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Children’s Sermon

Mark 3:20-35

God’s United Family

June 9, 2024

Third Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Year B

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ASK (a.k.a The On-Ramp)

Good morning!
Can you tell me what this is? [hold up the pencil with no lead/graphite in it]
Yep, it's a pencil!
Do you notice something not quite right about it (point at the tip of the pencil if they don’t guess correctly)? [the lead/graphite is missing]
You're right -- the graphite is missing which means the pencil can't write or draw -- which is basically the only thing that it’s supposed to do, right?
What about this thin piece of graphite? [hold up the graphite]…
…do you think I could write well by just holding and using this graphite by itself? (no – it’ll break too easy and get graphite on your fingers)
So basically, the only way this pencil can work correctly, then, is if the two parts of it work together like so: [put graphite into the pencil]

And once that happens…then the pencil writes much better on the paper! Thank you for helping me figure that out!

TELL (a.k.a. The Freeway)

The pencil and paper not working very well when separate from each other is a lot like today's scripture story, where we heard about people not working together whatsoever.
In the story, we heard that it was so crowded that the people could not even eat – can you imagine a place being so crowded that you couldn’t even eat?
We also heard that some of the people were saying mean things about Jesus.
And then Jesus' mother and brothers try to pull Jesus away from his work!
In other words, nobody was working together and a lot of people were working against each other.
Nobody working together is probably why Jesus then tells the crowd that a house that is divided against itself cannot stand.
Which is why Jesus then tells them to not say no to God's Holy Spirit.
Here's what Jesus means by those words: Just like this pencil [show pencil with lead in it] needs the graphite in it before it can work well with the paper, we need God's spirit in us and in our lives before we can work well with each other.
But, when we don't ask for and then accept God's help and spirit, then we aren’t able to work very well together, just like we saw in today's scripture story.

SHARE the Good News (a.k.a. The Destination)

This is also why Jesus says that whoever pays attention to God is his brother and sister and mother.
He’s saying that when we pay attention to God, then we’ll be working together with Jesus, just like a family – a really big and loving family.
Nowadays, we call this family of Jesus’, “The church” and “the Body of Christ.”
But to make it work well, we still have to keep doing what Jesus is saying in today’s story: We have to keep paying attention to God and keep inviting God into our lives because it is God’s spirit in us that keeps us working together.
And when we work together with God and each other, amazing things can and do happen!
That’s the good news for today. Let’s pray.

CLOSING Prayer

This is a repeat-after-me prayer.

Dear God,

Thank you for Jesus...

...who teaches us…

...who teaches us...

...how to invite you into our lives…

...so that we can then work together.

Thank you and amen

Originally posted May 31, 2015

Updated on May 11, 2024

Written and edited by Nathanael Vissia

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Supplies: A piece of paper and a mechanical pencil with graphite / lead that you can pull out and put back in. If you don’t have a mechanical pencil, you can use a regular pencil with the writing end broken off and then have a second pencil that’s sharpened.

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