Photo: Montgomery County, Maryland, Library
Do you attend a congregation where the children’s “sermon” is given in front of the adults? My husband was recalling the other day how the pastor at our former Rhode Island church was really great with children’s sermons. He was both funny and straightforward. Where we go in Massachusetts, the children’s sermon sometimes plays to the adults too much. But other times it works — especially when the children get to use props and act it out.
I kind of liked this one about different ways of seeing. I’d be interested in what you think.
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Whose Reality Is It Anyway?
By Orlanda R Brugnola
It was not a city. It was not a large town. But it was not a small town. It was — just average, you might say. Except for one thing. There was a Storyteller in the town.
That’s Storyteller with a capital S. The Storyteller had arrived one day without advance notice (or as some people would put it, without warning.) There had been no invitation, no request. The Storyteller just showed up, rented a small house that had been empty for two years and put up a sign inviting people to come and listen to stories.
Mind you, that was not so easy for people in the town. They were nervous about it and wanted to know wanted to know if the Storyteller was qualified. They wanted to know if the Storyteller was accredited. They wanted to know if the Storyteller was male or female. The children didn’t care of course. … On any afternoon you could be sure that most, if not all the children in town were at the Storyteller’s house.
And so the Storytelling began. The Storyteller might say: “In the smoking tiger’s time” …
“Wait a minute! What do you mean?!”
“Oh, that’s just the way stories begin in Korea: ‘In the smoking tiger’s time’ is just a way of saying: ‘Long, long ago’ ” … And the Storyteller would continue …
All the children and youth listening to the stories wanted to listen forever because the stories made them feel amazed and happy. And they wanted to share their amazement and happiness with the rest of their families, so they asked the Storyteller if they could take part of the story home with them and the answer was always “Yes, of course!” and so they did.
[Here the children act out taking wondrous things home and finding that the tiger, the mossy rock, the mountain, etc. make their parents apprehensive.]
The children [said] to the Storyteller, “Our moms and our dads won’t let us bring anything home from the stories. … Can you do something?” …
And then something began happening in the town that got everybody talking. Things started showing up in unexpected places — sometimes very unexpected places. A big tree right in the middle of the street. And then a tiger in front of a garage. And a huge blue mountain at the front door of a house. …
Because the mayor was up for election in a week or so, he said, “I will personally take care of this immediately!” And he marched right over to the Storyteller’s house and knocked on the door. …
“This has got to STOP!” said the mayor. … “All these things that are showing up everywhere … Today I couldn’t even get into my own house because there was a mountain in front of the door!”
“Why don’t you just go through it? … It’s a story-mountain. … All you have to do is enter the story,” [said a voice.] …
“Maybe I should talk to an expert about this!” [the mayor] thought. He liked experts. …
“Why don’t you tell, me about it,” the [expert] said. And so the mayor did. …
“Why did you decide not to enter the story as the Storyteller suggested?” …
“I got angry and didn’t want to. … I’m kind of afraid, though I don’t know what I am afraid of.” …
“New things are unsettling and most of us are reluctant to jump in.”…
“How do we know we will like how the story ends?” [asked the mayor].
“Well, that’s really in our hands. All of us who enter the story decide how it will turn out.” …
“The mayor thought about it some more and decided that maybe the [expert] was right and that he ought to go back to the Storyteller and find out how to get into the story after all.”
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We often joke that our dear UUs explain everything too much. But this sermon must be the exception that proves the rule. See the full children’s story at the UUA website, here.
