Tag Archives: Time after Epiphany

Communications

WEEKLY DEVOTION PAGE the Baptism of our Lord– Lectionary 1, YEAR C (January 7-13)

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Here is the devotion page for the Baptism of our Lord, Lectionary 1 (January 7-13) – Year C. (Click on the words!)

NOTE:  There has been some confusion about the dates on the Devotion pages.  The dates are the range of Sundays that the pages are for.  If you are using these starting on a Sunday in the range, then you are using the correct one!  Read below for a longer explanation.

Did you miss a week? Go to the Weekly Devotion page to download past weeks!

Lectionary dates and time after Pentecost

We are working on developing a complete 3 year cycle of devotion pages for the Revised Common Lectionary.  To make this really work the pages need to be tied to the lectionary Sunday, not the specific date.  For most seasons of the church year this is pretty easy to do.  The First Sunday in Advent is 4 weeks before Christmas, every year, so the date floats around, but the readings are always the same.  It is similar for Epiphany, Lent and Easter.  The Second Sunday after Epiphany (Note that Epiphany dates have a range, too) is always the same readings, as is the Second Sunday of Lent and Easter.  Pentecost and the season after are different.  Unlike the other seasons where the first reading of the season is set, in the time after pentecost the last reading is set.  The readings for Christ the King are always lectionary 34 and Christ the King Sunday is always on the Sunday that is between November 20 and 26, inclusive of those dates (five weeks before Christmas).  This wouldn’t be a big deal if Easter was also set, but Easter moves – by as much as 5 weeks!  So the Day of Pentecost can be closer or further away from Christ the King, depending on when Easter falls.  So if the Easter is early, the season after Pentecost is longer, and there are more readings leading up to Christ the King.  If Easter is late, there are fewer.  Since the last Sunday is of the season is set, that means the early Sundays are not always the same readings.  For example – in 2017 the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost used the readings for Lectionary 11 (Easter was relatively late that year).  In 2018 the 2nd  Sunday after Pentecost used Lectionary 9 (Easter was early).  So, indicating which Sunday after Pentecost on the devotion pages is not clear from year to year – so we use lectionary numbers that are tied to a range of Sundays.

Children's Sermons

CHILDREN’S SERMON, 7TH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY (LUKE 6:27-38)

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Prepare: Ideally this works best as a little skit. You can set up something with another worship leader, or with one of the children. You can also try to just set it up to happen as you go! The idea is that the other person takes something from you and walks away. It can be almost anything, your cup of coffee, a pencil, your Bible, anything! You can work out what the goal of them taking it was – it could be because they don’t have a Bible, or that they needed something to write with, or that they were just trying to have fun and didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You decide.

Set your skit in motion as the children gather! Have the other person in the skit walk up to you and take whatever they were set up to take from you. Say something like, “Hey! What are you doing? That’s mine!” They should respond with something typically bully-ish, like, “Well it’s mine now!”

OK – wait a minute . . . I read something about this very situation in the Bible! Even though they just took something from me I should treat them with love. I think it’s today’s Gospel reading! Let me look . . . yes, Jesus says that we should love our enemies, we should treat other people as we would want them to treat us. Ok, that’s super not easy in this case. I need that back and they were just really mean to me. I don’t want to be loving! And I would never just walk up and grab something from someone, so why should I have to be nice back?

I have a hard time with this, too. Jesus is asking a lot of us. It’s hard to be loving when we don’t feel loved in return. It’s hard to be caring when we are afraid we will be hurt. It’s hard to give up the things that we like and care about because someone else might need them more.

And it gets even harder! Being loving and caring doesn’t mean you should put yourself in danger of getting hurt, and it doesn’t mean that you should just let people take anything they want from you. Because when you think about how you would want to be treated, you would probably want to know if what you did hurt someone else’s feelings, right?

This is one of those really hard stories from Jesus. It was difficult for the disciples to understand, and it’s still difficult for us!

So (turn to the person who took you stuff), I don’t think that you really wanted to be mean to me. Is there some reason that you took that? Is there something that you need?

(let the story play out the way you decided when you set it up)

Loving God, you give us some many good things, and so often we forget that the people around us are part of those good things! Teach us to be loving, especially to the people who are the hardest to love. Amen.

God Loves you no matter what!

Make a “ways to be loving” list. Even better if this is part of a congregational idea to think about being loving as a church in the community. Ask people for ideas about how to care for the neighborhood, or for a park, or for the people in your town, etc.

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon, 6th Sunday after Epiphany (luke 6:17-26)

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Prepare: Bring a small simple snack that the kids can eat. Like Goldfish crackers, or rice crackers. Nothing big or fancy!

As the children gather ask a few of them what the best part of last week was (know that this will take some time!). Then ask a few of them what was really hard about last week (again, this will take some time!). If you need it to be shorter you can volunteer your own best and worst for the week, or make something up that leads in that direction.

Most weeks, and even most days have good things and bad things, or highs and lows, or, to use the words from the Gospel today, blessings and woes.

I was thinking about what Jesus was saying and I was a little confused about it. (if you have already read the story you can just remind them, if you haven’t already heard it, read at least the blessings and woes now.)

What does that even mean? If I’m hungry I’m blessed? If I’m full then woe to me? That seems really backwards, doesn’t it? Let’s look at this a different way. OK, I’m going to give about half of you a cracker, so let’s divide the group in half. You guys get a cracker! You can eat it right now! The rest of you don’t get one. But you will get one later, ok?

Alright, now about half of you have had a cracker – woe to you! You don’t get another cracker! But you over here haven’t had one yet, but one is coming! You are blessed! Now does it make more sense what Jesus is saying? Sometimes having everything you think you want doesn’t make things better, but know that good things are still coming can make things better!

Giving and gracious God, we thank you for all the things that we have and all the things that you give. Help us learn to be content and happy with the things that we have. Help us to learn how to share the good things we have with those who need it. Amen.

God loves you and know your needs.

For the worship station invite your congregation to pray for each other! Create a “Blessings” station and a “Woes” station that are facing each other. People who are feeling blessed go to the “blessing” station to pray for the people who are at the woe station. No one has to say anything about what their blessings or woes are, just be present where they need to be!

And they can switch! Go to both stations!

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon Transfiguration of Our Lord, Luke 9:28-36

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ffjChildrenSermonPrepare:  Bring some kind of party decoration, preferably something that marks a change in your life, like a graduation, marriage, retirement, etc.  Note that you will need to modify parts of this children’s sermon to fit your party and your experience.

Faith+Open:  Have your party item out and easy to see as you gather the children together.  Ask the children if they have ever been to a party, be ready to hear a few stories and move on.

Faith+Share:  Wow, those sound like some great parties!  I wanted to tell you a little about a party that I was at once.  (Here is where you will need to think about your own situation.  I will write what I would say.)  This says ”Congrats Grad!”  What do you think it’s from?  Right, a graduation!  I was thinking about my college graduation and all the fun I had celebrating that day.  That party was celebrating more than a single event, the graduation itself, but also all that had come before and all that lay ahead.  See, you can only get to a college graduation by staying in school and working really hard, so it’s fun to celebrate all that work that was put in.  Even more, though, a college graduation celebrates all the possibilities that are to come!  Graduating from college was great fun, too.  We had parties, and I got to spend time with my family and some good friends, I even got some gifts, and everybody likes gifts!  I didn’t want all that fun to end.

In our Gospel story today Jesus takes Peter, John and James to an amazing event.  We call the Transfiguration.  Peter, John and James see Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah.  They see their friend and teaching in a dazzling new way, and they don’t want to leave that place or that moment.  They want to stay right there, they even offer to build houses to live so they never have to leave.  They even hear the voice of God claim Jesus as God’s Son!  But they can’t stay there.  Just like I had to move on from the fun of graduation, they have to go back to their lives, back to the ministry that they are part of with Jesus.

So, kind of like a graduation, Jesus transfiguration marks a moment of change.  Jesus is claimed by God and is ready to start the next part of his life.  Peter, John and James see Jesus in a new way, and as much as they want to stay in that moment they have to move on, but they move on with a new way of understanding Jesus, and a new excitement about the things to come.  This Sunday, for us, marks the beginning of the journey toward Easter, and we, too, should move forward with excitement!

Faith+Prayer: Ever changing and amazing God, we thank you for the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, and for the turning points in our own lives.  Help us to celebrate these turning points and to move forward with our lives with excitement and joy.  Amen.

Faith+Blessing:  Shine with God’s light so that all may see God’s Glory.

~GB

Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply.

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon 3rd Sunday after Epiphany, Luke 4:14-21

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ffjChildrenSermonPrepare:  Bring a copy of your church’s mission statement, and/or the mission statement of the broader church organization your congregation is part of.  Bring a Bible and mark Isaiah 61:1.

Faith+Open:  As the children gather ask them if they know what a mission statement is.  Take a few answers.  Some of them might get close, but offer a clear definition in any case, something like, “A sentence or short paragraph that says the goals and values of a company, organization or person.”

Faith+Share:  Did you know that our church has a mission statement?  Here, listen to this (Read the statement.  Read the statement of your wider church organization, too if there is one.)  What do you think about that?  Why do you think that we have a mission statement like that?  (So people know what we believe, what things we think are important, what kinds of things we want to do as a community, things like that.)

Well, I think that today we get to hear Jesus’ mission statement in the Gospel reading.  Jesus went back to his home town and went to his home church and got up to read from the scriptures.  Now here’s the tricky part, was Jesus reading from the Gospel?  No, of course not!  Those were written after Jesus did all this amazing stuff.  Jesus was reading from what we call the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.  He was reading from a book called Isaiah, and we still read stories from Isaiah today.  This is what he read – (Read Isaiah 61:1-2).

That’s a pretty good description of what Jesus did, isn’t it?  Are there parts of this scripture that we can do, too?  (Wait for a few answers.)  Yeah, those are all great ideas, let’s pray.

Faith+Prayer:   Jesus, what an amazing mission statement!  Help us to live within your mission and to show people your compassion and love in all that we do.  Amen

Faith+Blessing:  Shine with God’s light so that all may see God’s Glory.

~GB

Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply.

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, John 2:1-11

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ffjChildrenSermonPrepare:  Bring your purse or wallet with some ideas about what you have in there that tells about who you are.

Faith+Open:  As the children gather, ask them to look around at your worship space and look for things that tell them they are in a worship space (crosses, candles, baptism font, etc.)  Take a few comments about what they see.

Faith+Share:  Good job!  Other buildings have things that tell about them, too.  Schools have classrooms and desks; libraries have books.  Did you know that people often carry things that tell about them, too?

Let me show you, here is my wallet (or purse).  I keep some important things in here, some of them tell a whole bunch about me.  (Here are some examples from my wallet for you, please feel free to come up with your own!) My driver’s license has my picture, my address, this little heart in the corner means that I’m an organ donor, this “m” means that I ride a motorcycle.  That a pretty important thing that I carry, isn’t it!  What else is in here?  Oh, look at this!  It’s my Starbucks Coffee Gold Card!  This means that I drink way too much coffee.  I have credit cards, too, and business cards.  All of these things can tell you a little bit about who I am and what I think is important.

In our Gospel story today, we hear about something that Jesus did that started to make people wonder who he was.  Does anyone know what he did?  Let me give you a hint, he was at a big party and they ran out of wine to drink.  (Give a minute for answers.  You can give a few more hints if you have time, or just continue if they don’t get it)  He turned a bunch of water into wine!  This was the first time that Jesus did something that we call a miracle that we know about.  That is a sign that tells us Jesus is special.  This wasn’t a magic trick, it was a miracle!  Do you know the difference?  A magic trick can be explained.  If this was a trick he would have hidden the water somewhere and replaced is with wine, but Jesus didn’t do that.  Jesus changed the water into wine, and not just any wine, it was the best wine!  And no one can explain how he did it.

Jesus performs many miracles in the Bible.  He heals people, he feeds people, he even brings some one back from the dead!  Listen for the miracles of Jesus as we read through the Bible in church this year.

Faith+Prayer:   God of Wonders and Miracles, WOW!  We love you for the amazing stories about miracles and for all the gifts that you have given us.  We love you for our family and friends, for beautiful planet that we live on and the endless universe that we live in.  Thank you for all you love and care for us.  Amen.

Faith+Blessing:  Shine with God’s light so that all may see God’s Glory.

Adapted from SPARK Sunday School curriculum.

~GB

Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply.