GALATIANS 5:22-26

JOHN 6:24-35

Vacation Bible School

Celebration Service

10:30a.m. August 3,2003

I’d like to invite all the children to come up front to help me with this sermon.

Now, I have something in this basket for all of you. When I open it up, I’d like you each to take two handfuls – no more, please – and then let other kids come up so they can have some, O.K.? (Open the basket. Kids take handfuls of ...Styrofoam packing “peanuts”.) Now, everyone have their hands full? Sometimes, we fill our hands and our time with stuff that we buy which seems exciting, maybe, when we buy it, but which after a while is just stuff. Kind of like these Styrofoam pieces. Not very wonderful, are they? And even more important, we can’t receive better things when our hands are full! And God has much better things to offer us than anything we can buy! So let’s put these all back in the basket and think about what God has to offer us.

God offers to make us farmers to grow the fruits of the Spirit! Not only can we receive gifts that are better then anything we can buy, we can grow them and spread them and share and have MORE left for us than when we started!

Now, some of you have been in Vacation Bible School all week and know about this, but some of you haven’t, and most of the grown-ups here haven’t been, so let’s see if together we can teach everyone about some of these fruits. (Take large plastic container.) We can (pick up grapes) grow love, (pick up strawberries) sprout joy, plant peace (peach), produce patience (watermelon), pick kindness (apple), and – my goodness there’s more! What’s the next one? - (Bananas) self-control, (blueberries) goodness, (orange) faithfulness and – I guess you’re going to need to raise even more fruit to share! Does this look a lot tastier than handfuls of Styrofoam? That’s right – producing fruits of the Spirit feeds us and feeds others in wonderful ways and forever!

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church