Life Is Weird, I Mean Beautiful

Season of Lent and Easter .... Life is Weird, I Mean Beautiful .... John 12:12-19: Jesus Appears to the Disciples on the Beach .... God’s in the Amazing and the Ordinary .... Easter Sunday

Puppets: Barnabas, Fodder, and Lorenzo
People: Kids
Props: Block of wood, drawn on to look like a totem of some kind

[Barnabas, Lorenzo, and Fodder are up front; Lorenzo is chewing on a block of wood]

Barnabas: Buenos dias boys and girls. How is everybody today?

Fodder: Gooood morning Methodists! Whaat’s happening?

Lorenzo: Hola kids. You all look marvelous in your Easter clothes. Simply marvelous. [Go back to chewing]

Fodder: Hey Lorenzo, what are you doing?

Lorenzo: Hm?

Barnabas: He said, “hey Lorenzo, what are you doing?”

Lorenzo: Oh. I started reading Moby Dick, for school. [Long pause]

Barnabas: [To Fodder] He started reading Moby Dick, for school. [Barnabas and Fodder both shrug]

Lorenzo: You know, Moby Dick, about the big whale, with that famous opening scene, where Queequeg—he’s the one that’s different from the other characters—because of his tattoos. Come to think of it though…these days, having tattoos [look around] actually makes you…the same, rather than different. That’s weird.

Fodder: Can we get on with it, so that we can get on with getting on with the Bible story? This is Easter Sunday after all. Not Moby Dick Sunday.

Barnabas: Actually, I think that’s sometime in November.

Lorenzo: OK, Ok, so in the opening scene of Moby Dick, Queequeg is there with a totem, like this, it’s his god, and he doesn’t quite like the way it looks, so he changes it—by doing a little whittling. Like this [whittle out a chunk]…voilá!

Fodder: And you think we can do that with God?

Lorenzo: Well, no not really. But then I don’t have any tattoos.

Barnabas: Ahem. And what, pray tell, if anything, does this have to do with today’s Bible story, the Easter story, the reason that…they are all here today?

Lorenzo: Well, it’s weird too.

Barnabas and Fodder: What?

Lorenzo: Well, you have to admit, it is a bit weird isn’t it? I mean, the biggest thing in the world, in the…universe, has just happened. Jesus, the Son of God, Christ, was just crucified…and he didn’t stay dead. He came back. He conquered death.

Fodder and Barnabas: [Suspiciously] Yah

Lorenzo: Well if you were going to have God conquer death, and come back, would you have him come back as…a camp host…a beach picnic caterer…a fishing guide? (“Hey, try fishing over there”). Don’t you think you’d have him come back…big, awesome, amazing—maybe even a bit angry—and certainly glorious, amazingly glorious [look at carving]. That’s how I’d script it…or carve it [hold up wood].

Fodder: But that’s just it. We don’t…didn’t get to script it. God did.

Lorenzo: But, but, don’t you think it could have been even more…exciting? You know…don’t you think we’d get even more people in church if there were more… fireworks…if we added, I don’t know, if we added some…things.

Barnabas: Like a banjo?

Fodder: Listen. I think you’ve been reading too much Moby Dick, or even more likely, watching too much scripted-exactly-the-way-we-want-it-to-be-for-commercial-
success-therefore-really-really-fakey-reality-t.v! Listen. There the disciples were, Peter and Thomas, and James, and the others, back in their fishing boat, back exactly where they’d started; only it was worse than where they started, because all their hopes, and dreams, and lives had been shattered. Jesus had been killed. The Messiah, their friend. He was dead.

Barnabas: Ah. And what do you think they most wanted, above all else, but couldn’t even have imagined was possible? Did they want…glory…fireworks?

Lorenzo: I’ll bet they wanted a “do over.”

Fodder: But what they got was even better than that. Not a do-over. But a done-forever. They got their lives…God…everything back…and He was calling them by name:

Barnabas: Friends!

Fodder: You want amazing? Then just think about that. You get up in the morning knowing that everything is over, and by breakfast time you’re having a picnic with your best friends, which includes God, on the beach.

Lorenzo: Hmm. Life’s weird that way, isn’t it.

Barnabas: Thanks to God, it is.

Fodder: [Praying] And thank you God, for continuing to call us “friend,” and for being with us always, when we most need you and in the most ordinary moments of each and every day, and for continuing to invite us to life's picnic.

All: Now, is this a great day or what?