1/7/12 Proper 8

Theme: Sharing

Bible Reading

II Corinthians chapter 8 verses 7-15

Preparation

You will need a large bag of wrapped sweets, or perhaps something like a number of stickers, also some pieces of paper, felt pens (and a scribe?). If you have them readily available, you may like to use some charity posters such as Christian Aid or Oxfam materials to support the main message of the worship.

Introduction

Remind the assembly how often people talk to them about sharing things. Ask for some ideas (perhaps especially from the younger pupils) about things they might share e.g. colouring pencils, sweets. Ask why they think it is good to share.

Indicate that you too have something to share, and bring out your bag of sweets (or alternative) – ask for three volunteers. Explain how you like to be fair in your sharing out, then give your first volunteer one sweet, your second about one quarter of the remaining sweets and the third the rest of the bag. Ask the three volunteers in turn whether they like the way you shared things out, or if there is anything you ought to change. (The answers will probably vary according to how much each child received – point this out.) Appeal to the assembly to decide what would be the fairest way of dealing out the sweets, persist until someone suggests it would in fact have been fairer to have given everyone in the room a sweet … collect all the sweets back in and do exactly that.

The Message

Explain how almost 2,000 years ago the apostle Paul wrote a letter to a church at Corinth in Greece and that letter is now in the Bible. In the letter he reminded the people that they owned lots of money and possessions and that if they were going to be good Christians they should be prepared to share what they had with people who had less. He also reminded them that this was exactly what Jesus had done by being born as a man on earth when he was really the Son of God.

If we think about our place in the world today, are people in Britain most like the pupil who had one sweet, the one who had a small amount, or the one who was given most of the bag? In many ways we are like the one who had the most sweets. Ask if anyone can think of some of the things that we have in abundance, which other people in the world lack. (Encourage the pupils to think about reports they have seen on the television, or use charity posters.) Examples could include:

• Medicine
• Education
• Housing
• Food & water
• Technology
• Employment
• Communications

Write each of the pupils’ suggestions up to create what will probably be quite an extensive list.

If we follow Jesus and Paul’s examples, then we should be thinking about how we can share our advantages with people less well off than ourselves. How can we do that?

Prayer

Pray that we may never be selfish with our possessions, but always have open hearts towards the needs of others

Also this week you could look at e.g :John the Baptist's advice on sharing - Luke chp 3 vss 10-14 ; and Jesus' teaching on behaviour towards others inLuke chp 6 vss 27-36