Summary: Jimmy is a young man who feels pretty sorry for himself because he has a broken leg, cannot play in the grand final with his footy team, lost his job, lost his chance with the girl of his dreams and has no electricity. Not wanting to think about his woes, he picks up a Bible and is visited by a string of characters who speak straight into his situation.
Style: Drama. Duration: 12min
Actors: 4M, 3F
Modern Day Characters: Jimmy, Ken
Biblical Characters: Joseph, Job, Widow, Mary, Mary Magdalene
Script
Setting: Jimmy is sulking in the family room. He has broken his leg. Ken comes to the door.
Ken: (Big smile) You coming?
Jimmy: Get lost.
Ken: (Sarcastically) But it’s the big game!! You’re coming to watch, aren’t you?
Jimmy: I said, GET LOST!
Ken: Oh, that’s right. (Turns nasty) You’ve wrecked the team’s chances of winning the grand final, and none of them want to see you.
Jimmy: So, do you actually understand English?? GET LOST. It means “leave”; “go away”. (Standing up) And don’t bother coming back! (Throws cushion towards Ken and misses. The action hurts his leg and he sits down wincing.)
Ken: (With feigned sympathy) Be careful! You don’t want to hurt yourself again. (Smiling again) It was bad enough watching when you broke that leg at the after party. You remember, when you demonstrated your great new dance move. I’m sure everyone loved it – especially the part where you rolled onto the floor and cried like a girl. But, don’t worry, Julie’s a girl. She was probably really impressed. Yep, she’ll definitely go out with you now. (spitefully, revealing his jealously) After all, you won the best & fairest!
(Jimmy picks up a heavy object and aims carefully as if he’s really going to throw it at Ken. Ken makes a quick retreat. Jimmy drops it onto the floor and sighs deeply.)
Jimmy: (To the door where Ken was …) YES! I made a fool of myself! Everybody thinks I’m an idiot. And, YES, I lost my job at the supermarket! And, YES, the team will probably lose the grand final because I’m not playing.
(Angrily picks up control to PlayStation and starts to play. After a short time it’s obvious by Jimmy’s actions that the remote is not responding.)
Jimmy: What now?!! (He tries another switch in the room. It doesn’t work.) Great! The power’s out. What am I suppose to do now? No TV! No music! (He hobbles around the room, looking for something to do, but the action hurts him.) I’m definitely not going to sit here and think about what’s happened. (He notices a Bible on a table.) Well, Tim, even though I told you not to leave it because I’d never read it … (Picks up the Bible and sits back to read.) I’m never going to admit I read this thing. I must be desperate.
(Jimmy opens the Bible near the beginning and settles back to read.)
(Joseph enters and sits casually facing Jimmy.)
Joseph: So, you’ve had enough of your brother, have you?
Jimmy: (Lowers Bible and speaks to Joseph). What would you know? You’re just a character in a book.
Joseph: That’s a unique book you have there. And I’m not a fictitious character. I was a real person. You could learn a lot from my life.
Jimmy: You lived thousands of years ago. No offence, but what could you possibly say to me that I would find remotely interesting or relevant?
Joseph: Your brother drives you crazy, doesn’t he? Compared to my brothers, he’s angelic.
Jimmy: I’ve got to say, you don’t sound like an ancient Middle Eastern man.
Joseph: (Pointing to the Bible.) That’s because you’re reading a modern translation.
Jimmy: (Nods understanding) So what did your brothers do that was so bad? (clearly expecting something insipid)
Joseph: They were going to kill me.
Jimmy: (sounding bored) But they didn’t.
Joseph: No, they sold me into slavery instead.
Jimmy: (Leaning forward obviously interested). Are you serious?
Joseph: Yep. I was treated like an animal and sold at a market.
Jimmy: Your own brothers sold you as a slave?
Joseph: Yeah, you could say we were a dysfunctional family.
Jimmy: What happened to you?
Joseph: I was sold to a rich and powerful guy called Potiphar. I worked for long hours in his house. It was tough being away from my parents and the life I’d always known.
Jimmy: I bet you didn’t miss your lousy brothers, though. Did you ever escape?
Joseph: Not exactly. Potiphar treated me pretty well and eventually he made me the head slave in the household. Life was ok there for a while. Then Potiphar’s wife accused me of attacking her, which I didn’t do, and I was thrown into prison.
Jimmy: You went from slavery to prison?? How did you handle it? I would’ve gone mad.
Joseph: It was tough. If it wasn’t for my faith in God, I don’t know what I would have done.
Jimmy: How could you believe in God after going through all that?
Joseph: He helped me through it. Life was pretty bad, but on the inside God was with me. He really encouraged me. He even gave me the ability to interpret dreams.
Jimmy: Yeah, very handy while you’re a slave or a prisoner!! Why didn’t he give you the ability to escape?
Joseph: (Smiles at Jimmy’s comment) It was all part of God’s plan. All of it.
Jimmy: Wow!! I hope he doesn’t have any plans for me – my life’s bad enough as it is.
Joseph: (Laughs) No, really. God had it all worked out. I grew up fast, and I learned how to handle myself when life was rough. The things I learned were exactly what I needed when I was made Prime Minister over the nation of Egypt. It happened just before a great famine. Through my ability to interpret dreams, God told me the famine was coming, so Egypt was ready for it. We were even able to sell grain to people from other countries.
Jimmy: That’s awesome! Did you ever see your brothers again?
Joseph: (Smiles) They came to buy food.
Jimmy: They came grovelling to you!! That must have felt good.
Joseph: It wasn’t quite like that.
Jimmy: I bet they were scared when they saw you were Prime Minister. I’d love to look down on my brother like that. I would have sentenced him to … (Looks up from the Bible and sighs) … if only. But I’m still here with my brother rubbing my nose in it.
(Joseph immediately leaves. Jimmy flicks through the Bible and stops around the middle.)
Jimmy: (Reading from Bible) “Job”. I’ve lost my job. I think I’ll read this section.
(Job enters.)
Job: The name’s Job, not job.
Jimmy: (Disappointed) You’re a person! I thought I was going to read something about jobs.
Job: So you lost your job, did you?
Jimmy: (Downcast) Yeah.
Job: Is that all you lost?
Jimmy: (Offended) No! The only means I have of earning money is not all I lost! I lost my place in the grand final side. I lost my friends. I lost the chance to ask Julie out, and now I don’t even have electricity! (Obviously expecting great sympathy.)
Job: I lost a lot more than that.
Jimmy: (Annoyed at the lack of sympathy) What did you lose?
Job: I lost my livelihood too when I lost my livestock. Some of it was killed, the rest was stolen. Then I lost all my children and most of my servants. They were killed.
Jimmy: Whoa!! What did you do?
Job: There wasn’t anything I could do. I was born with nothing. Everything I had came from God, so if he chose to take them away, I couldn’t really complain, could I?
Jimmy: What!!! How can you be so, so … (trying to find the word) devoted!!?? (says it like it’s a dirty word)
Job: It’s easy when you know God. You can trust him even when you don’t understand what’s going on.
Jimmy: I could sure use someone to trust right now … but this God of yours seems to make life miserable.
Job: He certainly tested me. Just after I lost everything, I broke out in painful sores all over my body. Three of my friends came to see me. I thought we were going to hang out together. You know, have a few laughs, talk about old times. Take my mind of things. But they thought God was punishing me for doing something evil. They wouldn’t believe me when I told them I’d never do that.
Jimmy: (Sarcastically) Great friends!!
Job: Yeah. It was a lonely, tough time. But in the end God healed me and re-established my life. I ended up with twice as much as I had in the first place. I became a very rich man again. Even richer for the experience.
Jimmy: How can you say that? If I’d gone through that I’d spend the rest of my life in counselling.
Job: If you went through it alone, you might. But sharing your life with the true and living God makes it a meaningful adventure. You realise life has purpose even when things are tough.
Jimmy: (Looks up from the Bible.) What good is a sense of purpose when I’m out of work, out of friends, and stuck here with this broken leg?
(Job leaves as Jimmy turns the pages again. He opens the Bible a little closer to the beginning, and begins to read a different section. Widow of Zarephath enters).
Widow: So you’re feeling a bit miserable, are you?
Jimmy: Yes, actually. I am.
Widow: I can understand how you feel. I went through a tough time myself.
Jimmy: What sort of tough time?
Widow: It happened during a famine. Food was impossible to find. My son and I were starving. (Looks up at Jimmy) And I don’t just mean we hadn’t eaten for an hour or two.
Jimmy: What do you mean then? I’m definitely starving after an hour or two without something to eat. In fact, talking about food is making me realise how hungry I am now.
Widow: We weren’t just hungry. We were literally starving.
Jimmy: I’m literally starving now. I haven’t eaten for at least an hour.
Widow: (Smiling) I think our situation was a little different. One day I realised the tiny bit of flour and oil we had left was the last food we would ever see. After we ate it, we would both simply wait to die.
Jimmy: (Engrossed) What happened?
Widow: While I gathered wood to make a fire for our last meal, a Prophet of God approached me. He wanted food. When I told him I was about to cook the last of the food and die with my son, he asked if I would give him some of it.
Jimmy: You can’t be serious! What kind of selfish …
Widow: He wasn’t selfish. He was only doing what God had told him to do.
Jimmy: God told him to take food from a starving widow and her son??
Widow: God was asking me to trust him. He planned to take care of us all.
Jimmy: How? You didn’t have any food.
Widow: I used the last of the flour and oil and made three small cakes, one for each of us. The man of God told me the oil and flour wouldn’t run out, so I went back to the oil jar and flour pot and found I was able to get more out. In fact, oil and flour just kept coming out of those containers until the end of the famine.
Jimmy: Come on!! That can’t be true.
Widow: I hardly believed it myself and I was there watching it happen. God showed his power over the natural world and his personal love for us in that famine. Instead of leaving me to die, he went to great lengths to rescue me. Me!?! Insignificant me!! What an awesome God!!
Jimmy: (Looking up from the book) Could God really have power over the natural world? (Stops for a moment and looks around.) I don’t have a food shortage, but I wouldn’t mind having power over the natural world to get the electricity back on.
(Widow disappears as he flips over in the Bible again. He clearly goes near the end of the Bible.)
Jimmy: This is weird. Some of the words are red. Must be a flaw in the printing.
(Mary enters)
Mary: You really shouldn’t be so hard on your brother. You’d be really sorry if something happened to him.
Jimmy: I’d be very happy if something happened to him. (Makes a fist.) Especially if I was the person who made it happen.
Mary: When my brother died, I was devastated.
Jimmy: (taken aback) Sorry. That must have been awful.
Mary: It was. Days earlier we sent word that he was sick to Jesus, because we knew Jesus had healed lots of people. We hoped he’d drop everything and come to help.
Jimmy: Jesus? You mean the baby on Christmas cards?
Mary: (Smiling) No. I mean Jesus the Son of God who came to show us what God is like. Jesus who came from Heaven with power and knowledge beyond any other person.
Jimmy: I wish I could meet him.
Mary: You can. Keep reading.
Jimmy: So why didn’t Jesus help your brother?
Mary: Jesus arrived after my brother had been dead four days. We’d already laid him to rest in a tomb.
Jimmy: He must have felt terrible – letting you down like that. What did he say to you?
Mary: He asked us to take away the stone from the entrance of the tomb.
Jimmy: Well, it was a bit late for that!
Mary: We all thought so.
Jimmy: … and wouldn’t it …
Mary: … stink? We tried to talk him out of it because of that.
Jimmy: “Tried to”?
Mary: Yeah. We couldn’t get him to change his mind and you can’t argue with Jesus - He’s the Son of God with great power and authority.
Jimmy: Pity he didn’t come earlier and do something with his great power and authority.
Mary: I must admit I had lost all hope … until Jesus called out to my dead brother, and my brother walked out of the tomb alive and well.
Jimmy: I don’t believe it!!
Mary: It’s true!! A lot of people saw it.
Jimmy: That’s ridiculous. No one can bring a dead person back to life?
Mary: A human being can’t do anything like that, but the Son of God can.
Jimmy: I don’t believe it! That’s just over the top.
Mary: If you think that getting close to the living God is like enjoying a cosy afternoon tea with your grandma, think again. If God who created everything doesn’t have power over anything he can’t possibly be the real God.
Jimmy: But I’ve always thought of God as being sort of serene and distant.
Mary: I think you have him confused with the queen. I’ve seen the Son of God in action and heard what he had to say. He is not quiet and remote – he’s confronting and personal. He’s also the most loving person you could ever hope to meet.
Jimmy: I can’t believe how wrong I’ve been about the Bible. I thought it was full of boring stories of useless, weak, religious people.
Mary: The Bible is like a personal message from God to you. If you continue to read it you’ll discover how awesome, powerful and unchanging He is. You’ll also find out about his plans for mankind and the incredible love he has for you. Because of his great love he sent His Son into the world to save everyone who will open their heart to Him.
Jimmy: (Looking up from the Bible) I have to find out more about Jesus.
(Mary leaves as he Jimmy flips over a few pages, then starts to read again. Mary Magdalene enters.)
Mary M: So you want to find out about Jesus, do you?
Jimmy: Yeah. Do you know anything about him?
Mary M: I can tell you he changed my life.
Jimmy: He seems to do that a lot. How did he affect you?
Mary M: I wouldn’t want to tell you the dreadful things I did before I met Jesus. They were shameful. In fact my spirit was controlled by demons. I was a horrible person.
Jimmy: I’m surprised you got to meet him, then. He wouldn’t have associated with you. Oh, no offence intended.
Mary M: (Smiling) You mean you wouldn’t have associated with me. Actually, you’re wrong about Jesus. He didn’t spend much time with the religious people back then, but he deliberately hung out with people like me.
Jimmy: (Shocked and a little disgusted) Why? Um, nothing personal.
Mary M: When he was asked that question, he answered that a doctor doesn’t visit healthy people. He visits the sick. Jesus saw that we needed help. We were lost; without any hope. And unlike the religious people, and people like you, we recognised we were lost. Ah, no offence.
Jimmy: So what exactly do you mean when you say you were lost?
Mary M: We lived dismal lives and we were slaves to our own sinfulness. We were desperate but we didn’t have the ability to change ourselves. We knew our lives were offensive to God and we didn’t want to suffer the punishment for sin.
Jimmy: What punishment?
Mary M: Sinners are separated from God, both in life and in death.
Jimmy: (Pleased with himself for understanding something) You’re talking about heaven, aren’t you?
Mary M: Partly. When sinners die they go to hell, not heaven. But sinners also live without the companionship and protection of God in this life.
Jimmy: How could Jesus do anything about that?
Mary M: Jesus is God’s son who came into the world to show us what God is really like. Everywhere he went he told people they could have a fresh new start if they would turn away from their wicked ways and put their faith in him. That’s what I did, and God cleaned my soul and give me a fresh new beginning.
Jimmy: But how do you know it’s all real? How do you know Jesus really was who he claimed to be?
Mary M: I heard Jesus teach. I saw him perform miracles and wonders. But that was nothing compared to watching him die.
Jimmy: (Confused) He died?
Mary M: You really are green, aren’t you?
Jimmy: (Looking at his clothes and skin) What?
Mary M: Jesus was put to death like a criminal. First he was tortured, then he was nailed to a wooden cross by his hands and feet while a crowd jeered him.
Jimmy: Wait a minute. (Convinced he’s caught her out) Didn’t he raise people from the dead? Why didn’t he just save himself?
Mary M: You’re right. He could have saved himself. Jesus died on that cross, not as punishment for any crime he committed, but as a substitute for us. He died for our sin. Nothing like that could have happened unless it was part of God’s plan.
Jimmy: You mean he died on purpose?
Mary M: Yeah. Do you know what he said before he died?
(Jimmy cannot speak. He shakes his head)
Mary M: He said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Jimmy: Why did he say that? They knew exactly what they were doing.
Mary M: Those men who killed him didn’t know they were putting to death the Son of God. They didn’t know the purpose of this death was to pay the penalty for the sins of the world.
Jimmy: (Thinks for a short time.) Wait a minute. How could you know why he died?
Mary M: Because he came back from the dead. I spoke with him soon after he came back to life. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. It was also the most wonderful.
Jimmy: (partly to himself) This is nothing like afternoon tea with Grandma.
Mary M: What?
Jimmy: So how do I get to experience this new beginning?
Mary M: The same way I did - by accepting that God is real. Believe that Jesus died to take your punishment for sin and to give you a new life. Turn away from your old selfish way of living and ask Jesus to forgive your sin and come into your heart. He will help you to live as a child of God. And keep reading the book. You’ll learn more amazing things.
(Jimmy looks up from the Bible and Mary M leaves. Ken enters the room.)
Ken: Well, loser. We lost the grand final because of you.
(Jimmy looks at his brother but doesn’t say anything.)
Ken: You must have had a great afternoon! No friends. No TV. No PlayStation. No job to go to. No life, really!
Jimmy: I’m sorry you lost the game, mate. But, life really isn’t that bad.
Ken: Mine isn’t, but yours stinks!!
Jimmy: Not any more. I’ve just found a new friend who’ll stick by me through anything.
Ken: (confused – looks around) What friend? How did he get in?
Jimmy: (Lifts up Bible) Through here.
Ken: You’ve really lost it. (Leaves room shaking his head)
Jimmy: (looking at the Bible) No, mate, I’ve finally found something. (Goes back to reading the Bible)
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© Copyright Lyn Morgan, all rights reserved. The script may not be reproduced, translated or copied in any medium, including books, CDs and on the Internet, without written permission of the author.
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