A lesson about God vs. stuff.
Cast:
VIOLET – a very tightly-wound purple bird
MR. JEFF – the teacher who sets her straight
Props:
Lots of stuff (both ordinary and unusual) to toss from the puppet stage
(This skits starts at the end of “The Rich Man” monolog from Traveling Light. After the last line (“He doesn’t understand! I’VE GOT A LOTTA STUFF!”) stuff starts flying from the puppet stage.)
MR. JEFF: What in the world? (walks over to puppet stage, dodging projectiles) Cut it out! (stuff keeps flying; look behind puppet stage) Violet, is that you?
VIOLET: (appears and says frantically) What?!?
MR. JEFF: Look at this mess you made. What are you doing?
VIOLET: Getting rid of all my stuff.
MR. JEFF: Why?
VIOLET: Don’t you even listen to yourself?
MR. JEFF: Not always. What did I say?
VIOLET: That Jesus told that guy to get rid of all his stuff.
MR. JEFF: Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why your trashing our classroom.
VIOLET: Don’t you get it?! If I don’t get rid of all this stuff I can’t go to heaven!
MR. JEFF: I’m not sure you heard the story right.
VIOLET: You might not have been listening, but I was paying close attention. Jesus definitely told that guy to get rid of all his stuff. So… (exits and stuff starts flying again)
MR. JEFF: Violet!
VIOLET: (enters) What?
MR. JEFF: Let’s go at this differently What do you have to do to be saved?
VIOLET: Have faith that Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness of my sins.
MR. JEFF: Exactly. Does that have anything to do with stuff?
VIOLET: No! But Jesus told that guy to sell his stuff!
MR. JEFF: That was an instruction to that one person. The man in the story didn’t understand what it meant to be saved. He thought if he was good enough, he’d be saved. Jesus tried to show this to him by giving him something impossible for him to do.
VIOLET: So Jesus didn’t want him to be saved?
MR. JEFF: No, the Bible tells us that God desires all to be saved.
VIOLET: So it was impossible for him to be saved?
MR. JEFF: It was impossible for him to save himself. When the disciples asked Jesus who can be saved, he said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
VIOLET: So why did Jesus tell the guys to sell his stuff?
MR. JEFF: There’s just one way to God, and that’s through Jesus Christ. For the rich man, his stuff was blocking the way.
VIOLET: Oh.
MR. JEFF: We all need to remove whatever is blocking our way to God. It may be stuff or pride or fear or ignorance. We can help people clear the way, but only God can save anyone.
VIOLET: Well, I knew that!
MR. JEFF: (looking around at all the stuff on the ground) Oh, really?
VIOLET: Oh, that.
MR. JEFF: Yeah, that.
VIOLET: Um… I think I hear the phone ringing. Gotta go. Bye. (exits)
MR. JEFF: Bye, Violet.
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