robbie Brown received a $20,000 achievement award when he graduated from Emory University. But instead of spending the money on a new car -- he drives a beat-up 1988 Volvo station wagon -- or setting it aside for law school, he chose to give it to fellow Emory student Elizabeth Sholtys, who opened a home for street children in India during her junior year of college. Sholtys spends almost nine months of the year working at her home for children in the slums of Pune, India. Sholtys completed much of her college work online. Due to Brown's generosity, she hopes to provide health education classes and clinical care for street children and their families."
The question is: Why is that act so unusual that it is reported as news? Perhaps Christians are filled but still have to work on setting our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2).
***
There's a famous story of Frederick the Great of Prussia -- a powerful ruler of the European Enlightenment, a man of great scientific curiosity as well as a leader of armies. Frederick once conducted an unusual scientific experiment into the development of human language. There was a theory of the time that the babbling of infants was, in some mysterious sense, related to the ancient language of Eden -- but that children lost this oldest of all mother-tongues as they grew and learned the language of their parents.
Frederick devised an experiment to test this theory. He had his scientists take some newborn, orphaned babies and isolate them from all physical contact with human beings. The babies would be kept in separate rooms, with no contact with each other. Not a word of language was to be spoken in their presence. Specially trained nurses would see to the babies' physical needs -- feeding them and making sure they stayed warm -- but they were forbidden to pick them up and embrace them. Once the children grew old enough to speak, they would be brought into the presence of the other children in the experiment, to see if they could converse with one another.
The experiment was an utter failure. Not one of those poor children lived beyond infancy -- let alone to the age when language begins to develop in earnest. The one thing King Frederick learned from his cruel and ill-considered experiment was that the physical touch of another human being is essential to life. If babies are not picked up and hugged and caressed, they have but a slim chance of surviving to maturity.
***
I was sitting in the radiation waiting room yesterday morning. It was crowded. The computers had crashed earlier and everything was running way behind schedule. Everyone else there seemed to know one another; they had been getting the treatments for a while. I was the new guy, but was immediately welcomed into that instant community of cancer patients. Everyone there was older. At 51, I was one of the younger patients.
And then one of the men said, "There's a child in there." The big lead door had opened and he could see into the treatment room. Immediately, everything changed. The room got sort of quiet; people even lowered their voices. This was something terrible.
Everyone in that room was fighting his own battle. One man had said that the treatment seemed to be working for him -- his tumors were shrinking. Another woman didn't know yet -- she still had about 20 sessions to go. But all of that was quickly forgotten. "There's a child in there."
Sure enough, the door opened, and a bed was wheeled out. Lying there, apparently knocked out by anesthesia, was a young boy, probably about 7 or 8, certainly no older than 10. He was bald, probably from chemo. He was clearly very sick.
We all watched in silence as he was wheeled away. I can't imagine the agony his parents must feel. I can't imagine the agony he must feel. And then the man next to me said, "It's not right. We've all had long lives. That's not right."
You have to wonder what the future holds for that little boy. Will he survive long enough to learn to drive? Feel his first crush? Have his first kiss? Will he get to grow up? I don't know. I probably never will. But that man was dead-on. It's not right.
-- Leroy Sievers, "My Cancer" blog entry of January 3, 2007
***
"Even now, in the wake of the tsunami, we know more about tectonic plates buried under the ocean than we do about our own heart of darkness. Where on earth is the early warning system for man-made disasters?"
* newspaper columnist Ellen Goodman, writing in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
Reflecting on Goodman's remark, Bill Wiser noted in the "Your Daily Dig" e-newsletter of bruderhof.com: "Some people call that early warning system the conscience. It's the still small voice that tells us when we've done wrong. It's also the clarion call to action when we don't feel satisfied with things as they are."
When children go to bed hungry, it's because the early-warning system that is the human conscience has failed to sound its alarm.
***
The sixth-century church father Dorotheos of Gaza was the abbot of a monastery. As with all monasteries, the monks sometimes had difficulty getting along with one another. In one such time of conflict, he preached a famous sermon in which he taught that God's design is that we are all connected to one another.
Imagine the world, Dorotheos taught, as a great circle, with God in the center. Arranged along the circumference are all human lives. There is no way to draw closer to God, he said, without also drawing closer to one another. By the same token, it is impossible to reach out to another human being without also reaching out to God.
So, too, when we reach out to the nameless needy and hungry people in our world. As Jesus said, "I was hungry and you gave me food..."
***
There is a tradition in Jewish literature of rabbis telling stories about the actions of fools. In one such story, there are two men out in a rowboat. One notices that the other is on his knees, busily doing something at the bottom of the boat.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I'm drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat."
"You can't do that! We'll both drown."
"Why should that be of any concern to you?" asks the other. "I'm drilling on my side of the boat!"
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman
Call to Worship
Leader: God of the past,
who whispered in the prophets' ears;
who rescued us from sin's slavery:
People: we are here to thank you.
Leader: God of the future,
who is tearing down the old world,
and building your kingdom in our midst:
People: we are here because we trust you.
Leader: God of the present,
who, in the giftedness of our diversity,
creates us to be one people:
People: we are here to praise you.
Leader: God of life
that surprises us when we find it within us:
People: we celebrate your grace.
Prayer of the Day (and Our Lord's Prayer)
Steadfast Love:
like a child running down the sidewalk
to play with her best friend on a summer's day,
you eagerly come towards us.
Child of God:
with the anxious heart of a mother waiting at midnight,
you long for us to come home,
your arms aching to hold us.
Fullness of Grace:
when all others have turned away from us,
you throw open the gates of the kingdom,
inviting us in to share at the Table of hope prepared just for us.
God in Community, Holy in One,
hear us as we pray as Jesus taught us,
Our Father . . .
Call to Reconciliation
When we could be revived by God's grace,
we find ourselves fearing God's judgment,
doubting God's joy in us,
fearing God has turned away from us.
Let us come to the One who heals us and calls each of us by name.
Please join me as we pray . . .
(Unison) Prayer of Confession
You hold nothing back from us, Amazing God,
yet we are determined to cling to what we have accumulated.
We spend so much time eating out,
we cannot feel the deep ache our hunger for you causes.
You invite us to set aside our old ways, and walk with you,
but unknown paths fill us with fear.
Have mercy on us, Bread of Heaven.
We come to the Table of grace and hope,
not for our personal satisfaction,
but for the joy of recognizing the One who calls us to new life,
and for the grace to share this joy with everyone we meet.
This we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: Do not be afraid.
More than anything else,
God would rather turn fetid swamps into pools of crystal clear water;
bonds of sin into cords of compassion;
sinners into servants.
People: God loves us.
God forgives us.
God lifts us to new life.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Great Prayer of Thanksgiving
Leader: May God be with you.
People: May God also be with you.
Leader: People of God, open up your hearts.
People: We open them to God and one another.
Leader: People of God, give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give thanks to the One who offers us lives filled with grace.
When we were children running footloose through grace,
you loved us, Tender God:
dappling the night skies with the bright stars of morning,
teaching us to walk the paths of that first dawn,
telling us of your dreams for all you created.
When, in our hurry to greet you,
we fell, skinning our knees,
you lifted us up in your arms,
holding us to your cheeks wet with joy.
When we missed your calling us to wash up for dinner,
you came and found us,
taking us by the hand to feed us from Eden's abundance.
But when we grew up,
we knew more than you,
turning to the idols of wealth and power,
who promised to serve us even as they shackled us;
giving ourselves over to anxiety's sweet caress.
Yet you are God, not a foolish human.
You remain in our midst, not to punish or destroy,
but to reach out and bring us home to your heart.
Therefore, we joyfully lift our voices,
with those who have gone before us,
and those who stand beside us,
singing our praise for your great love:
(Sanctus)
Holy are you, God of infinite tenderness,
and blessed is Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord and Savior.
Breaking the enslaving bonds of sin,
he binds our wounds with cords of compassion;
walking with us when we had lost our way,
he shows us the paths to the kingdom;
stripping himself of glory and honor,
he clothes us in the new life of faith;
leaving aside his equality with you,
he became one of us,
so we might be one with you.
Remembering that you did not give up on us
or hand us over to sin and death,
but showered us with your mercy in Christ Jesus,
we take the bread of life and the cup of grace
and joyfully celebrate that mystery we call faith:
(Memorial Acclamation)
Compassionate God,
pour out your gracious Spirit on us,
and on these, your simple gifts.
Fill us with the broken bread,
that we might be made whole;
touch our parched lips with the cup of salvation,
so we might proclaim your gospel.
Then send us forth:
our hearts recoiling at the oppression suffered by our sisters and brothers;
our hands willing to build shelter for those cast out by the world;
our arms surrounding the lost and the least, in the embrace of common humanity.
Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,
in unity with the Holy Spirit,
all glory and honor are yours,
God of love, now and forever. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Watch Out for Greed!
Luke 12:13-21
Object: a big bowl of candy
See this big bowl of candy? I'm going to divide it into three piles. (Separate the candy. Give one pile just a few pieces of candy, one pile a lot of candy, and one pile somewhere in between.) Now, I need three volunteers to help me. (Choose three children. Place a child behind each pile, so that one child has a few pieces of candy, and so on.)
Each person has a different amount of candy, see? Which child has the biggest pile? (Point to the child the others indicate.) Which person is the luckiest? (Let them answer.) Which person is the best? (Let them answer.) Be careful now. Is the person with the most candy really the best? Why or why not? (Let them answer.) Okay, you guys can sit down now. Thanks for your help.
I don't think that having the most candy makes someone the best. That person may be blessed to have so much, but that doesn't make him any better than anyone else is. Our Bible verses today tell us not to be greedy. Greed is when you want more and more stuff and when you can't be happy with just a little. Some people make the mistake of thinking that more is better -- that they are better people if they have more stuff. Jesus warns us not to think like that.
Being greedy can make you sick inside. Greed can keep you from seeing what's really important in life, and it makes you forget to love others. It's not what you own that makes you special. All people are special to God. It also doesn't matter what you wear, what you look like, where you live, or how old you are. All people are special, and God loves us all just the same. Be careful to keep your heart in the right place and live the way God asks us to live. (If appropriate, you might give each child a piece of candy as they leave.)
Prayer: Dear God, please help us remember that you love all people the same. It doesn't matter how much we own; we are all valuable in your eyes. Help us see the world the way you do. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, August 5, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
The Cookie Tree
by Barbara Jurgensen
THE WORLD
Have you heard of "the cookie tree"?
In tropical areas of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres there's a fast-growing tree whose leaves contain, per 100 grams:
Over twice as much potassium as bananas
Over twice as much protein as cow's milk
Over 3 times as much vitamin A as carrots
Over 3 times as much calcium as cow's milk
Over 7 times as much vitamin C as oranges
It's the moringa tree, whose leaves are harvested, dried in the shade to preserve their vitamin A, and put through a sieve to make a powder. A few tablespoons of this moringa powder added to cookie dough -- or cereal or other foods -- each day can bring a severely malnourished child back to health in a few weeks and keep them healthy.
Relief agencies are discovering that this ancient tree can provide help for today's enormous problem of trying to feed multitudes of hungry people of all ages around the world.
THE WORD
This week's passage from the book of Hosea (11:1-11) gives us a marvelous picture of our Lord who cares for us as a loving father or mother cares for their children, holding them, feeding them, teaching them to walk, cherishing them.
Our Psalm text (107:1-8, 43) pictures a person wandering in the desert, hungry and thirsty, their soul about to faint. When they cry to the Lord, he hears them, and cares, and leads them to a town where they can get help. We see here the hesed, the incomparable, absolutely steadfast love that the Lord has for each of us, his people.
The alternate Old Testament reading (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 -- the well-known "Vanity of vanities" passage) reminds us that those who choose to live their life away from the Lord, without the new life that he can give us, will find that "their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest" (2:23). For them, all is vanity, and it is an unhappy business that God has given them to be busy with (1:2, 13b).
Our New Testament texts call us, as our Lord's followers, to be on guard against all kinds of greed in our lives, for our life does not consist in how many things we own (Luke 12:15). "So if you have been raised with Christ," our Colossians text urges us (3:1, 5), "put to death... greed (which is idolatry)." We are, with our Lord's help, to put aside our greed and to help with the needs of others.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
I've always been fascinated with the passage from the book of Revelation (22:2) that talks about a marvelous tree that we will see someday in the heavenly city, a tree whose leaves will be for the healing of the nations.
Have you ever seen any such tree here on earth? I haven't. I've seen trees that give fruit, like apples and oranges and peaches; and trees that give nuts, like walnuts and pecans; and trees like the maple tree that can provide us with syrup and candy; and trees whose bark provides us with a wonderful spice, like the cinnamon tree.
But I've never seen a tree whose leaves are not only edible but tremendously nutritious -- and even healing for such terrible diseases as malnutrition. I never heard of such a tree until recently, when I learned about a tree that grows in tropical areas around the world.
It's called the moringa, and apparently for a long time people in the tropics have been picking the leaves of the moringa, drying them, pulverizing them, and adding a little of them to foods they were cooking or baking, such as cookies.
It was not until recently when scientists began analyzing the leaves of the moringa tree that we found that they truly can be "for the healing of the nations." They've found that the leaves contain, per 100 grams:
Over twice as much potassium as bananas
Over twice as much protein as cow's milk
Over 3 times as much vitamin A as carrots
Over 3 times as much calcium as cow's milk
Over 7 times as much vitamin C as oranges.
Children who are dying of malnutrition can be given a little of the moringa powder with each meal, and in a few weeks they can be returned to health.
In Columbus, Ohio, the city Parks and Recreation Department has been providing all summer both breakfast and lunch for needy children at churches and other centers around the city. During the school year, the children are given both breakfast and lunch at their schools, and food pantries throughout the city help further with the needs of their families.
And around the world, various relief agencies, including those of many religious denominations, are working to provide food to people in refugee camps and in areas where war and drought and other disasters have demolished the crops. The news about the moringa tree's gifts is causing many of these agencies to begin planting moringa trees and teaching people how to make use of them.
It's a hungry world. Every year, according to Lutheran World Relief, 6 million children under the age of 5 die as a result of malnutrition.
The hungry have to be fed. Jesus said: "I was hungry and you gave me food.... Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:35, 40).
In some parts of the world, the people may have enough food, but it's not as nourishing as it needs to be. There's a name for the physical disease caused by a lack of the essentials of good nourishment: it's marasmus, from the Greek marasmos, which means "wasting away."
There's also a psychological disease called marasmus, caused by a lack of emotional nourishment, by a lack of being hugged and spoken to lovingly.
Babies with health problems who need to be kept in a hospital nursery for weeks can literally waste away unless someone picks them up regularly and holds them and talks to them and gives them loving attention.
Our Old Testament passage from the book of Hosea tells us that our Heavenly Father, the Lord God of All Creation, is the one who, as he did with the Israelites, picks us up in his arms, lifts us lovingly to his cheeks, feeds us, and leads us with kindness.
"When Israel was a child," the Lord says, "I loved him. I taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms, I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. I led them with cords of human kindness" (Hosea 11:1-11). And our Lord does the same for us.
The Psalmist tells us that we are each like a person who's been wandering in the desert, hungry and thirsty, our soul fainting within us -- and that we cried to the Lord, and he led us to a town where we could be given all that we needed (Psalm 107:1-8, 43).
Is there any one of us who doesn't need all this? Maybe all of us have marasmus, a lack that nothing here on this earth can fully satisfy -- a lack, an emptiness, a hunger that can only be filled by a Father who loves us so completely, so unfailingly.
The book of Revelation (22:2) tells us that when we reach the heavenly city we will see the river of the water of life, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. And on either side of the river is the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
All of us have a deep hunger -- not just people in war-torn places, but all of us. All of us need not only good food to nourish our bodies; we need the Lord to nourish our inmost being. He who hung on a tree for us can be for us the tree of life.
ANOTHER VIEW
Greed and Idolatry
by Paul Bresnahan
The Gospel tells us this week to guard against all kinds of greed. If it is true that the love of money is at the root of all evil, then this is very good advice indeed. Life in America makes that ideal difficult, however. For instance, at the same time that the Gospel tells us to be against all kinds of greed, the minimum wage increased from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour. While that may not be evidence of greed, it is an indication that the index of our life's well-being is fixed, at least in part, on our hourly pay. It is the first increase in the minimum wage in more than 10 years. Some feel the adjustment is long overdue, and many others feel it will have an adverse effect on the economy. And as I write this, Joe Naccio, the ex-Qwest executive, has been convicted of insider trading. In short, that means that while investors in his communications company watched their investments tumble in value from $60 to $2 a share, he "wisely" traded out his shares at a point that gave him a $52 million profit. Is there any greed in this dynamic?
Whatever the case, let me suggest that we have not altogether freed ourselves from idolatry and the "Golden Calf" mentality of our spiritual ancestors. Many of us grew up in homes where we were taught to believe in the "almighty dollar," whether we were children of the working class or of management and the middle class. I am a product of a "mixed marriage." My mom came from a long line of "blue collar" folk and union people. She married into "management," and I remember vividly being snatched out of the coziness of the old neighborhood when they got married. Suddenly I found myself in a new subdivision complete with a privacy fence, an outdoor barbecue, and a sense of alienation between us and our neighbors.
There was a cost/benefit ratio for me in the experience. In the old neighborhood schools few of us went on to college. In the new development everyone was "expected" to go to college. We had lots of homework, and suddenly there were lots of books around to read. That was not the case in the "old" family. I became the first in my family to go to college, and I considered that a bit of an achievement then and still do now.
I was rescued from a life sentence of minimum-wage jobs. Most of the attractive union jobs held by my "old" family have gone overseas now. And I have gone on to the comfortable life of a respected clergyman. My family had appealed to me not to go into the church business. I protested. "I like people," I said. "Then go into personnel at least," they pleaded.
Whether we were union or management, we all believed in the "bottom line." It was all right to go to church as long as you didn't take that too far. I took it all the way to the priesthood. That was way too far in the minds of my kinfolk. We were a "born-again" secular family, whether union or management, and we believed in the power of the "greenback."
This week's Gospel goes on to say that even when we lay up treasures for ourselves in our vast storehouses, our very lives are vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life. We live and die. We are healthy and we get sick. We prosper and we lose our resources. Just like the marriage service teaches us, in vows we so often take for granted and without a full appreciation of the truth they proclaim: we take each other for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, and until we are parted by death.
It seems to be dawning on many that as America grays, and as we hoard our wealth or health or even life itself, all we manage to do is to tighten our grasp around the tangible. The tighter we grab onto what we have, the more likely it will sift through our fingers as sand falls from a clenched fist. Have we forgotten that who we are and what we have is not ours but God's? Have we forgotten the simplest fact about us -- that we are "dust" and to the "dust" we shall return? This is what the Gospel is trying to remind the rich man in today's proclamation. You may indeed store up for yourself all kinds of grain in your vast storehouses, but if you forget that you belong to God, you risk endangering all that you have and all that you are. That's a risk we all face. We delude ourselves into thinking that what we have is "all mine." It is not -- it is all God's. We can do with it as it pleases us; but if it doesn't please God... I shudder to think of the repercussions.
Some gifts are temporal and some are eternal. Among those that are eternal gifts are the gifts of life and love and eternal life. Those are the things that matter. Those are the things that shall endure. Sometimes we think that if we give God 10% we're even. That could not be further from the truth. Everything we have and all that we are is from God. The 10% some give and some don't is merely the biblical injunction to proportional giving... and proportional giving cheerfully! My dear friends, 100% of it belongs to God. There is a turn of phrase in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer's marriage service that I'm fond of. As the bride and groom give one another rings, they make this pledge: "I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you." That's the ideal of the intimacy of human love. What a wonderful way to live in partnership with another human being -- as friends for life, as partners whose very souls touch in the co-mingling of their lives. That image befits our intimacy with God as well. The plain and simple truth in the matter of our spiritual intimacy with God is that everything we have and all that we are is also God's. God is there at every moment knocking at the door, willing to be an open heart to us, eager to respond to our most humble and urgent requests. Yes, everything we are and all that we have in life is from God. As we live out our lives, we decide moment by moment how much we truly want to belong to God and to God's beloved. Nothing, absolutely nothing, goes with us... except for the thing that matters most -- eternal life!
So while we have this breath to breathe, let us do ourselves the favor of doing it wisely and in the fear of God. As Paul advised rightly, let us "seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." Let us put off the old self and put on Christ as we would a garment. Let us clothe ourselves carefully as we would any wardrobe; to look our best, only let us remember that we are to present ourselves to God in the purity and in the joy of heaven.
ILLUSTRATIONS
I recently visited a couple who are planning on joining the church. They were telling me about their grand-son-in-law, who I had met when I did the matriarch's funeral this past May. A native of India, he returned there last month to attend the wedding of his older brother. It was a typical wedding, with family and friends gathered to celebrate the love which brought the couple together. A typical story.
It was what happened after the wedding which was not typical. After the ceremony, the wedding party departed the church, but not to go to a big, fancy, expensive reception. No, they went to the local orphanage. And when they arrived, they announced that in honor of the joyous day, the families were giving full college scholarships to two of the residents of the orphanage.
The families could have accumulated a lot of memories, a lot of videos, a lot of pictures, a lot of bills by throwing a lavish reception. Instead, they chose to change the lives of two young people.
-- Thom Shuman
***
The problem with a person who experiences marasmus is that we seek the wrong things with which to fill ourselves. In his book Credo (Westminster John Knox, 2003), William Sloane Coffin reminds us:
"There is in other words a difference between having a friend and being a friend, between having success and being successful, between getting an education and becoming learned. If we use knowledge, music, art, sports, and eminently others -- if we use them just to enrich ourselves, then paradoxically we impoverish ourselves, at least at our very core. For all things then become as clothes: they cover but they do not touch or develop our inner being, and we become as those who believe they can only become visible when something visible covers the surface.
"But if we give ourselves to art, music, sports, knowledge, and eminently to others, then we experience that biblical truth that 'he who loses his life shall find it,' shall find life being fulfilled, and find that joy is self-fulfillment, self-fulfillment is joy" (p. 1).
***
The Sidra Emor contains legislation for Aaron, his sons, and future generations of priests, and also for the people as a whole (Leviticus 23). Most of the people were farmers, and the legislation spoke about the harvest; one notable purpose was to ensure that poor people were treated with kindness: "And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger" (23:22).
Kind -- the word has a familiar ring. It has another meaning, also familiar -- kind as in kin -- "related to." It is easier to be kind when we remember that you and I are kin, and akin.
Sometimes we find fulfillment through the simple act of being kind to another person.
-- Rabbi Chaim Stern, Day by Day: Reflections on the Themes of the Torah from Literature, Philosophy, and Religious Thought (Beacon Press, 1998), p. 207
***
In our Colossians lesson, Paul speaks about putting to death several qualities, including "greed," which he then defines as idolatry.
The June 12, 2007 issue of Christian Century reported the following story: "Robbie Brown received a $20,000 achievement award when he graduated from Emory University. But instead of spending the money on a new car -- he drives a beat-up 1988 Volvo station wagon -- or setting it aside for law school, he chose to give it to fellow Emory student Elizabeth Sholtys, who opened a home for street children in India during her junior year of college. Sholtys spends almost nine months of the year working at her home for children in the slums of Pune, India. Sholtys completed much of her college work online. Due to Brown's generosity, she hopes to provide health education classes and clinical care for street children and their families."
The question is: Why is that act so unusual that it is reported as news? Perhaps Christians are filled but still have to work on setting our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2).
***
There's a famous story of Frederick the Great of Prussia -- a powerful ruler of the European Enlightenment, a man of great scientific curiosity as well as a leader of armies. Frederick once conducted an unusual scientific experiment into the development of human language. There was a theory of the time that the babbling of infants was, in some mysterious sense, related to the ancient language of Eden -- but that children lost this oldest of all mother-tongues as they grew and learned the language of their parents.
Frederick devised an experiment to test this theory. He had his scientists take some newborn, orphaned babies and isolate them from all physical contact with human beings. The babies would be kept in separate rooms, with no contact with each other. Not a word of language was to be spoken in their presence. Specially trained nurses would see to the babies' physical needs -- feeding them and making sure they stayed warm -- but they were forbidden to pick them up and embrace them. Once the children grew old enough to speak, they would be brought into the presence of the other children in the experiment, to see if they could converse with one another.
The experiment was an utter failure. Not one of those poor children lived beyond infancy -- let alone to the age when language begins to develop in earnest. The one thing King Frederick learned from his cruel and ill-considered experiment was that the physical touch of another human being is essential to life. If babies are not picked up and hugged and caressed, they have but a slim chance of surviving to maturity.
***
I was sitting in the radiation waiting room yesterday morning. It was crowded. The computers had crashed earlier and everything was running way behind schedule. Everyone else there seemed to know one another; they had been getting the treatments for a while. I was the new guy, but was immediately welcomed into that instant community of cancer patients. Everyone there was older. At 51, I was one of the younger patients.
And then one of the men said, "There's a child in there." The big lead door had opened and he could see into the treatment room. Immediately, everything changed. The room got sort of quiet; people even lowered their voices. This was something terrible.
Everyone in that room was fighting his own battle. One man had said that the treatment seemed to be working for him -- his tumors were shrinking. Another woman didn't know yet -- she still had about 20 sessions to go. But all of that was quickly forgotten. "There's a child in there."
Sure enough, the door opened, and a bed was wheeled out. Lying there, apparently knocked out by anesthesia, was a young boy, probably about 7 or 8, certainly no older than 10. He was bald, probably from chemo. He was clearly very sick.
We all watched in silence as he was wheeled away. I can't imagine the agony his parents must feel. I can't imagine the agony he must feel. And then the man next to me said, "It's not right. We've all had long lives. That's not right."
You have to wonder what the future holds for that little boy. Will he survive long enough to learn to drive? Feel his first crush? Have his first kiss? Will he get to grow up? I don't know. I probably never will. But that man was dead-on. It's not right.
-- Leroy Sievers, "My Cancer" blog entry of January 3, 2007
***
"Even now, in the wake of the tsunami, we know more about tectonic plates buried under the ocean than we do about our own heart of darkness. Where on earth is the early warning system for man-made disasters?"
* newspaper columnist Ellen Goodman, writing in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
Reflecting on Goodman's remark, Bill Wiser noted in the "Your Daily Dig" e-newsletter of bruderhof.com: "Some people call that early warning system the conscience. It's the still small voice that tells us when we've done wrong. It's also the clarion call to action when we don't feel satisfied with things as they are."
When children go to bed hungry, it's because the early-warning system that is the human conscience has failed to sound its alarm.
***
The sixth-century church father Dorotheos of Gaza was the abbot of a monastery. As with all monasteries, the monks sometimes had difficulty getting along with one another. In one such time of conflict, he preached a famous sermon in which he taught that God's design is that we are all connected to one another.
Imagine the world, Dorotheos taught, as a great circle, with God in the center. Arranged along the circumference are all human lives. There is no way to draw closer to God, he said, without also drawing closer to one another. By the same token, it is impossible to reach out to another human being without also reaching out to God.
So, too, when we reach out to the nameless needy and hungry people in our world. As Jesus said, "I was hungry and you gave me food..."
***
There is a tradition in Jewish literature of rabbis telling stories about the actions of fools. In one such story, there are two men out in a rowboat. One notices that the other is on his knees, busily doing something at the bottom of the boat.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I'm drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat."
"You can't do that! We'll both drown."
"Why should that be of any concern to you?" asks the other. "I'm drilling on my side of the boat!"
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman
Call to Worship
Leader: God of the past,
who whispered in the prophets' ears;
who rescued us from sin's slavery:
People: we are here to thank you.
Leader: God of the future,
who is tearing down the old world,
and building your kingdom in our midst:
People: we are here because we trust you.
Leader: God of the present,
who, in the giftedness of our diversity,
creates us to be one people:
People: we are here to praise you.
Leader: God of life
that surprises us when we find it within us:
People: we celebrate your grace.
Prayer of the Day (and Our Lord's Prayer)
Steadfast Love:
like a child running down the sidewalk
to play with her best friend on a summer's day,
you eagerly come towards us.
Child of God:
with the anxious heart of a mother waiting at midnight,
you long for us to come home,
your arms aching to hold us.
Fullness of Grace:
when all others have turned away from us,
you throw open the gates of the kingdom,
inviting us in to share at the Table of hope prepared just for us.
God in Community, Holy in One,
hear us as we pray as Jesus taught us,
Our Father . . .
Call to Reconciliation
When we could be revived by God's grace,
we find ourselves fearing God's judgment,
doubting God's joy in us,
fearing God has turned away from us.
Let us come to the One who heals us and calls each of us by name.
Please join me as we pray . . .
(Unison) Prayer of Confession
You hold nothing back from us, Amazing God,
yet we are determined to cling to what we have accumulated.
We spend so much time eating out,
we cannot feel the deep ache our hunger for you causes.
You invite us to set aside our old ways, and walk with you,
but unknown paths fill us with fear.
Have mercy on us, Bread of Heaven.
We come to the Table of grace and hope,
not for our personal satisfaction,
but for the joy of recognizing the One who calls us to new life,
and for the grace to share this joy with everyone we meet.
This we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: Do not be afraid.
More than anything else,
God would rather turn fetid swamps into pools of crystal clear water;
bonds of sin into cords of compassion;
sinners into servants.
People: God loves us.
God forgives us.
God lifts us to new life.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Great Prayer of Thanksgiving
Leader: May God be with you.
People: May God also be with you.
Leader: People of God, open up your hearts.
People: We open them to God and one another.
Leader: People of God, give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give thanks to the One who offers us lives filled with grace.
When we were children running footloose through grace,
you loved us, Tender God:
dappling the night skies with the bright stars of morning,
teaching us to walk the paths of that first dawn,
telling us of your dreams for all you created.
When, in our hurry to greet you,
we fell, skinning our knees,
you lifted us up in your arms,
holding us to your cheeks wet with joy.
When we missed your calling us to wash up for dinner,
you came and found us,
taking us by the hand to feed us from Eden's abundance.
But when we grew up,
we knew more than you,
turning to the idols of wealth and power,
who promised to serve us even as they shackled us;
giving ourselves over to anxiety's sweet caress.
Yet you are God, not a foolish human.
You remain in our midst, not to punish or destroy,
but to reach out and bring us home to your heart.
Therefore, we joyfully lift our voices,
with those who have gone before us,
and those who stand beside us,
singing our praise for your great love:
(Sanctus)
Holy are you, God of infinite tenderness,
and blessed is Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord and Savior.
Breaking the enslaving bonds of sin,
he binds our wounds with cords of compassion;
walking with us when we had lost our way,
he shows us the paths to the kingdom;
stripping himself of glory and honor,
he clothes us in the new life of faith;
leaving aside his equality with you,
he became one of us,
so we might be one with you.
Remembering that you did not give up on us
or hand us over to sin and death,
but showered us with your mercy in Christ Jesus,
we take the bread of life and the cup of grace
and joyfully celebrate that mystery we call faith:
(Memorial Acclamation)
Compassionate God,
pour out your gracious Spirit on us,
and on these, your simple gifts.
Fill us with the broken bread,
that we might be made whole;
touch our parched lips with the cup of salvation,
so we might proclaim your gospel.
Then send us forth:
our hearts recoiling at the oppression suffered by our sisters and brothers;
our hands willing to build shelter for those cast out by the world;
our arms surrounding the lost and the least, in the embrace of common humanity.
Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,
in unity with the Holy Spirit,
all glory and honor are yours,
God of love, now and forever. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Watch Out for Greed!
Luke 12:13-21
Object: a big bowl of candy
See this big bowl of candy? I'm going to divide it into three piles. (Separate the candy. Give one pile just a few pieces of candy, one pile a lot of candy, and one pile somewhere in between.) Now, I need three volunteers to help me. (Choose three children. Place a child behind each pile, so that one child has a few pieces of candy, and so on.)
Each person has a different amount of candy, see? Which child has the biggest pile? (Point to the child the others indicate.) Which person is the luckiest? (Let them answer.) Which person is the best? (Let them answer.) Be careful now. Is the person with the most candy really the best? Why or why not? (Let them answer.) Okay, you guys can sit down now. Thanks for your help.
I don't think that having the most candy makes someone the best. That person may be blessed to have so much, but that doesn't make him any better than anyone else is. Our Bible verses today tell us not to be greedy. Greed is when you want more and more stuff and when you can't be happy with just a little. Some people make the mistake of thinking that more is better -- that they are better people if they have more stuff. Jesus warns us not to think like that.
Being greedy can make you sick inside. Greed can keep you from seeing what's really important in life, and it makes you forget to love others. It's not what you own that makes you special. All people are special to God. It also doesn't matter what you wear, what you look like, where you live, or how old you are. All people are special, and God loves us all just the same. Be careful to keep your heart in the right place and live the way God asks us to live. (If appropriate, you might give each child a piece of candy as they leave.)
Prayer: Dear God, please help us remember that you love all people the same. It doesn't matter how much we own; we are all valuable in your eyes. Help us see the world the way you do. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, August 5, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
