13/9/2010

Theme: The Three Sillies

Bible Reading

James 3: 13-18

Preparation

Get to know the story of The Three Sillies. You might like to get a group of children to act it out. (If it’s easier, stop the story at the point when the young man leaves the farmer’s house).

RoSPA often produce pictures for children to identify where accidents could happen in a home and what sort of changes need to be made. If you can get hold of one of these, make it into an overhead sheet.

Introduction

Ask the children why they think they come to school. Why do they think they have lessons? What is the point of learning?

Tell the story of the Three Sillies. Why did the young man think that the farmer, his wife and their daughter are so stupid?

Look at the overhead sheet of possible accident sites. What should the family do?

Message

Sometimes it is impossible to work out what will happen in life. But sometimes we can see all too clearly, but don’t do anything about it. The farmer, his wife and their daughter were clever enough to see the axe and think about its possible danger. But they were so busy being upset about it, that they didn’t actually do anything! No wonder the young gentleman saw how silly they were, and took the axe right off the ceiling!

The Bible says that wisdom is important and is a gift of God. Sometimes it even talks of wisdom as being God’s Spirit. It’s important to be able to think clearly, to understand and to be able to use our brains. People who design space craft have to be brilliant at numeracy and also at science, working out the right weight of each piece of the craft….but people who do the family shopping also have to be good at numeracy, so they don’t overspend, and at PHSE, so they can decide what a good healthy diet is ..at remembering who won’t eat which food, and remembering that the gerbil needs special food as well!…

So we don’t need the Bible to remind us that it is important to learn, to gain knowledge and wisdom. We can see it all around us.

But the Bible tells us a bit more. It’s no good just being wise, and forgetting how to live life properly – a bit like some nutty professor! It was no good for the farmer and his family to see the axe, but just worry about it. Wisdom, being clever, is no good unless we also learn to use it – to make a difference. The young gentleman pulled the axe out of the ceiling and took away the danger. People in the house in the overhead sheet should change the way they live, so that the dangers are not there.

Sometimes we just want to be clever so that we get more money, or can be nasty to people. This isn’t why wisdom is important either. Real wisdom isn’t just about knowing a lot, it’s about being clever enough to make choices that help people; to make choices that bring peace; to make choices that are about love and care. So sometimes the wisest people are not the ones who know the most, especially if they don’t act on that. The wisest people are the ones who make the right choices.

Jesus showed that one day. His disciples were arguing about who was the most important one of them. Jesus told them off and he found a little child who was watching all of this. He told the disciples to look at the child. If they wanted to be the greatest, they had to be like a child, and welcome children – who often are not the people who know the most – but are often the most wise people, because they make the right choices! Sadly, children don’t often get a chance to change the world!

Let’s not be like the three sillies in our lives.

Perhaps we can try to change the places where we live and our school. Perhaps we can try to think, and then to act – and to make wise choices, that are about love and care, about peace and about helping others.

Prayer

It would be appropriate to sing quietly

either The prayer of St. Francis (147 in Come and Praise)

or Mother Teresa’s prayer ( 94 in Come and Praise)

The Three Sillies

In a farmhouse once upon a time, there lived a farmer and his wife and their only daughter, who was soon to be married. Every evening the girl’s sweetheart would come to the farmhouse for supper and many plans would be made for the wedding, and their future married life.

It was on one of these pleasant evenings that the farmer sent his daughter down into the cellar to bring up a fresh supply of cheese for supper. She found the cheese readily enough, and was just about to return upstairs when she happened to glance up at the ceiling. There, stuck in a crack in one of the beams, was a heavy, long-handled axe.

Now the axe must have been there a long, long time, but for the first time the girl began to think about it. ‘It is most dangerous for that axe to be there, ‘ she said to herself. ‘Just suppose that after my beloved and I are married, we are blessed with a son, who, when he grows to manhood, comes down into the cellar for some cheese, as I have just done, and that axe becomes loose and drops down and kills him…what a dreadful thing that would be!’

The more she thought about it, the sadder she became, and so she sat down and cried very hard.

Upstairs, the farmer, his wife, and the young gentleman began to wonder what was keeping her. At last the girl’s mother went down to see.

‘Why, whatever is the matter?’ asked the mother when she found her daughter crying.

‘Oh, Mother,’ replied the girl between sobs, ‘just look at that axe in the beam. Suppose that my beloved and I are married, and we have a son, and he grows up, and he comes down to the cellar for cheese, and the axe falls on him and kills him…what a dreadful thing that would be!’

‘Oh, indeed, it would!’ said the mother. And she sat down next to her daughter and began crying too.

Soon afterward the father became impatient and he, too, went down into the cellar to find out what was happening. His daughter and his wife were crying as if their hearts were breaking. ‘What is the trouble?’ he asked.

‘Just look at that axe in the beam over there,’ sniffed his wife. ‘Suppose our daughter and her sweetheart are married, and have a son, and he grows up, and he comes down to the cellar for cheese, and the axe falls on him and kills him… what a dreadful thing that would be!’

‘Terrible! Terrible!’ agreed the farmer, and he sat down and cried quite as much as his wife and daughter.

By and by the young gentleman, all alone upstairs, became curious and went down into the cellar too. When he found the three of them crying, he asked them what was the matter.

The father spoke for the whole family. ‘Look at that axe hanging from the beam,’ he said. ‘Suppose that you and our daughter are married, and have a son, and he grows up, and he comes down here for cheese, and the axe falls on him and kills him…what a dreadful thing that would be!’

The young man burst out laughing. ‘I have travelled far and wide,’ he said, reaching up and pulling the axe from its place in the beam, ‘but in all my days I have never met three such sillies as you. I shall now start out on my travels again, and if I should find three bigger sillies, I’ll come back and marry your daughter.’ As he left them, the young man could hear them starting to cry once again, this time because the girl had lost her sweetheart.

Over hill and down dale the young man travelled, until he came at last to a cottage that had some grass growing on the roof. A ladder was against the side of the house, and a woman was trying to get her cow to go up the ladder, but without much success.

‘Just look at this stubborn creature!’ said the woman to the young man. ‘There’s all that fine grass up on the roof of the house, but will this cow climb the ladder to eat some of it? Oh, no! And really, she would be quite safe up there, for I would tie a rope around her neck and pass it down the chimney and tie it to my wrist as I go about the house. She could never fall off without my knowing it.’

‘Silly!’ said the gentleman. ‘Why not cut the grass and throw it down to the cow?’

‘It’s easier my way,’ replied the woman. And so she coaxed the cow, and pushed her, and finally got her up the ladder and on to the roof. Then she tied the rope around the cow’s neck and dropped the other end down the chimney. The woman made her way down the ladder, went inside the house, and then tied the loose end of the rope around her wrist, just as she had said she would do.

But no sooner had this been done than the poor cow slipped and slid off the roof. The weight of the cow pulled the woman halfway up the chimney. There she was stuck and could go no further. Neither could the cow, who was left hanging between the roof and the ground, kicking furiously.

That was certainly one big silly.

The gentleman went on his way and then, as the sun began to set, he stopped at a hotel to spend the night. But the hotel was so full that he was obliged to share his room with another traveller. The other man was good company and neither of the men really minded staying together. But in the morning, when they were both getting up, the gentleman was puzzled to see the other hang his trousers on the doorknob and then run across the room to try to jump into them. This he tried to do again and again.

‘Oh, dear,’ gasped the man, trying to catch his breath, ‘I do declare that trousers should never have been invented. They are so awkward to put on, and it takes me at least an hour to get into mine every morning. How do you ever manage yours?’

‘Oh, it’s really not very hard at all,’ laughed the gentleman, and he showed him how he put his own trousers on.

‘You know – that’s really very clever,’ exclaimed the other. ‘I should never have thought of doing it that way.’

Well, that was certainly another big silly.

Off went the gentleman on his merry way again, and soon he came to a pond. A large crowd of people had gathered at the edge of it and were busily reaching into the water with brooms, rakes, sticks and pitchforks.

‘What has happened her?’ the gentleman asked one of the men.

‘Why, can’t you see?’ said the man. ‘The moon has fallen into the water and we shall have to get it out!’

‘No, no, no!’ said the gentleman, laughing heartily. ‘The moon has not fallen into the water. It is only its reflection. See – it is still up there, in the sky!’

But not one of the people would look! They just kept on raking the water as busily as they could.

So there were certainly some more big sillies, bigger indeed than the three sillies at the farm.

The young gentleman turned around then and there and made his way back to the farmhouse. He arrived just in time for supper, and the farmer, his wife, and their daughter all welcomed him happily, to talk once more of plans for a wedding.