This Children’s sermon was given June 14, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.
Good morning, girls and boys. I hope you’re doing well today! I’m still missing you!
Today I wanted to talk with you about something really important. So I brought something that you might recognize to help me talk about it. It’s this. (Godly Play tile of the day of rest, which is a blank white rectangle.) Does it look familiar to you? Do you know what this is?
It’s a tile, but it’s blank. It’s just a blank white space.
I bet some of you recognize it, if you go to Sunday school at First Baptist or anywhere they do Godly Play. Let me help you out by showing some tiles that usually we share with it. Like this one, which has the sun on one side and the moon and stars on the other, and this one, which has birds of the air and fish of the sea.
Now I bet you know. We use these tiles when we share the creation story. And what does this tile mean, the one we share at the end?This tile represents the last day of the7 days of creation. All week, God has done beautiful work, but on the last day, God makes important time to …rest.
In the creation story, God shows us that God loved working, creating life and our beautiful world, but we can watch God take a whole day to rest.
Jesus did the same. Listen to our scripture in Matthew today to hear Jesus tell the disciples how to do their important work. But they also saw him STOP. They saw him rest. Jesus had important work. If Jesus can set aside time to rest, we can too.
Rest looks like this tile. It’s making a space in your week where you’re not trying to accomplish anything or earn anything or win at anything. God cares about you and who you are APART from what you are able to get done or earn or win. So when we rest and make time for joy, there’s room for God to join us in it.
What does it mean to rest? Do you have to get in your bed or on the couch and take a nap? Rest could look like going on a hike with your family- and seeing what surprises you can find. It could be going fishing or taking a bike ride. Or playing with your dog in the sprinkler. It’s different for every person. God has shown us that it’s important, when times are easy and even when times are hard. I wonder how you’re going to rest today? I hope your afternoon is full of joy!
Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you for showing us how important it is to make time for rest and joy, even when there is work to be done. We love you, God. Amen.
