Religious Education
Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door I will come in.
Rev 3:20
Week Three
The story of Zacchaeus is used often when preparing children for the sacrament of Reconciliation. Over the last week the Year 3/4’s have listened to the story of Zacchaeus from Luke’s Gospel and are familiarising themselves with the story. There are many themes in this story.
One of the themes is the idea that; sometimes in our lives we make the wrong choices. This is what we call turning away from God or sin. The great thing is that we can change our ways, admit our fault and ask for forgiveness. God is always there to welcome us back.
Zacchaeus lost his place in society because of his behaviour. People grumbled about Jesus for taking notice of such a person. People still today are dismissive of those whose behaviour doesn’t meet certain expected standards. There is a great desire to see the sinner pay the price for the wrongdoing. Reactions can even engender violence and protests. The media has a field day when this happens. However, throughout the gospels Jesus emphasises that God’s way is different and that hating the sin is not the same as hating the sinners.
Perhaps some of the questions that we can reflect upon in our own lives are:
- Who are the people that modern society seems to ostracise?
- What encourages the stereotyping of groups of people as ‘sinners’?
- Why might ‘self-righteousness’ be the worst sin? Might self-righteousness be likely to increase in a society that rejects God?
- Is punishment or reform more important for the prisoner?
The students were asked to re-enact the story of Zacchaeus to help familiarise themselves with the story and show their understanding. Their interpretations of the story are outstanding. Please find the links to some of the students re-enactments below
For those of you that are unfamiliar with the story of Zacchaeus, it is included below.
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’ ”
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
Please click on the names below to watch the re-enactment of the Zacchaeus story from some of our Year 3/4 students.