Just What We Need - More Drama

We bemoan “drama queens” (and presumably “drama kings”). You know the type. They react with over-emotion to the mundane. Diva (or “divo”) - like, they draw waaay too much attention to themselves. They exaggerate their every predicament, overstate every trial, and embellish every victory.

You see them and think to yourself, “Oh, just what I needed. More drama.”

At the same time, it’s not as if drama is bad...

For nearly twenty years I’ve been enough convinced of the power of drama to incorporate it into the life of the church I pastor.

Several times a year I present a sermon as a full-blown dramatic portrayal of a biblical character. I’ve played the part of Paul and Peter and Manasseh and Jonah. I’ve taken on the role of the Corinthian who was disciplined, repented, and restored, and of the leper who came back to say “Thanks!” to Jesus for his healing.

I have often given these presentations in costume, dressing in long robes complete with head covering to hide my identity a bit so as to better free the congregation to enter into the story. (Once, eight year old Becky told me after the worship service, “I knew it was you all along.”)

I present these dramas for a couple of reasons.

On the one hand, I believe that drama touches a place in our conscious or sub-conscious that normal preaching - at least my normal preaching - often does not.

Maybe like you, I have long been impressed that the bulk of Scripture is story. Not as in, “Once upon a time...” fairy tales. No, true story. Even the parts of the Bible that are not narrative are in the Bible because of a narrative backdrop.

(Here’s a dare: Take a passage that looks like it’s not narrative. Investigate the background to the passage - doctrine from Paul, psalm from David, whatever - and I’ll bet that you’ll find a story. I double dog dare you.)

Nothing draws us in like a story. I often hear from adults after a dramatic presentation, “The kids really like those things.” And I think to myself, “Yeah, and you didn’t go to sleep today like you usually do, either.”

For a Sunday morning, drama is out of the ordinary. It captures our attention. It humanizes a story that we may have spent too long reading in a monotone.

On the other hand, I use drama to get across another idea, this one also delivered slightly below conscious level.

Just as the stories of Abraham and Joseph and Barnabas and Herod are “larger than life”, so you and everyone you know is living an epic quest.

Did Job know, when he was living through his trials and subsequent debates with his three “friends”, that four thousand years later, his life story would profoundly impact me? Surely not!

Did an ancient Parthian magician, traveling to Palestine to pay homage to a Jewish King, know that his journey and example of submission would inspire centuries of Christians to likewise bow before King Jesus. I doubt it.

Could Ruth and Boaz have ever guessed that their romance-and-marriage story would picture for all time the redemption that believers in Jesus enjoy when He rescued us out of the marketplace of sin? Nope.

And on and on and on we could go.

Partly as a result of having served as a pastor, I’ve had the privilege of meeting a bunch of people over the years. Lots of them have been “dull, boring, and ordinary” - UNTIL I GOT TO KNOW THEM. There is not one person I’ve ever come to know well who still fits in the category of “ordinary.”

Every person is multi-layered, complex, and uniquely gifted. Each person has shades of heroism and cowardice, brilliance and dullness, fears and foibles that make them who they are. There are no dull people - and that truism certainly applies to you who are reading this drivel.

Who knows if perhaps, a year from now (or more), someone will hear of your story, your trial, your victory, your passion, your faithfulness in the face of adversity and will find in your epic quest courage to trust God and to be faithful as well.

Well, I’ve got to be off now. Going to church this evening to watch some people portray Mary, Joseph, some shepherds and wise men. Just what we need. More drama.