yeah, so i'm teaching Sunday School at our little Virginia church this month. i have the younger class which, the best i can figure, ranges from about age 3 (just one of those) to about age 9 (several of those). yesterday was my first day with them. i was new...i was no one's mom...i was interesting without having to say a word. i know that will only last one day, but i appreciated it while it lasted. and we had a good day.
yesterday was World Communion Sunday, so we talked about that and about what communion is and how common it is for people (all over the world) to eat some kind of bread every day...as a staple for their diet. (this gets to be an important fact when you tie it in with Jesus saying every time you eat bread, remember me...that means every time we eat...every day! that's important.)
but, the best part of the whole lesson, for me at least, was when we were talking about how Jesus is God.
me: so, do y'all know that Jesus is God? God became a human...just like us. Jesus is fully human and fully God.
them: a mixture of blank and thoughtful stares...
me: isn't that wild to think about? most people, even adults, even people who are paid to think about this all the time, even pastors can't really wrap their minds around that...but it's true. cool, huh?
C (an 8 or 9 year old girl): i knew God and Jesus were the same thing.
J (a 7 year old boy): yeah...but i thought Jesus was God's daddy...or is it the other way around.
me: yeah, we think about God as the parent and Jesus as the son...that's a way for us to get our minds around all of this...and they are also both God.
S (a very engaged 8 year old who has been thinking about this for a while): we are mammals. (and looks at me questioningly)
me: yes...(thinking through this as i speak)...and Jesus was human like us...so Jesus was a mammal, too...and God...all at the same time. crazy, huh?
J (the same 7 year old boy): gorillas are mammals.
me: yes, they are. God made a very good and cool creation.
so, i'm sure you're thinking "wow, that was one Sunday School lesson gone awry." but, that's not how i see it. one, i think that none of us really understand these big theological things, so it's important to talk about them in low key language with anyone who wants to listen, of any age, not dwell on them too much, and just keep talking about them over time. eventually, we all, at any age, realize our thoughts, prayers, belief, and selves are being shaped or reshaped by having this big stuff bouncing around in our brain...pondering the possibilities...pondering the bigness and just amazingness of who God is.
and, this wise 8 year old, and his 7 year old sidekick, have now added to my bigness ponderings. i've never thought of the Incarnation in terms of scientific classification before. if God chose to become human, to be like us, then Jesus Christ was a mammal just like us...and the apes. now, i'm not getting into the whole evolution debate...i'm just sayin'...maybe Jesus is closer to the apes than i've ever thought about before...
that's something to ponder...
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5 comments:
Thanks for all your patience with my 8 year-old spiritual self. I'm jealous of those kids...
Jesus loved mammals so much he became one.
I love this bible lesson....it sounds like my children's moment from last week where I went over John 3:16--except I had more of the befuddled looks than anything else...they just weren't as excited about the whole God loving us so much God became human thing....but at least I got to re-encounter humility as I attempted, somewhat unsuccessfully, to explain the extraordinary!
Aren't kids wonderful! You never know where you'll go in conversation. I love doing it every day, and am glad you enjoy it too.
I see in here somewhere fruitful territory for a grand coming together of scientism and spiritual mystery, two things which we shove into opposite corners of our awareness for purely political reasons, but which need not be separated within our thinking. God wants us to be whole persons who think of God, ourselves, and our earthmates wholistically. These kids just seem to know that, and so they are very tentatively attempting to connect what they know of the scientific classification of beings [curiously truncated at the top ('mammals') to disinclude divine beings of one sort or another] with what they know of spiritual reality. I think you are wonderful for leading them to that place, and for giving them permission to just sit with it for a while. I think they knew just where to go with it.
Love, woody
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