Hosted by the Faith To Go team in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, David Tremaine and Charlette Preslar, and joined the each week by a special guest, the Faith To Go Podcast highlights themes from the Sunday Gospel reading for you to take into your faith discussions and reflections throughout the week.
Activity Time: Lent Desert Box (Week 3)
Supplies: small magnifying glass. (This activity utilizes the desert box that we created in week one of Lent)
Instructions: Take the feather out of the desert box and ask, “How could you describe this feather?” give everyone a few minutes to answer, and then get out the magnifying glass. Give each person a chance to look at the feather with the magnifying glass and ask, “What new things do you notice about the feather when you use the magnifying glass?” repeat the exercise with the shell, one of the stones, and the sand. Then ask, “Have you seen God today?” If kids struggle with an answer, offer, “Sometimes seeing God is in the little things, just like the details we could see with the magnifying glass. Let’s think about some little things that happened this today and see if we can see God was there.” Help the children reflect on small acts of kindness and love from their day. *this conversation can be repeated nightly, passing the magnifying glass from person to person and allowing them to be detectives of God’s love in their day.
Story Time: Jesus Met a Samaritan Woman
Watch this video together and then use the discussion questions below to reflect as a family.
Discussion Questions:
1. What does it mean to worship God?
2. Where do we go to worship?
3. Do you think we have to be in church to worship God?
4. Where else could we be?
5. How could we worship at home?
Dinner Time: Something in Common
Below is a prayer with which to start your meal and then discussion questions to explore this week’s topic with your family while you eat.
Prayer -
Dear God, Thank you for the food we eat, for the people who made it, and for the people who grew it. Help us to remember that there are people all over the world who are eating dinner tonight. They may not look like us, or sound like us, but they are gathered at a table. Remind us that even though we are different in many ways, there are always lots of ways that we are similar. Help us to be open and kind to people that seem different than we do. Amen.
Questions:
1. The Samaritan woman was surprised that Jesus didn’t talk to her. Can you think of someone that would be hard for you to talk to?
2. Why would it be hard?
3. Even people that seem very different than us, can be similar in some ways. What is a good way to find something in common with people who challenge us?
4. What do you think the world would be like if we were all the same?
5. Why do you think we need different types of people?
Bedtime: Reflections for Children at the End of the Day
During your bedtime routine, invite your children into a time of reflection about their day, maybe by saying, "Did you know that God really wants to know what happened in your day today, and that God is always listening whenever you need to tell God something?" Then continue with these questions:
1) What are some things that happened today that you want to tell God about?
2) What is one happy thing that happened today? What is one sad thing that happened today?
3) Did you see God or feel God with you when those things were happening? Where did you see or feel God when those things happened today?
4) Read to your children this week’s scripture selection, then ask the questions that follows.
John 4:5-42 (God’s Word, My Voice)
Jesus came to Jacob’s well and sat down because he was tired. His disciples had gone into town to buy food. It was the middle of the day. A Samaritan woman came to get water from the well and Jesus asked her if she’d give him a drink of water.
The woman was shocked because Jews don’t usually talk to Samaritans, much less share their water. “You’re asking ME for water?” the woman said. Jesus answered her, “If only you knew who I was, and what I could give you, you would have asked ME for LIVING water.”
The woman said, “Living water? This is one deep well and you don’t even have a bucket. How do you expect to give me living water? You think you’re more special than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well?”
Jesus said, “You drink from this well, and you’ll just be thirsty again. But if you drink the ‘water’ I give you, you will never be thirsty again. The water I have for you will gush up from a spring of eternal life.”
The woman said, “Oh please sir, I’d like some of that water, so I’ll never be thirsty and I won’t have to work so hard to get water here at this well.”
Jesus said, “Why don’t you go get your husband and tell him?”
“But I don’t have a husband,” she said.
Jesus said, “You’re right about that. You’ve gone through five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t your husband.”
“Whoa! How did you know that? You must be a prophet. My people worship here, but you Jews say the only place to worship is in Jerusalem. What do you say about that?”
Jesus said, “You know, someday it won’t matter where we worship, because the only place to worship God is in your heart. God doesn’t ‘belong’ anywhere; God is spirit and we must worship him with our spirit.”
The woman agreed with him. “And I agree that the Messiah is coming soon, and when he gets here, he will tell us all what’s going on.”
Jesus said, “You’re talking to him, the Messiah.”
Just then his disciples came back with food. They were shocked that he was talking on and on with this woman. They saw her leave her water jar at the well. When she was in the city, she told everyone she knew about this remarkable man who seemed to know everything about her. “I think he’s the Messiah,” she said.
Meanwhile the disciples tried to get Jesus to eat something. “Oh, I have food alright,” Jesus said. “Food you don’t know about.”
“What?” the disciples said. “We walked all the way into town to get some food for you, and now you say you already had some?”
But Jesus was talking about food in a different way, just as he talked with the woman about living water.
“The food that keeps me going is doing what God wants me to do,” said Jesus.
The Samaritan woman brought her friends from town to meet Jesus. They all believed in Jesus because of what she told them. They invited Jesus to stay with them, so he did. Even more people believed in him then and knew that he was the Savior of the world because of all he told them.
Did the story remind you of anything that happened in your day today?
5) What are some things that you want to tell God that you are grateful for today?
Share some of your conversations in the comments below: