The Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15: 3-6)
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go look for the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep….’”
And then he killed the sheep that had strayed and cooked it and he and his friends feasted on it. The next day, when it was morning, he hung the skin of the sheep that had strayed on a post so that when he drove the sheep out into the open country, they had to pass it by. And he said as they passed it by, “This is the skin of the one of you who strayed and is all that is left of him. If you stray, this is what will happen to you.” And the sheep were sore afraid and moved close to each other so that none could tell where one stopped and the other started. And each told this story to the lambs that they brought forth and none, from generation to generation, strayed away.
The Children’s Lesson (Luke 1:11-19)
One Sunday, the children’s minister told the twelve assembled children the story of Zechariah and how an angel came to him and told him he and his wife, Elizabeth, were going to have a baby. “But Zechariah didn’t believe the angel,” she said, “And do you know what happened? The angel told him that because he didn’t believe the angel he wouldn’t be able to talk for eight whole months!”
“And so boys and girls, that is what will happen to you. If you don’t listen to your parents, an angel will come and shut your mouths tight for a long, long time, maybe even forever. You won’t be able to ask for food when you want it or milk or even water. You won’t be able to talk to your friends. You won’t be able to talk to the teacher in school which means everyone will laugh at you and make fun of you, and you will fail all of your grades and get kicked out of school and you will grow up stupid.
So the lesson for today is always listen to your parents, okay?