Childrens Sermon Service

Object: A saltshaker, a stone, glue, salt, and a knife to scrape the stone. For the salt stone, I used a stone about the size of an apple, but you can use any size large enough to show. Many of the original ones would have been bigger. To make our salt stone, cover the stone with glue and then roll it in a pan of salt. Repeat that a few times until there is a visible coating of salt over at least part of the stone, and let it dry.

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Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other. (v. 50)


Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) I have another story for you today, are you ready? (Let them respond.) Great!

But first, who can tell me what this is? (Show the saltshaker.) A saltshaker, yes! What do we use salt for? (Let them respond.) We use salt for a lot of things, don’t we? Sometimes we put it on food, because it changes its taste, doesn’t it? (Let them respond.) And sometimes, we put salt on ice because it changes it and melts it, doesn’t it? (Let them respond.) Salt changes things.

And that is why, one day when Jesus was teaching a group of people, he told them that they were the salt of the earth. Does anyone have an idea why he called them the salt of the earth? (Let them respond.) Because just like salt changes things, people who follow Jesus are going to change things, too. That means that if you are the salt of the earth, you change things!

Well, one day, the disciples made a mistake. They met someone and didn’t treat him very nicely. They went to Jesus and said, “We treated him like that because he was not one of us. He didn’t belong with us.” How do you think Jesus liked what the disciples did? (Let them respond.) He didn’t like it at all. He told them that they were acting just like the Pharisees act. The Pharisees thought they were more important than other people and treated other people like they were not as good as they were. If someone was sick, the Pharisees said they probably deserved to be sick and didn’t help them. If someone looked or acted different than them, the Pharisees did not talk with them, sit with them, or let them be around them. The Pharisees acted like bullies and the disciples did the same thing with the man. They didn’t behave like salt and change things, did they? (Let them respond.) Jesus told them they were the salt of the earth, but they had lost their saltiness. And, he said if salt has lost its saltiness, it is no longer good for anything and should just be thrown out the window.

Now, I have a question for you. Does anyone know how in the world salt loses its saltiness? (Let them respond.) Salt is salt, isn’t it? (Shake some salt into your hand and taste it if you want.) It’s just salt, isn’t it? How can it not be salty? (Let them respond.)

Well, it sounds confusing to us, but the disciples understood exactly what Jesus meant. Back home, when they sat down to eat they didn’t have a saltshaker on the table like we have today. Back then, they put a big rock in the middle of the table; a rock they got from the ocean (Show your rock.) And since the rock came from the ocean of saltwater, the rock was covered in salt. Now my rock just has a little bit of salt on it, but their rock would have had a thick layer of salt covering it. And when someone wanted to add some salt to their soup, they picked up the rock and just scraped some salt off of it, like this. (Scrape some salt off the rock) But sometimes they would pick up the rock and scrape it (scrape the rock) but there was no more salt on it because they had scraped it all off. The salt had lost its saltiness and all that was left was an old rock they just threw out the window. (Pretend to toss the rock away.)

Jesus told the disciples that they were like that old rock because they were supposed to change things and treat people differently than the Pharisees did. If the disciples saw someone who was poor, sick, or from another place, if other people laughed at them, ignored them, or bullied them, the disciples were supposed to be like salt and change things and be nice to those people. If they wanted to follow God, they needed to be like salt and change things, and if they lost their saltiness, they were just an empty and useless rock.

God wants us to be salty too. Have you ever seen someone being treated badly? Maybe they were being laughed at, bullied, ignored, or left out? If we see people treating someone badly like that, God wants us to be like salt and do what we can to change things and treat those people differently. Maybe we can just talk with them, sit with them, or play with them, but God wants us to change things and not be like the others.

Sometimes it is hard to be salty and change things because we might get laughed at, too. Sometimes it is scary to be different. But Jesus said that God wants us to do what we can do to take care of all of God’s children. Even if it is kind of scary.

I hope you will remember how much God loves you, and how much God wants us to be salty and show everyone around us how much we love them, too.

Let’s have our prayer and ask God to help us remember to do the things God wants us to do to take care of each other.

Prayer:
Dear God, thank you for reminding us how much you love us. Please help us remember that you love all of the people you have created and help us let the people around us know that we love them just like Jesus loves us. Amen.