A Parent - Child Break up

Martyn Payne

Introduction:

The following assembly outline with classroom follow-up is part of a series that explores the theme of breaking and restoring relationships, using stories from the Old and New Testaments. In each one we meet groups and individuals whose relationship with God and each other is damaged for a variety of reasons, but we also read about how God then works to mend what has been broken.

This session focuses on what we can learn from the story of Jesus lost in Jerusalem for three days and how Mary and Joseph then find him in the temple.

Preparation:

Use the retelling of this story from The Barnabas Schools' Bible, story 253, page 222.

You will find the Bible story in Luke 2:41-52.

You will need to prime a group of children with some answers for your search in the first part of the assembly. You will also need a bow tie or some other unusual item that you are seeking urgently!

Development:

1. Begin your assembly by looking very anxious and agitated. Search through pockets and papers, making it clear that you are missing something important.

Now arrange for a group of children from your class to respond to your repeated question, namely:

'Have you seen my bow tie?'

Here are the six responses that different children give as you search. Each time you suggest the obvious place to look.

No, but have you seen my ruler? No, but have you checked in your pencil case?

Oh that's a good idea, thank you.

No, but have you seen my trainers? No, but have you checked in your PE bag?

Oh that's a good idea, thank you.

No, but have you seen my crisps? No, but have you checked in your lunch box?

Oh that's a good idea, thank you.

No, but have you seen my glasses? No, but have you checked in your spectacle case?

Oh that's a good idea, thank you.

No, but have you seen my hair slide? No, but have you checked in your hair?

Oh that's a good idea, thank you.

No, but have you seen my reading book? No, but have you checked in your school bag?

Oh that's a good idea, thank you.

Then the penny drops and you realize that you need to take your own advice. Sometimes the thing we have lost is in the most obvious place - the place it ought to be.

My bow tie will be in my tie draw!

It's maddening when things go missing and even more maddening when you find them where you should have looked in the first place!

And when people go missing, maybe it is the same.

Today's story is about the time that Jesus went missing and he turned up in the most obvious place, though it was the last place where his mum and dad looked!

2. Use the retelling of this story from The Barnabas Schools' Bible, story 253, page 222.

Children will have their own experiences of being lost and found - something that seems to happen to many of us at some time when growing up.

Ask if any of the children have ever got lost. Where was it? When was it? How did you feel?

Who found you? What did they say? I wonder if you learned something from it all?

3. In one way, this story is also about being so absorbed in doing what you love to do that you forget your responsibilities! Jesus enjoyed talking about God in the temple with the priests and teachers there. He lost all sense of time.

Sometimes we can end up upsetting the people who love and care for us without meaning to.

If only Jesus had told them where he was going...

If only Mary and Joseph had thought to check that Jesus was with the party from Nazareth before they left Jerusalem.

If only they had arranged a meeting place or someone to take a message.

If only...

Often relationships at home break down because someone forgot to do something quite simple and then it all ends up as a major problem that causes real distress.

4. For a time of reflection and prayer following this story, use some images on a screen or as pictures on a flip chart linked to what happened. These can act as prompts for thinking about what it all this might mean for us today. You could use any of the following:

a. A big exclamation mark: what a shock for Mary and Joseph when they discovered Jesus wasn't with the group.

I wonder if we have ever stopped to think how others feel when we let them down or cause them distress?

Thinking about how others feel is perhaps the first step to putting things right.

b. A big question mark: what a worry it was for them because they had to keep asking if anyone had seen their boy.

I wonder if we sometimes forget how much our families and loved ones care about us? Do we perhaps take it for granted? It's only when things like this happen, that we realize how much they do care.

c. A picture of an imposing temple-like building: Jesus turned up in the place that they had been to with him for the ceremony and in the place that they perhaps should have looked first.

I wonder if we sometimes forget to look in the most obvious place for a solution to our worries? Christians believe that the first place we should turn when we are in trouble is to God in prayer.

d. A scroll such as the ones they would read from in the temple: Jesus was asking and answering questions. He wanted to know more about the things that matter. He clearly forgot about everything else!

I wonder if sometimes we can cause others to worry because we get too wrapped up in our own ideas and interests? It's not wrong to get absorbed in doing something you enjoy but remember it could lead to being thoughtless about others if we are not careful.

e. A large speech bubble with the words, 'Didn't you know I would be in my Father's house?':

I wonder what Jesus meant? It certainly puzzled Mary and she never forgot it. Jesus was growing up and was discovering the special work he had to do as God's son.

I wonder what special work we will have to do today... and as we grow up. It is important to find this out.

Though we don't hear Jesus saying sorry in this story, we do know that he returned home and was a good son after this until his time came to start his big work. The tension between these two parents and their son was mended and they all seem to have learned something new.

5. In the classroom follow-up to this assembly there will be an opportunity to explore all this further.

Ideas for classroom follow-up in a circle time

1. Clearly Jesus was so totally absorbed in what he was doing in the temple that he lost all track of time and forgot that his mum and dad would be worried about him.

Maybe the children in your group can relate to this? As an opening activity in a circle, talk about which things they get lost in doing and where this happens.

Where is their favourite place to be? What do they love doing the most?

Do they perhaps spend so long doing these activities that they forget other things they should be doing or places they should be?

So often relationships in a family or between friends can break down because of things just like this.

2. In terms of Jesus' life story, this incident records the very first words that we ever hear Jesus 'speak'. Interestingly, it is both a question and also rather mysterious. He says something unexpected that makes people think. This is a pattern for what is to come.

To illustrate this you might like to try a fun game of trying to carry on a conversation across the group for as long as possible about a given situation but anything anyone says must be in the form of a question. For example, the situation might be at the swimming pool and would go like this:

Have you brought a spare towel?

Did you ask me to bring one?

Didn't you bring one last time?

Why would I do that?

and so on.

Jesus' questions weren't quite so frivolous but they did get people thinking and wanting to find out more.

3. Try the exercise Bringing a Picture to Life. There are several well-known pictures of this incident from the Bible that you could find via the Internet Or why not use a modern interpretation from The Life of Jesus through the Eyes of an Artist, published by Barnabas. A CD of the images is available directly from BRF.

In this activity the group reconstructs the scene of the picture with some simple props and then can move on into suggesting possible words, actions and thoughts for the characters involved. This exercise can really open up the story imaginatively as well as helping to establish the basic facts of what happened.

To help with this exercise, first read the story in The Barnabas Schools' Bible, story 253.

4. Only Luke includes a story about Jesus as a child in his Gospel.

I wonder why Luke chose to include it?

Try hot seating Luke the writer. Maybe the teacher could be Luke first and the children be invited to ask the questions.

Why did he include this story?

What was he trying to show?

What new things about Jesus does it reveal?

Doesn't it just show Jesus up as being disobedient or at best forgetful?

How does it help Luke's aim to present Jesus to those who have never heard about him?

Would the Gospel suffer if this story were left out?

5. Mary and Joseph were obviously very puzzled by what had happened. Luke tells us that Mary thought these things over in her heart.

What do the children think she learned from all that had happened?

Talk this over with your group.

6. The story leaves lots of things unexplained. For example:

Why didn't Mary and Joseph realize much earlier that Jesus was missing?

Where did Jesus spend the night in Jerusalem?

What sort of questions was Jesus asking?

What questions did the priests and teachers ask of him?

Why didn't Mary and Joseph try looking in the temple sooner?

Why did Jesus not let his parents know what he was doing?

Why didn't Jesus get much more of a telling-off?

Any or all of these might get your group talking - and asking questions!

7. Younger children might like to recreate the scene in the temple with some peg dolls as the people (available in packs from stationers). Include some rolled-up card to become the temple columns near which they met and some smaller paper scrolls to represent the scriptures about which they were talking.

8. It is possible that Jesus had recently experienced his Bar Mitzvah, which meant he had become 'a son of the law' and this pilgrimage to Jerusalem may have been his first. Maybe in the temple he was discussing the very passage that he had to learn off by heart for that special day.

For a time of reflection together choose a particular passage from 'the law' that could have been one he would of known well, such as Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

Read the passage carefully and slowly, pausing in between each of the verses and giving space for the children to think about what it says there, namely:

Love God with all our hearts.

Learn his laws.

Talk about his ways to others.

Write down the special things God says to us.

Find ways to remember that God is with us wherever we go.

9. Key thought: There are lots of lost and found stories in the Bible, but this one is different from many of the others, because it focuses not on the one who gets lost so much as those who lose him. Even so, the story is still about the joy of finding the lost and Jesus himself experiences being found. Christians believe that this is another way in which Jesus has entered fully into the experience of being human and so can understand how we feel.