(I wrote this a few years ago. In the aftermath of yet another mass shooting, this time just miles from our home, it seemed good to revisit.)
A while back Becky and I visited a church that does a children’s sermon during worship.
The kids gathered around the leader, poking and squirming and trying to listen while he showed them a bag filled with stones.
“What do you notice about the stones?”
Hands shot up and he pointed to one youngster.
“They’re all different colors. God made them different colors just like He made people different colors.”
Wow. A murmur ruffles through the crowd. I’m thinking we’re not going to improve on that so we might as well go home. The leader called on another kid.
“They’re all different shapes and sizes just like God made people different shapes and sizes.”
By now I figure this must be rehearsed. The leader must have planted these responses.
Turns out he had an entirely different point in mind, so he thanked the kids for their great observations and moved on to teach a wonderful lesson.
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Don’t you think it’s cool, though, that little kids just take it for granted that God created people like stones, in all colors and shapes and sizes? Kids know God didn’t make “normal” stones.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we worked a little less hard at teaching them to believe in things like racism and discrimination?
We could do that, you know. We have a guide who hung out with stones of every shape, size, and color.
He even hung out with broken stones, like me, and made them whole again.
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.