Lectionary Links (RCL): June 30, 2019
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Year C, June 30, 2019
First Reading: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
After The Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat
(Written for ages 4-8)
Comment: Losing someone is hard. And even harder when it is your mentor. Elisha is sticking close by Elijah and knows his time is coming to take the lead in proclaiming the word of God to the world. When the time comes and Elijah is taken up, Elisha is heartbroken. He begins to grieve. Elisha has a choice. He can choose to allow the grief to overcome him or he can take up the staff and keep being God’s prophet to a broken world in the midst of the grief. We all have a choice when difficult things come. We can let the difficulty of the event derail us or we can pick up the pieces and keep moving forward. In After the Fall, we hear the next part of Humpty Dumpty’s story. Since falling from the wall, Humpty is now afraid of heights. He has let the fall keep him from living as his full self. He seeks to find something that will replace the feeling of being high with the birds, until the next best thing causes him to face his fears. Humpty in the end chooses to keep moving forward and not let his fall redefine who he is. We have to make a choice when difficult things happen. Elisha and Humpty Dumpty both chose to stay on their paths.
Second Reading: Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Maybe I Can Love My Neighbor Too by Jennifer Grant
Maybe God Is Like that Too by Jennifer Grant
(Written for ages 4-8)
Comment: These words from Galatians remind us to serve Christ through our actions. We are reminded that the freedom we receive through Christ comes with a call to love. We are called to love one another as Christ loves us. We are called to offer love and compassion as we live lives defined by the fruit of the spirit. In Maybe I Can Love My Neighbor Too, a little girl explores the ways she can show love to people in her community and who exactly her neighbors are. As she seeks to answer the questions of who and how, she learns love is shared in even the smallest actions when filled with kindness and generosity. In Maybe God is Like That Too, a young boy is looking for places God is in his community. His Grandma tells him God is everywhere and we see God when people live by the fruit of the spirit. The book follows him through his community seeing people highlight one aspect of the fruit of the spirit. This is a great book to unpack what each of the specific traits listed as part of the fruit of the spirit.
Gospel Reading: Luke 9:51-62
The New Neighbors by Sarah McIntyre
(Written for ages 3-7)
Comment: Richard Schaffer Jr. writes “The Christian journey does not demand that we reject our responsibilities to family and vocation, but rather, encourages us to see those needs in the light of our faith and through the lens of our deepening commitment to Christ.” (Feasting on the Word Year. C. Vol 3.,2010 p.194). This text from Luke reminds us discipleship of Christ requires us to reorient ourselves to the world around us. It requires us to see the world through Christ’s eyes and to respond to the world in a way that shines the light of Christ for all to see. The Christian life requires us to show love and grace to the world. In The New Neighbors, the bunnies learn of rats moving into the building. They are so excited and cannot wait to meet their new neighbors. On the way to greet the rats, the bunnies stop along the way and invite all the residents of the building to join them on their task. Each of the other residents brings hesitations and worries about the new neighbors just because they are rats. Even the bunnies seem to start worrying. When the rats open the door, they are greeted with love and kindness as the rats have prepared a cake for all the new neighbors. Thought this interaction all the neighbors have been changed for the better. When we encounter Christ, we are changed to see the world in a new light.
Thanks to Union Presbyterian Seminary alumna Elizabeth Boulware Landes for writing the Revised Common Lectionary Links this week.
Lectionary Links (RCL): June 30, 2019 by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
