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: Parables
Supplies: Paper, pencil or pen, colored pencils or crayons
Parables were told to help the people of God understand things that were hard. Forgiveness is something that can be hard too. As a family, work to come up with a parable that would help people understand forgiveness.
Break it into 5 or 6 parts. Then illustrate one piece of paper for each part of the parable. Tape them together to create a comic strip out of your parable.
Take a picture of each page and share it with family and friends, the same way Jesus did!
Story Time: The Unforgiving Servant
Watch this video together and then use the discussion questions below to reflect as a family.
Discussion Questions:
1. I wonder what you noticed in this story?
2. I wonder what you thought about the king?
3. I wonder what you thought about the servant that was forgiven by the king?
4. Why do you think he acted the way he did?
5. What choice do you think he could have made instead?
Dinner Time: Understanding Parables
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 Lord, Thank you for the gift of Your forgiveness. Help us to leave room in our hearts for love by laying the pain and heartache caused by others at Your feet. Give us a willing spirit to forgive others, and guide us as we look for a way forward. Remind us that we are living through a difficult time right now and that we need to be patient with our families, our friends, and especially ourselves. Help us to forgive ourselves when we make mistakes and give us courage to try again with Your help. AMEN
Questions:
1. In this week’s story we heard another parable from Jesus. Can you remember a few of the other ones we have heard?
2. Which ones are your favorites?
3. Are parables easy to understand or hard? Why?
4. How do you think the disciples felt listening to Jesus?
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.
Matthew 18:21-35 (God’s Word, My Voice)
Peter had another question for Jesus. “If someone at my church hurts my feelings, how often do I have to forgive him? Is seven times enough?”
Jesus laughed at Peter, “Seven times? You’ve got to be kidding! More like seventy-seven times, I’d say. Let me tell you a story about forgiveness.”
Jesus continued: There was a king whose slaves owed him some money. One who owed him $10,000 came to the king and told him he had no money to pay him back. So the king said he’d have to be sold, along with his family and everything he owned, to make up for his debt. But his debt of money had been forgiven.
That same slave whose debt had been forgiven ran into a fellow slave who owed him $100. He grabbed him by the throat and said, “You pay me what you owe me or else.”
His fellow slave fell down on the ground and pleaded with him, “Please have patience with me. I promise I will pay you. Give me some more time.”
But the first slave refused and threw his fellow into prison until he could pay the debt.
All the other slaves were very upset when they saw this because they knew that the first man had been unfair. The owner said, “When I knew you couldn’t pay me what you owed, I listened to your story and forgave you. Shouldn’t you have done the same when someone owed you money? You make me so angry, get out of my sight.”
God, your heavenly Father, wants you to forgive from your heart, even as you have been forgiven.
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: