I have often been told often that I am good at working with children. I never really know what to make of a comment like that or how to respond to it, because I don’t often feel like I’m doing anything particularly well in the moment. Most of the time, I find relating to children to be uplifting and heartwarming. They’re smart, they’re capable, they’re energetic, and they don’t often try to hide their excitement. They’re open in a way that many adults are closed. Recently, though, I had an experience that was not so uplifting. I left feeling drained, and tired, and worn down.

I had been filling in for a Sunday School class of third, fourth, and fifth graders. This class is always so much fun! We use a curriculum written by Emily Slichter Given called Building Faith Brick by Brick, which uses LEGO bricks to explore sacred stories. These kids are thoughtful, intelligent, and so willing to enter with wonder into sacred story, to find God and themselves in the words that have been passed on to us by our forebears of faith. Given the recent conflict about Iran, and our media’s immediate push for war propaganda, I decided that Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan was more needed than ever. I hadn’t checked in with some of these kids in a little while, so I thought I could use this story to gauge how well they have learned the lessons of faith—to see who they thought of as their neighbor, and who they thought of as their enemy.

My teaching style is formed by the tradition of Godly Play, which emphasizes a non-dogmatic method of formation. One asks the children “wondering” questions and allows them space to wonder aloud, to imagine, to enter into the story, and to make meaning for themselves. It can be challenging at times, but it is also very rewarding, and allowing the children to do the thinking “work” for themselves etches the sacred story a little bit deeper in their consciousness than memorizing or merely listing rote answers. Sacred story becomes a kind of language they learn, and which they use to understand everything else in their life.

Some of the questions we wondered through were:

·      I wonder who is your “neighbor”?

·      I wonder if you have ever helped someone who was hurt?

·      I wonder if it is ever hard to do the right thing?

·      I wonder if you have ever wanted to help someone but were afraid to do it?

·      I wonder why some people pretend not to see people who need help?

·      I wonder who helps you when you need it?

The children were serious, they were thoughtful, and they were willing to go anywhere I asked them to with these questions. After we wondered for a little while, I explained some of the historical context behind the parable of the Good Samaritan. I taught them that Samaritans were not highly regarded among Israelites of the day, and that national conflict was constantly bubbling between the two groups for hundreds of years. I taught them that the Israelites had even destroyed the Samaritans’ temple on Mount Gerizim, and that the Samaritans had desecrated the Jewish Temple at Passover with human bones, so tensions were very high between these two groups. 

I asked them, “I wonder, who is America’s neighbor?” They unsteadily named the UK, and then we sat in silence for a moment, before one kid added, “Yeah, England is definitely our neighbor. They basically love us.” I smiled and waited for more, but there weren’t any more forthcoming answers to the wondering. I decided to try a different tack. “I wonder who isn’t our neighbor?” I was greeted with blank stares. “I wonder who is, in fact, our enemy?” There was no silence this time, and the children were ready to name Afghanistan, Germany, and Japan, and the same child from before added, “Though Japan forgave us for bombing them.” I don’t think that’s necessarily true in the way he intended it, but I wanted to give dignity to his wondering, so I answered by saying, “That must have been a hard kind of love for them to give.”

I redirected, asking why Germany was not our neighbor, and the kids mentioned the first two world wars. I asked why Afghanistan was mentioned, and that was when things seemed to shift. 

“Because they want to blow us up and shoot us!”

“Because we need to stop terrorism.”

I don’t expect fourth and fifth graders to have a solid grasp of the history of any war, let alone the seemingly endless wars we are in now, but this was still a shocking thing for me to hear. I was being confronted with all that Terror teaches. I was seeing firsthand how well the dominant culture has been forming these children to view Middle Easterners as enemies, as all violent terrorists, and not as neighbors. 

I don’t know if I did a good job here by not outright saying, “You’re wrong.” 

I don’t know what the right thing to say would even have been.

I held the space for the children to wonder, and to think about things that most adults shy away from even considering in their waking hours. I held the tension in my shoulders so that they could freely talk through their ideas without being chastised, and I walked away from this class tired, so tired.

I came back to the wondering questions, and I asked “I wonder where you might be in the story? I wonder where God might be in the story?” They all identified themselves as the wounded man, and God as the Good Samaritan. I tried a few different combinations, “I wonder if we could be the robbers? I wonder if God could be the wounded man?” One answered me, “I can’t really imagine God getting beat up, though. God is so strong.” Another one said, “Well, Jesus got beat up.”

Jesus got beat up. That’s the truth, isn’t it? God is getting beaten up every day, and left half-dead on the side of the road. And so many of us would listen to those who explain what a good thing it is for bodies to litter the roadsides. 

Let us remember who our neighbor is. 

“Tie in a living tether

the prince and priest and thrall,

bind all our lives together,

smite us and save us all.”