Story-in-progress: The Stranger's Gift

I'm working on a new story, one that I'm telling as a Time for All Ages to the whole congregation tomorrow, but that I'd like to reinforce by bringing into the Spirit Play classroom. I like this flow a lot, either starting with a story downstairs and bringing it up, or vice versa. Reinforcement of good ideas with repetition, telling the same story in multiple forms, and presenting the same material to adults and children are all good ways to build cohesion and community.

This story is sometimes called "The Stranger's Gift." It's a traditional wisdom tale with no known source. In it, a stranger comes to a troubled, angry, quarrelsome town and shares the information that the messiah is one of them. The people are intrigued and excited by this news, and on the off chance that anyone they meet might be the messiah, they begin to treat each other with reverence, love, and respect. The stranger moves on, and no one ever finds out who the messiah is--or if the rumor the stranger started was even true--but the miracle is that the people themselves were able to transform their town with the way they shared the common purpose of spreading kindness.

For my story, I'm changing messiah to "an enlightened one," but otherwise keeping many of the details the same. I'm sharing it for the first of two sermons preached by the ministerial candidate, hoping that the congregation finds lots to work with in the ideas above.

Here are the story elements-in-the-works:

Wall wrap-around

The day has come! We have run out of shelf space and are now lining the walls with stories!

The stories go down this wall and wrap around the one behind where I'm taking the picture. I think they've heard 16 stories this year?

Our classrooms are small, so only the narrowest bookshelves fit with enough room for kids and teachers. This seemed like a perfectly workable solution to end the year out. At first, I was worried the stories would get stepped on or jostled about too much, without a clear "place" or "cubby" that they belonged in. But not so! The children adapted to this arrangement quickly, and since there are more soft and gentle in their movements in this room anyway, it turns out my fears were unfounded.  One new challenge is finding a way to label the baskets; we had settled on affixing the label to the shelf in front of the basket, but that doesn't work quite as well on carpet.

The story of the Exodus and Passover

Oh, how I wanted to make a video to show you this story! Alas, I was not able to get it together in time. Hopefully, pictures throughout will help show the flow of story elements. I'll share a link, too, to the Haggadah (the text of the Exodus story told ceremoniously throughout the Passover Seder, to move the meal along and keep the story alive) that we'll be basing ours on this Sunday, though I will tell you that it is being shortened quite a bit by our guest Children's Chapel leader, Chava. If she shares with me her final text in digital form, I'll paste it up here.

So! On to the story.

*****

Exodus and the Passover Seder

Jewish and Christian Heritage Source Story

Designed for small, mixed-age group (4-12)

Overview: This is a general story of the Exodus of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, with the specifics of the plagues omitted for age-appropriateness for the youngest members. A nice follow-up to this story is an experience of an actual Passover Seder, with the reading of a Haggadah, the experience of which will close the session for the day. The focus of this story is on the journey to freedom and the remembrance of that journey.

Materials:

 For story:

                   
 Basket with Judeo-Christian symbol

 Brown or beige underlay, long rectangle

 House with unmarked door on one side, red-marked door on other  side  

 Several people together that illustrate “traveling” on one side, and gathering for a 
      meal on the other
Pyramids to indicate the desert

A representation of the sea, with some way to show people moving  through it

A small cloth to indicate a special place (first home, then the Seder gathering)

                  

          For feast:

Supplies with vary depending on Haggadah used, but consider watered-down grape juice, small celery sticks, small bowl of salt water, chopped pecans or walnuts, matzo bread, and a cup and plate for each attendee

This story comes to us from the Torah, the holy book of the Jewish people. It is also in the Christian Bible, in the part called the Old Testament. Now, some Jewish people believe that every bit of this story is true. Some Jewish people believe that parts of the story are true, and parts were added later, over time. And some Jewish people believe that this story is meant to teach a lesson, but it does not tell exactly what happened, especially the part about God punishing people. That is not the kind of God that they believe in. We are going to hear this story with an open mind and heart, and we will wonder together at the end. (You may or may not want to add that part about the "truth" of stories. That can be helpful for congregations that are just getting used to the ideas of Bible and other religious stories being "true," but it can detract some from the mythic power of the story as well.)

The story takes place at a time when the Jewish people lived in Egypt, under the rule of the Pharoh. Has anyone ever heard of a pharoh before? What is a pharoh? Yes, it’s a ruler, or a king, of ancient Egypt.

Take out underlay, and spread it out carefully. Place house, unmarked side up, to your right/children’s left. Place small knitted rug in front of house.

So, the Jewish people lived among the Egyptians. Only things were not great for them. The Jewish people in Egypt were not treated as well as other people. They didn’t have the same freedoms. They weren’t able to do the jobs of their choice. And they were forced to do things they didn’t want to do. They were slaves.

But the story goes that God did not like how the Jewish people were being treated, and that God sent 10 terrible punishments to the Egyptian people who treated them so unjustly.

For the 10^th and last punishment, God did not want the Jewish people to suffer along with the Egyptians, so God told the Jewish people to mark the doors to their houses so that the angel sent to enact the punishments would “pass over” their homes.

Turn over house to show red mark on door. Move hand to "pass over" house.

The Pharoh was very upset about the 10 punishments that God sent to him and his people. So he demanded that the Jewish people leave Egypt.

The Jewish people left their homes in a hurry, before the Pharoh could change his mind.

Carefully roll up rug. Put traveling people next to house, and with rolled-up rug with them, move away from house to your left/children’s right.

They didn’t have time to prepare in the ways they might have liked, so they left before their bread had a chance to rise. Bread that hasn’t been “fluffed up” by bubbles caused by yeast is called “unleaven.” So the Jewish people left with what they could carry, including their unleaven bread.

Place seas next.

First, they came to the sea. How would they cross it? They looked behind them and saw that the Pharoh had indeed changed his mind, and the Egyptian Army had come to re-capture them. 

But something amazing happened next in the story. God protected the Jewish people. God parted the seas.

God created a pocket of dry land going all the way across the sea so that the Jewish people could walk through safely, and without getting harmed by the Egyptians. The Egyptians could not follow them.

Part seas, and move Jewish people through waves to other side.

But their journey wasn't over. They had a long and hard journey through the desert, all on foot, all together.

Place pyramids next. Move people down below the pyramids, passing them, and moving them down again to children's lower right of underlay.

The Jewish people were finally arrived at their new homeland, safe, and truly free.

Carefully unroll and lay out small rug. Place traveling people on the rug. Then, turn traveling people over to reveal people gathered at a feast.

Together, they had a feast. Jewish people today still share this feast, to remind themselves of what their people had experienced. This special feast is called the Passover Seder, and when Jewish people gather in this way, they re-tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt and the escape to freedom.

 

(Notice here that I accidentally reversed the placement of the pyramids and the seas. My friend Chava corrected me on my first telling of this story, during Children's Chapel, so the text above has been corrected, too.)

                       

I wonder what the Jewish people had to leave behind when they left Egypt?

I wonder what the long journey must have been like, especially for the children?

I wonder if the Jewish people were scared, or sad, or doubtful when God told them to leave?

I wonder what the new homeland was like?

I wonder if this story reminds you of any other stories you have heard?

I wonder where is the Spirit of Mystery and Wonder in this story?

Now, it’s time to put this story away.

First we put away the people at the Passover Seder in the new homeland.

Next we gather up the sea, and the pyramids of the desert, where they traveled so long.

Finally, we put away the homes that the Jewish people left in Egypt.

Set basket aside and look at children. Smile.

Together, we’re going to share something special now, a real Passover Seder.

*******

The Haggadah that we're basing our feast text on is here, and there's another one here. We're ordering this children's book for the program library this year, too.

There could easily be a Moses and the burning bush element added to this story base. 

With older kids, it might be neat to bring in a geography element with Egypt, the Red Sea, and Jerusalem. 

In a classroom setting, this could be done over 2 Sundays, or even over the month of April with the story, followed by a work week, followed by the Seder, followed by a work week with a Passover/Elijah picture book read-aloud, a sharing and singing of this song (lyrics below video), or a special craft such as creating a take-home cup of Elijah.

And finally, here's a picture of me telling the story as part of a Children's Chapel service in April: