They shall build houses and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. — Isaiah 65:21
Surely it is God who saves me;
I will trust in him and not be afraid. — Isaiah 2:2
Isaiah 65:17-25
Global Babies, by The Global Fund for Children (Infant +)
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Little Guys, by Vera Brosgol (PreK 3+)
Luke 21:5-19
So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom, by Gary D. Schmidt (PreK 4+)
Note: This week’s resource corner focuses on the Hebrew Bible text from RCL Track 1 and the Epistle and Gospel texts from both RCL tracks. Typically, we read the RCL Track 2 texts at Trinity on Sundays.
When they were exiled from their homeland, God’s people left everything behind—homes, gardens, and ancestral places of worship. In this week’s text from Isaiah’s prophecies, God offers hope to the exiles—they will build houses and get to live in them, plant gardens and get to enjoy the fruit they produce. Animals will live peacefully with each other—"the wolf and the lamb shall feed together.” Babies will grow up into adulthood, and old people will enjoy their old age. Global Babies, published by the Global Fund for Children, is a celebration of babies and a fun way to prepare for the Incarnation of Jesus at Christmas. The babies pictured in the book are from all around the globe. As you look through the pages at their tiny faces, breathe in God’s expansive love for all of God’s people, and breathe out a prayer of blessing for babies from all around the world and for the diverse cultural expressions of God’s image.
In this week’s text from 2 Thessalonians, Paul issues a command to his readers. He instructs them, in no uncertain terms, to avoid people in their community who are idling their time away instead of working to contribute to the good of the community. What Paul says is harsh! It is really important to remember the context of his words – some people in the Thessalonian church had stopped working because they believed the rumors (from last week’s text) that Jesus was returning soon. They were just waiting around! Other communities throughout history have taken his words, about who should get food and who should not, and made them into strict laws on social welfare. The Jamestown settlement is one example from early American history. In one commentary on this passage, scholar Mariam Kammel writes, “This passage has nothing to do with whether a social welfare should be in place to catch the helpless in society; this is entirely concerned with those who should and can work but refuse and instead direct their energies to causing chaos in the community.” The Little Guys, by Vera Brosgol, illustrates the mischief caused by (tiny) agents of chaos with the hilarious hijinks of some small, but mighty forest dwellers. All their showing off throws the entire forest into upheaval. The little guys have power, because there are so many of them and they work well together. How could they channel this power to work for the good of the forest and its creatures?
In this week’s text from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus reminds his disciples that following him will not be easy. They will encounter hardships, difficulties, and trials. He also reminds them not to give up hope because he will be with them, giving them strength to endure what comes. Many of us have experienced hardships in the past few years due to the pandemic, isolation, political upheaval, and related uncertainty about the future. Practicing perseverance and cultivating hope for and in God is something that we can help our children learn amid these experiences. Gary Schmidt’s story, So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom, connects well with these themes. Sojourner Truth (named Isabella Baumfree at her birth) was born into slavery, and so Schmidt’s story begins in “Slavery Time—where hope is a seed waiting to be planted, when Chains tore families apart like the wind frays a flag.” She grew up in New York and endured many horrors because of enslavement. When she was freed, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth and began living in “Freedom Time— when hope kindled a fire in the dark and Happiness winked over the horizon.” Jesus tells his disciples in the gospel passage that they will have opportunities to testify before kings and governors and that He will give them the words and the wisdom for this testimony. After she gained her freedom, Sojourner Truth traveled the country testifying to the horrors of slavery and of perseverance and faithfulness to God through these horrors. Her story is a powerful depiction of the kind of courage, tenacity in faith, and hope in God that Jesus offers to us.
Note: Because of a loophole in the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, many people in our nation still live in Slavery Time, although the details are different from institutional slavery on plantations before the Civil War. Just this week, in ballot initiatives, four states in the US (Alabama, Vermont, Oregon, and Tennessee) outlawed slavery as punishment for a crime. This is good news! But the struggle is not over. Louisiana rejected a similar ballot measure.
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