Recently, I have been working on writing object lessons for each week of the school year which match the readings for the upcoming Sunday. I try to come up with some little trinket or picture to show the children to explain the point I am attempting to get across. Children are visual learners, after all, and are more likely to remember the message being shared if they recall the image they saw.
In one of the readings, I came across these verses:
An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest” (Luke 9:46-48).
What strikes me in this scene is that Jesus used the little child as a human object lesson, if you will. He added a visual to his point. He made his lesson real and personal. “You should be like this actual innocent young person here.” Biblical historians note that in Jesus’ day, little children were not regarded as very valuable or important or worthwhile to society. But here Jesus turns that thinking on its head, putting a child front and center in his discussion with his disciples. The lesson then becomes that only the ones who welcome those who are as “out of the loop” as this little child are called greatest in the kingdom of God.
It occurs to me that this teaching of Jesus would not have had the impact that it did were it not for the living, breathing child before them. Jesus continues to teach lessons to all the world through living, breathing you and me. We, too, are Jesus’ human object lessons. And what does he have to teach through us? We stand before the world as examples of sinners, for we have done what is evil in the sight of God. And we stand before the world as real-life illustrations of what it means to be loved and forgiven by Christ through his cross. We are called to live out our response to that grace through words and actions that are loving and caring, hopeful and helpful for all to see.
So think about it. What would you do if Jesus put you front and center before a crowd? It might be scary to consider at first, but in the end we know it is not about us but about what Christ has done through us. We are merely vessels that display his work in human lives. Now that’s a good object lesson to remember.
