Obeying the Lord

Church assembly at St James's School today and we were thinking about the call of Levi, with the aid of Caravaggio's famous painting.

It was part of a series on 'obeying God' and we noticed how Levi was called by Jesus to follow him, how he obeyed and how he began a new life, following Jesus, and keeping his commands.

As part of this assembly we learnt the verse John 14.15: 'If you love me, you will obey my commands.' The children came up with some great examples of things Jesus had commanded.

I was momentarilly thrown by the lad who in responses to the question 'what did Jesus tell us to do?' said 'go fishing' - but he was spot on when he went on to say that Jesus told the fishermen to stop trying to catch fish, but now to catch men.

Here are two of the visuals we used today from Caravaggio's 'The Calling of Levi' - Jesus calling Levi, among the other tax collectors seated around the table (above) and Levi's astonished response that Jesus should actually calling him to be a follower.

Finally, at Key Stage One, the children were learning a very catchy and very appropriate new song, all about obeying.

Here are some other children dancing along to it.

Perhaps, the next thing at St James is for us to learn these actions.