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Object: A phone with a camera, a candy bar, and all kinds of noisemakers. You could use a real megaphone or make one by rolling up a piece of poster board. Other noisemakers could be bells, horns, whistles, pan lids to bang together, and anything else that can make a lot of noise.

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Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent!

This is a story about what happened one day when a big group of people came to see Jesus. Some of the people were religious leaders from the temple in Jerusalem, who came with others to find out what Jesus was telling everyone. The leaders had a lot of religious rules and did not like Jesus because he did not follow all of those rules. Let me give you some examples.

The temple leaders believed that when you are going to pray, you need to make sure there are rules you have to follow to do it right. So, when they decided to pray, this is how they did it.

The people who were praying usually stood up in front of everyone else so they could be seen. (Pick a couple of children to be the ones to stand up in front of everyone.) Some of them didn’t stand like that, because they believed that God wanted everyone to lay down when they prayed, so that’s what they did. (Pick a couple of children to be the ones to lie down.) And some believed that God wanted everyone to be happy when they prayed, so they always danced to show how happy they were. (Pick a couple of children to be the ones to dance.) And they had other people come with them so they could make a lot of noise to make sure everyone knew the leaders were praying to God. (Pick your noisemaker children and give them noisemakers.) So, when those leaders decided to pray to God, this is kind of how it went. (Have the standing children wave their arms all around and shout, “I am praying!”, have the lying down children lie on the ground and shout, “I am praying!”, have the dancing children dance and shout, “I am praying!”, and have noisemaker children make as much noise as they can make. Let them all continue for a minute or two.)

Is that what you do when you pray? (Let them respond.) Probably not, huh? It’s not how I do it either. (Let them respond.) It almost looks like they were showing off, doesn’t it? (Let them respond.) In fact, that is what they were doing. The temple leaders believed it was really important for them to show everyone when they were praying, so they would know how important they really were. (Show the cell phone.) You know, if they had cell phones back then, I’ll bet someone would have made videos of them and put them online so they could be influencers, don’t you? (Let them respond.)

And they had rules about what they were supposed to do if they helped someone who needed help. (Select a child to be the person needing help.) When they helped the person, they made sure everyone saw them do it. Let’s pretend our friend here has nothing to eat, and the leaders decided to help them. They handed the person a candy bar. And when they handed it to them, they all stood and shouted, or lay down, or danced, and made lots and lots of noise to make sure everyone knew what they were doing to help the person. The temple leaders had all kinds of rules like that.

One day, Jesus and his friends were watching some of the leaders while they prayed. Jesus looked at his friends and said, “Be careful to remember not to pray like that. They are just doing all those things to make themselves look good and aren’t really praying to God at all. And when they saw the leaders giving someone food, Jesus said, “And they aren’t doing those things because they want to help that person, but just to make themselves look good. They only care about themselves and don’t care for that hungry person at all.”

Jesus told them, “If you want to pray, don’t do it in front of other people the way those leaders do to get some reward from them. If you do, that is the only reward you will get. And if you do something nice to care for someone, don’t let other people watch you or make a lot of noise to get some reward from them. If you do, that is the only reward you will get. Instead of showing off, do it this way. When you want to pray, go someplace where you are alone and talk to God all by yourself. And when you help someone, don’t let other people know about it. Don’t do those things to get a reward from other people, but do them because you really want to follow God and help take care of each other. If you do that, then God will give you a reward that is a lot better than the reward those leaders are getting.

So, let’s try it again, and this time we’ll do it the way Jesus told his friends to do it. When we want to pray, this is what we do. Don’t make noise or try to get people to notice you. Just be quiet, and talk to God. That’s all. (Have everyone take a moment in quiet prayer.) And, when you do something to help someone who needs help, don’t make noise, or try to get other people to see what you are doing. Just help them. That’s all. (Have everyone move around and stay quiet and have the candy giver give the candy bar to the hungry person without anyone seeing them do it.)

Sometimes it feels good to have other people look at us and think we are something special, doesn’t it? (Let them respond.) But I hope our story will remind us that God wants us to pray and help others because we really want to do those things, and not just because it might impress someone else and make them think we are special.

Let’s pray and ask God to remind us that Jesus loves every one of us and wants us to follow him and take care of each other the way God takes care of us.

Prayer
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us and for forgiving us when we forget that. And please help us remember that you love all of the people you have created and help us let the people around us know that we love them just like Jesus loves us. Amen.