Thursday, December 3, 2015

Lifting people up



Bring a child out to the front and push them down to the ground (agree this with them before the assembly!)

It is very easy to push someone down, especially if you are bigger and stronger than them.
It makes us feel big.
And when people are down we can ignore them, or laugh at them.

The image that we see comes from Ravenna in North Italy. It is a mosaic, one of the earliest known illustrations of the life of Jesus, probably about 1600 years old. This image tells the story of a woman who was crushed because she was sick. It was one of those sicknesses which made everyone avoid her. She was also poor, because she had spent all her money on doctors who had said they would heal her, but did nothing. And she was like dirt. Perhaps people didn't even see her. The man in orange on the right is urging Jesus (he is the one with the halo) to move on, to ignore this woman.

But Jesus stops. He bends down to pick up the woman. He talks with her. He tells her that she is healed and that she is a precious daughter of God (You can read the story in Luke 8.40-48). He lifts her up.

That is what he came to do. It is what we remember at this Christmas time. He came down from heaven, became one of us, was even crucified, in order to lift us up so that we can become sons and daughters of God.
(You could have another child step down off a chair and lift up the child you pushed to the ground earlier)

So perhaps we need to be in the business of lifting people up
Slide 2: ballet dancers
Slide 3: Rugby players

We can lift people up by noticing them when they are crushed, by saying something encouraging, by letting them go first, by giving.

Slide 4: shows another of these mosaics from Ravenna. It is of another woman, but this time standing tall. And she is giving. Perhaps it is the same woman. She has been lifted up and so now she is able to lift up others.

We have seen some pretty awful things recently done in the name of God, but the bible says that true religion is about caring for orphans and widows in their need (slide 5). It is not about pushing people down so that we can make ourselves bigger. It is about lifting people up.






Thursday, October 22, 2015

Sharing

​For Primary: You will need a box of chocolates.

Take two children to the back of the hall. One should be year 6 and the other year 1. Place a box of chocolates at the front, and tell them it is treasure. Ask them to race to it, and that the winner gets it. I am assuming that the bigger and stronger child gets to the treasure first (often the children are kind to each other and the bigger lets the younger win, but you need to tell them both beforehand that you do need the bigger and stronger child to win). 

She picks it up and says (ask her to repeat after you), 'I got here first. This is mine'. 
She gets everything and the smaller child gets nothing. 
Ask the other children if that is fair? When they all say, 'No', she then gives to the smaller child one of the sweets, but still keeps the rest for herself.

You could say that is a bit how it is like in our world. The bigger and stronger people get all the world's treasure and, if they are feeling good, they occasionally give one sweet to those who are not so big and strong - but they still keep the rest for themselves.

But then you introduce people to the King. 
The King says to the the older child (get the child acting out the role of King to say after you): 'That is not your treasure. I crafted it, left it there, and it is mine'.

Ask the children what the child should do.

Explain that the child could walk away with the sweets and pretend that the King does not exist. She might store them in a safe place, give some to her friends and to the people who do good to her. But when other people ask for some of the treasure, or try to take it, she fights them off. Her problem is that although she pretends that the King does not exist, there will always be something in her which is frightened that the King will come and get her.

Or she can realise that the treasure does belong to the King, say sorry for taking it for herself and offer it back to Him.
If she does that, she gets a surprise. The King says, 'You may keep the treasure. But remember it is not yours. It is my gift, not just to you, but for everyone.'

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

The story of the woman who gave everything

Based on Mark 12.41-44

Two people with smarties. One gives 5 smarties. One person gives 10 smarties. Who gives the most?

Now I'm going to give you a little more information. The person who gave 10 smarties had 10 packs of smarties. The person who gave 5 smarties only had 5 smarties. Who gave more?

Perhaps we would still say the person who gave 10 smarties, but they still had loads of smarties left over for themselves.
But I think that it was the person who gave 5 smarties - because they gave everything that they had.

Jesus was sitting at the entrance to the temple. He watched people put their money in the glass box. Many people put in large sums of money. £10. £100. £10000. WOW WOW WOW.  Look how much they are giving. They are such generous people.
A woman came in. She was very poor. She put in £1. Nobody said wow. In fact nobody noticed. Nobody except Jesus.

And Jesus called his friends together. They were still looking at the WOW person who had given £10000. Did you see that? He is amazing. Jesus said, 'Not really'. He is very very rich and it cost him nothing to give that amount of  money. He has got 100s of 1000s of pounds left. But that woman, who put in £1. That was all she had to live on for the rest of this week. She gave everything that she had.

It was only £1. Nobody noticed. But God noticed. And God said WOW

In a church in a town in Italy there are some of the earliest known illustrations of scenes from the life of Jesus. This picture shows this scene

Jesus is in the middle on the right. One of his friends is on the right. He is praying. And Jesus is blessing the woman who is giving. I have always thought of this widow as someone who was stooped and bowed. But here she stands upright with an immense dignity.

When we give, not to be noticed, and when we give - and I mean really give: you put all your weeks pocket money into a collection - nobody else will notice because it is not much. But you know. And although other people think that you are very little and insignificant, inside you can know that you are really big and tall.
And best of all, Jesus notices, and he says WOW 

Monday, March 9, 2015

Sin and mud: an assembly for Lent

You will need a bucket with some soil in it, a bowl of clean warm water, a couple of towels and some soap. (It is a lot but it is worth it!)

Show the children the bucket of soil and add water to it to make mud.
Ask them who likes to get muddy.
Bring out one child, ask them their (name) and ask them to get their hands all muddy.

Say the problem about getting muddy is that we need to get clean again. Why does (name) need to get clean.
Among answers, there will hopefully be:
Because if they don't they'll make other people muddy, they'll get sick from germs, the mud will stick onto them.

Talk about how many Christians use Lent as a time to look at mud - not the mud on the outside, but the mud on the inside of our lives:
- unkind things
- unkind words
- we want people to be fair to us, but we are not always fair to them
- we sometimes don't do the right thing because we are frightened of what others will say
- we tell lies and then further lies to get ourselves out of the lies we have already told
- we don't say sorry, or we take people for granted
And we realise that we need to clean up.

The problem is that we can't clean ourselves up. We try to be good, to pull our socks up, but it never seems to work.

Give (name) a clean white towel and ask them to clean themselves up. They simply get more muddy and the towel gets muddy.
Ask a teacher, or get someone sensible to come to front, and help (name) wash their hands in the water and dry them with a clean towel.

As they are having their hands washed, say how Christians believe that we can't make ourselves clean on the inside, but that we need Jesus to make us clean. Jesus is the only person who can really clean us on the inside. He forgives us and he can start to get rid of the inner mud, if we ask him.

Finish with a prayer thanking God for his forgiveness because of Jesus, and asking him to make us clean on the inside

Monday, January 26, 2015

The story of four candles!

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD  (Key stage 1 and 2)

What would you be like if you were a candle?
- tall, wide, pretty and decorated, ordinary?

I'd like to introduce you to four of my friends:

Derek. He is different and dotty
Wilberforce. Is wide and white
Penelope. Is purple and posh
and then there is Tim the tea light!

They argued about who was the best.

Christians believe that Jesus was born just like us.
He came to earth not as a different or dotty candle, not as a wide and white candle, not as purple and posh, not as a tea light - but as someone very ordinary.


[introduce another very plain red or white candle, but light it]

But there was a difference.

What is the difference?
[hopefully children will say that the candle representing Jesus is lit]

Jesus was alive in a way that Derek, Wilberforce, Penelope and Tim the tea light were not.
He loved God. He spent time with God. He loved everything about God - about the way God worked; the words God spoke. He saw this world the way God saw it.

And Jesus saw people as God saw them. He loved them. He saw them as more than just dotty or wide or tall or a tea light. He healed them, fed the hungry, challenged those who settled for second best, gave hope to the crushed. He showed them that life can be different, that life will be different. He showed them that they were meant to burn.

Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world' (John 9.5)

And if you come to me, you can burn like me.

[bring the four candles to Jesus, and light them from him]

And the amazing thing is that when Derek, Wilberforce, Penelope and Tim were all lit - they realised that they didn't need to argue who was the best, because they realised that although they were all different, they all shone with the same light.