Children's Message - Humility

Our church looked at Luke 18: 9-14 yesterday morning (which paired nicely with the other reading from Philippians 2 but I didn't focus on that in the children's message).  Here's what I shared -

I wanted to tell you a story this morning.  And it’s a special story that Jesus told to his disciples and the people who were walking with him to Jerusalem. 

Jesus said, Once there were two men who came to the temple to pray (the temple was kind of like our church).  One was a Pharisee and one was a tax collector.  Now the Pharisees were people who knew a whole lot about obeying all of God’s rules.  So the Pharisee stood up all by himself and said, this was his prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”

Alright, let’s pause our story.  Did you catch that?  This is one of the strangest prayers I have ever heard.  “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.”  What do you think God’s response to that prayer was?  (Allow time for thinking and responses)

- We kind of shrug our shoulders, we don’t know
- The Pharisee doesn’t ask God for anything and the Pharisee doesn’t say anything nice about God
- The prayer is all about himself, and maybe some bad thoughts about other people too
I don’t think that would be very pleasing to God

So getting back to our story.  After the Pharisee prayed, the second man, the tax collector, took his turn to pray.  And he wasn’t in the middle of everyone like the Pharisee, he was standing far away.  If he was in this sanctuary, he’s probably be in the very back corner all by himself.  And he hung his head down and beat his hand against his heart and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

That prayer might sound a little more familiar, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner’.  The tax collector was asking God to forgive him for all the things he had done wrong.  What do you think God’s response to that prayer was?  (allow for answers...I think that God probably forgave him, and sent some extra love his way…)

At the end of the story, Jesus told his followers that the lesson in this story is that the attitude we bring to prayer is important.  We don’t need to be around a lot of other people, we don’t need to talk about how great we are (God already knows how wonderful each of you are!)  When we come to God in prayer, God wants us to remember that we need God’s forgiveness and God’s love, and prayer is a special time for us to remember that.  So I was hoping that we could follow the tax collector’s example: can you place your hands on your heart and bow your heads and pray with me?

God, be merciful to me, a sinner.  Thank you for always hearing our prayers.  Thank you for always forgiving us.  Thank you for being our resting place.  Amen.


Reflection: It's funny, this passage is most commonly interpreted as being about humility but I never used that word.  Maybe that was a missed opportunity to help them learn about a big word that has a difficult meaning.  For better or worse, I was really stuck on the question I asked about how they thought God responded to each prayer.  I hardly got any answers from the kids, so it may have been over their head a little bit.  On the positive though, in hindsight, I liked that we all prayed the words of the tax collector and that we recognized how the words he used are ones we know and use too.