Just because there are animals in a story doesn’t mean it’s a great story for kids. We tell some pretty horrific stories to children. I am not the first one to point out that most of the Bible stories we tell to children are not meant to be children’s stories. But mostly we do, I think, because of the animals. Kids like animals so we roll out the stories, two by two. (Although, strangely, Elisha and the bears seldom makes it to Sunday school…)
I have one friend who pretended not to be able to read when Beangirl, then aged 2, brought her Noah’s Ark to read. She told me later that she just couldn’t face sharing the story of God choosing to destroy the world. She’d been really troubled by that fact as a child, and she didn’t want to give any 2 year old the same theological anxieties. Not yet, she said. So they just looked at the animals together and talked about how marvelous they are. Not a bad way to pass an afternoon.
But then Sunday morning rolls around, and someone schedules the story of Daniel.
(Okay, hands up, I’m the guilty party here.)
During the summer, we have a 9:30 am family service. I’m calling it the (sm)All Ages service, which I thought was fairly witty and looked nice on a poster, but I do seem to have confused some of the congregation. (At least one member believed the sm stood for seaside mission and that I was going for a revival tone. So much for witty.) Most of the people in the pews at 9:30 have children, and we try to keep everything a little more accessible. This week, we talked about Daniel. And the lions’ den.
Now, say what you want about the historicity of this minor prophetic story, it is still a terrible story. Religious persecution, manipulation of authority, and…oh yes, man-eating lions.
Of course, it ends alright for Daniel. He is set free, unscathed, and God is glorified. It turns into a pretty good example of trusting in God and being faithful in prayer. And then we always skip the ending when telling it to kids. You know, the part where Daniel’s enemies get thrown to the lions instead. Along with their wives. And their children. Charming. (Don’t worry – I followed tradition on Sunday and skipped it, too.)
I picked Daniel because it fit nicely into our larger theme. We’re talking about growth this summer – growing together, growing in justice, growing green – and Daniel seemed like the clear choice for growing through prayer. It’s a familiar story for kids, too, and I thought it would be a good chance to talk about courage.
Lions are a symbol of courage, but Daniel also needed to be brave. I asked the children to talk a bit about this. We decided that sometimes bravery is about opening your mouth – and sometimes it is about shutting it. Luckily, I had a prop on hand to illustrate…
But then it came to the adults talk. The kids don’t leave the sanctuary during this service, and during the adults’ talk, they are still in the pews with their parents. So, even though Daniel seems to be a more adult story, I didn’t want to get too explicit with the adult side of this horrific story. Not that violence is really more appropriately shared with adults. So instead, I asked them to engage in some imaginative question-asking.
Here are the questions:
Where are the laws that prop up human arrogance today? Maybe not laws of the land, but what about laws of culture or society? Where do we let vanity take the reins? And when are we like Darius, and bend to have our vanity pleased? When are we like the jealous administrators, trying to work things to our own good, and to others’ downfall? And crucially, when are we like Daniel? What does that look like? Is it faithfully praying in the secret of our room? Is it bravely facing threatening public situations? When are we called to be Daniel today?
It’s an interesting excerise to read the same story twice – once for children, and once for adults. It really opens up the idea that there isn’t one message in any one story. Where we are in life changes what we hear and what we think. This, I think, has been one of the things I have really enjoyed about these intergenerational services. We’ve been trying to find a balance between making it a children’s service and making it an adults’ service. By looking at a story twice, we can hear the richness of the Biblical text. There are so many things we can think about in these stories when we take time to listen together.
And next week… Jonah.
