Drama: Advent 2

(This is from http://oursaviorhoneycreek.blogspot.com/2007/12/second-sunday-of-advent-john-baptist.html. I don't think it translates very well across this side of the pond.....I like it as it seems kitsch....).

This is the height of vanity, but I'm trying to make it seem like a service to you.... I get bored sometimes writing sermons. I'm slick with words and when I use them I feel good.... I know God can use anything, but sometimes people (ie me....) need shocking.

If you can use it or adapt it, or make it better then do....it would be nice to have a credit somewhere though.... I wrote it for a small congregation in a small village- once a month they have maybe 15-20 there with perhaps 6/7 between the ages of 8 & 16).

4 characters- one ( BUILDER) could have a builder’s hat on (!), the other 3 are chapel members. The builder stands on one side & the chapel members on the other side of the chapel.

Someone reads Isaiah 40:1-5

BUILDER: Gesturing at an invisible bulldozer/earth mover. Wait- left a bit, right a bit. That’s it, now start knocking…..

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: What is happening?

BUILDER: We are building a road.

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: What- here?

BUILDER: Yes- here!

CHAPEL MEMBER 3 : Right through our chapel?

BUILDER Looks around, sniffs- Yes- right through here, straight through here.

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: But I was baptized here.

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: And I fell asleep there…frequently…

CHAPEL MEMBER 3: And I was bored there….

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: And I sat there, just the other Sunday, desperate for the service to finish, so I could turn my phone back on and start texting….

CHAPEL MEMBER 3: And I….

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: looks crossly….I think we get the picture…to builder…this place is precious to us. Why through here?

BUILDER: Haven’t you read the specification?

CHAPEL MEMBER: What specification?

BUILDER: I have it here….. I was told you have read it a lot (picks up Bible, clears throat)….here we go….. ‘every valley shall be lifted up… and every mountain and hill made low….and the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain’

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: O that….

CHAPEL MEMBER 2 : I’ve heard that before

CHAPEL MEMBER 3 : Was it OK magazine or Hello….no wait a minute (smiles) it was in the Bible.

BUILDER: So you are familiar with the specification?

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: specification? Specification! Look you’ve got it all wrong…. That is not meant to be taken literally…

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: No its poetry…..

CHAPEL MEMBER 3: It’s a bit boring really…I can’t understand it

CHAPEL MEMBER 2& 3 glare at him

CHAPEL MEMBER 3 (again…..)….erm…. its nice to listen to…a bit….on Sunday….

BUILDER: Well it’s in the specification and this (points at chapel) has to come down.

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: Well can’t you bend the road a little?

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: Go round it?

CHAPEL MEMBER 3: Just knock a little bit down, maybe a tree in the garden?

BUILDER: Well the client says straight….and what the client says goes.

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: The client? Who is that.

BUILDER: coughs…..points upwards…. Him

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: He is on the roof?

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: Is it a bird, is it a plane?

CHAPEL MEMBER 3: No it’s superman!

BUILDER: No it’s God.

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: God?

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: The big cheese?

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: The head honcho?

BUILDER- that is him..

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: God…..you’ve got it wrong….. he doesn’t want us to really do anything…….

CHAPEL MEMBER 2: We have a nice house here for him, he is warm, we come to feed him every so often…I’m sure he is very happy.

CHAPEL MEMBER 3: He is not really in the demolition and straightening business. You’ve got it all wrong.

CHAPEL MEMBER 1: Lets keep him happy shall we? Lets sing Hymn 956 ‘Away in a Manger’

CHAPEL MEMBERS: all softly begin to sing…… Away in a Manger….

BUILDER: more loudly, so can be heard over the singing…… beckons bulldozer….. Right away lads…lets get this job rolling ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his ways straight’

CHAPEL MEMBERS----- All look up in horror, stop singing and go AAAARGGGHH!

One of the characters (or someone else) reads Mark 1:1-8. Everyone else freezes (literally if the heating is not working….)