Sunday's Gospel reading was Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23, the sower throwing seeds in every sort of landscape. It's a reading that always takes me back to Godspell and the ways the wacky clown disciples acted out the parable.
With a different set of kids, I might have suggested some improv instead of a youth sermon. But the youth of Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee are not drama club kids, and I didn't want to put them on the spot like that. So I created something different.
I usually invite the youth to come forward for the youth sermon, while the congregation sings. Yesterday I invited them up to play "Seed Lottery."
I had created slips of cardstock, and on each slip, I wrote one of the types of ground: "rocky ground," "a path where people walk," "a thorn patch," "a place with no sun," "ground with no rain," "ground where birds live," and "good soil with enough water and sun." I had each youth draw a slip of cardstock, and then said we'd see which seed won the seed lottery.
They pointed to the one who drew that last slip. I talked a bit about how the other growing spots might not be as bad as we think: a bird can eat a seed and give it a chance to grow in a different place, complete with a bit of fertilizer (did every youth understand I was talking about poop? who knows).
And then I concluded with the important piece: God isn't running a seed lottery, with one clear winner and everyone else with lesser options. God can take all sorts of situations, like rocky ground or thorns, and turn them into something good, something beyond our imagining.
I was pleased with how it turned out. My youth sermons are often just me chatting; I like mixing it up by doing something different. Not every Gospel lends itself to something different, so I'm happy when they do--and happy when I can figure out a different approach while there is still time to do it.
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