Bible passage: Matthew 18:21–35
Aim: to help children understand that forgiveness is important in all our relationships, both at school and at home, and to hear that God offers forgiveness to everyone.
You will need: yellow paper crown and some garden canes lashed together to make a prison door.
Introduction
Ask the children to think about a time when someone has done something horrible to them, or not done something they had promised to. How did that make them feel?
Talk about an example from your own life, when someone did something (or didn’t do something). Tell the children how you came to forgive that person. How did that make you feel? Try to help children understand what forgiveness means.
Forgive or not?
Ask the children to decide whether or not they would forgive in each of these situations:
- You have been saving the best bit of your packed lunch – a chocolate digestive – until the end, so you can really enjoy it. Suddenly, one of your class mates swoops in and crams it into their mouth all at once.
- Your mum or dad promised to take you to the cinema at the weekend, but now they tell you that they have to take your sister to a ballet exam instead.
- Your best friend has gone off with someone else and is telling everyone that you have been horrible to them – it’s not true.
After each one, ask people to put their hands up if they would forgive or not forgive. Alternatively, if there aren’t many children, you could ask them to stand at one side of the room or the other. Ask the children why they would or would not forgive.
Bible story
Tell the children that one day, one of Jesus friends, called Peter, asked Jesus a question: “How many times should I forgive someone who does something wrong to me?” Peter then asked Jesus if seven times was enough, but Jesus had other ideas. He said that Peter had to forgive 70 times seven. And then he told his friends this story:
Once there was a king, who decided to call together his officials and ask them how much they owed him. (Ask for a volunteer to be the king and place the crown on their head. Ask for four or five more volunteers to be the officials.) One official owed the king more than 50 million silver coins, but they could not repay him. (Ask for another volunteer to be this official.) They had no money. The king ordered the official and his family to be sold as slaves to pay the money.
But the official got down on his knees. (Your volunteer should do this in front of the king.) He begged the king to have pity on him. The king felt sorry for him and let him go. He even said that the official didn’t have to repay the money. The official was overjoyed!
As the official was leaving, he met a man who owed him a small amount of money. (Ask for another volunteer.) The official demanded the money back, and threatened to beat him up. (The official should threaten the person with their fist.) The person begged the official for more time to pay him back, but the official just threw them in jail. (The person should sit sadly behind your prison door.)
When the king heard what had happened, he was very angry! He called the official back and shouted: “I forgave you much, but you couldn’t forgive the one who owed you little! You should have showed pity, as you had been shown pity!” And the king threw the man in jail!
Reflection
Ask the children to think about how easily they forgive others. Do they let things go or do they hold grudges and refuse to forgive? Encourage them to spend a few moments in quiet, thinking about those who have done bad things to them, and the bad things they have done to other people. Finish the time of quiet with a short prayer, if appropriate.
Challenge the children to ask for forgiveness for the things they have done wrong, and to forgive those who have done wrong to them.
