Lectionary Links: Sunday, May 8, 2011
3rd Sunday in Easter
Year A: May 8, 2011
First Reading: Acts 2:14a, 36-41
The Quiltmaker’s Journey by Jeff Brumbeau (Written for Ages 5-9)
Comment: Peter says, “Repent… Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” His words are a call for action. We are to turn our lives around, and live according to Christ’s way, rather than the way of the world. Today’s text speaks of the powerful transformation of three thousand lives. What might it look like, to repent, be transformed, and begin a new life? Children are given a vision of this transformation in the story of the Quilt Maker’s Journey. The young girl leaves a life of wealth and beauty to seek her new life. Along the way she discovers her calling—to share love, warmth, and hope with others through the quilts she makes. To repent, to turn away from the corrupt ideas of the world, gives us the opportunity to stitch beauty, warmth, love, and hope into a world desperately waiting for God’s Kingdom to come.
Second Reading: 1 Peter 1:17-23
Love: Values to Live By by Jane Belk Moncure (Written for Ages 2-4)
Comment: The reading from First Peter addresses how we are to live out our new life in Christ. “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” Love can be a tricky concept to explain. More often, we come to understand and know love through feeling and participating in the act of love. Moncure’s Love uses vignettes from the daily life of a young girl to help explain what it is to love. Though the pictures are dated, the text remains relevant for young children today. The story ends with a question, opening up time to explore and discuss the ways we show love.
Gospel Reading: Luke 24:13-35
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (Written for Ages 9-11)
Comment: “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” The disciples’ experience with Jesus at dinner is a revelation—suddenly something to which they were blind becomes crystal clear, and it changes the meaning of the past for them. In the chapter Magic Thread, Mira’s experience is not that unlike the disciples. “…it was like an invisible hand reached out and snatched away my veil. And for almost a minute, I understood everything. When that veil isn’t hanging down right in front of a person’s face, a minute is long enough to realize a lot of things.” When Mira discovers that the crazy old man is her friend Marcus, older and having traveled back in time, she comes to understand the past few months in a new light.
Lectionary Links: Sunday, May 8, 2011 by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
