Prayer: Compassionate God, you give us simple rules to follow, asking no more of us than of any child. Help me to obey your loving commands and to be less of a test to others. Amen. Reading: Mark 10:2-16 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: Jody has five apples. He gave three apples to his best friends: Ari, Tommy, and Shaqira. How many apples does Jody have? My son once brought this kind of word problem to me, confused why he got the answer wrong and missed out on a perfect score. My child had absorbed my contrarian-grammarian rules so deeply, he took the test writer at their word: Jody has five apples, as we have been told. After chuckling I explained how the question was meant to read Jody had five apples before his act of sharing! (And yes, his corrected paper was returned to his teacher with my suggestion she edit the wording before next using that worksheet.) Sometimes it seems like everything is a test. A test of patience. A test to pass or fail. A test to catch you up. For Jesus, this question was meant to discredit him before the crowds, maybe even expose his heresy with “the law.” Even his disciples struggled with the complexities of human relationships which so often defy simple answers. Yet simplicity is both the answer and expectation. It boils down to the Golden Rule and treating each other with kindness and consideration. Something even a child understands. --Heather Wolf
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