Try Starting Your Parable Project with a Shorter Parable
Okay, so here’s today’s concept: Jesus’ shorter parables are stage-worthy as well as his longer ones.
When we did The Parable Project, we did not neglect Jesus’ shorter parables like The Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14. These are great for new Readers Theater scripters to start with and new actors to try out.
Here’s a script of The Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Note that the text is from the New International Version published by Zondervan. My additions are in italics.
Incidently, I grew up with the King James Version and this parable was always called The Pharisee and the Publican. One day in a children’s Bible quiz we were asked who was the bad guy in the parable of The Pharisee and the Publican. I had no idea what a Pharisee or a Publican was and I didn’t remember reading the story. But my adult family members were mostly good Democrats and they never had anything good to say about Republicans. So, I figured a REpublican must just be the son of a publican. I got the answer wrong. Three cheers for the NIV!
Read the script. Some of my suggestions will follow it.
THE PHARISEE AND THE TAX COLLECTOR
LUKE 18:9-14
CAST:
NARRATOR
JESUS
PHARIS
TAX COLLECTOR
Narr: To some who were …
Pharisee: (interrupting and arrogantly) confident of their own righteousness,
Jesus: and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
Jesus: Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee
Pharisee: (Arms raised, looking around) I’m going to pray now, everyone. I’m going to pray.
Jesus: and the other a tax collector.
T.C.: (groans, but does not look up. He is beating his chest quietly in remorse.)
Jesus: The Pharisee stood up and prayed … about himself:
Pharisee: (Loudly, and self-righteously, to be heard by others.) God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.
Jesus: But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said,
T.C.: (Quietly, humbly) God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Have mercy … God.
Jesus: I tell you that this man, (pointing to the T.C.) rather than the other (pointing to the Pharisee), went home justified before God.
(T.C. exits upstage, cheerfully. Pharisee, exits upstage angrily.)
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
One time we presented this parable at the beginning of an evening-long Prayer Concert at Operation Mobilization’s Love Balkans in Sarajevo, Bosnia. We were reminded by the speaker to humble ourselves before God and confess our sins before we could start petitioning God in other ways. We could not come before Him like the self-righteous religious person did.
When we do RT like this we most often use only symbolic costuming. Usually our troupe will wear solid colored t-shirts or turtle necks (depending on the weather and venue) and khaki pants. The Pharisee might wear a Jewish prayer shawl and phylacteries and a t-shirt of an attention-getting color like red. The tax collector would wear a subdued color, maybe brown or even black. Jesus wears a white t-shirt.
If your group is just getting into RT scripting, try taking this piece through the stages I outlined earlier and adding your own text. Then work at blocking it and doing it first with scripts and then as a memorized piece.
Want to bounce some ideas off of someone? E-mail me at justaseck@fellowshipchapel.net
