Sunday, April 25, 2021

Worship Series “Dare To Dance Again”- “By This We Will Know: The Dance of Love” – John 10:11-18, 1John 3:16-24
(Watch past sermons on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hope-United-Methodist-Church-116517175038771)

If you have taught children, or if you had to explain something to anyone, you may agree with me. The best way of helping them understand what you know is bringing examples from their context. I have a kid who is curious about everything. Exaggerating it, I feel like I get questions every second, from small topics like what we are eating tonight to some big topics like what president Joe Biden is doing there, why the violence events had to happen there while we are watching the evening news. In my experience, the best way of teaching him is using images, ideas or metaphors that he is familiar with, saying something like ‘it’s like your school that has big kids and small kids together and big kids like 5th grader is often good at helping with younger students.’

So, I agree that Jesus was an effective teacher. In the gospels, we see he uses metaphors the audience in his time could relate to like vineyards, mustard seeds, fishing nets and sheep for today’s reading. Especially for the sheep and shepherds, we find the metaphor several times in the bible.