Jonah 3:10–4:11 dramatised for on-line, on-screen, use
Proper 20 (usually 16th Sunday after Pentecost), Year A
Preparation: Keep it simple; line drawings will work fine.
- house plant or photo or drawing of a plant
- Worm – cut out, photo, soft toy or just a tube of some sort
- Sun – photo or drawing of a sun
Readers
This can be carried out by two people. If a family is available, use everyone!
Narrator and God can be one reader, and can be off screen.
Jonah’s actions will be primary focus, and then plant, worm and sun, before returning to Jonah near the end.
Ready-to-print script: FINAL Jonah 3.10-4.11 drama for Zoom
Script
NARRATOR: When God saw what the people of Ninevah did, how they turned from their evil ways, God’s mind was changed. And God did not bring calamity upon them. But God’s decision to show mercy displeased Jonah very much. And Johan became angry and said…
JONAH: [very angry!] O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning. For I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. Now, O Lord, please take my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live.
NARRATOR: Then God said:
GOD: Is it right for you to be angry?
NARRATOR: Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. Then God said:
GOD: I will appoint a plant, to come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.
PLANT: bring a houseplant, of any size, into the screen filling most of it up. No need to see any people at this point.
NARRATOR: So Jonah was very happy about the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant. And the plant withered.
[Use a picture of a worm, or a stuffed toy or long tube item. Bring the ‘worm’ into the screen and remove the plant]
Narrator: [Hold a picture of a sun in the screen] When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die.
Remove sun from screen and have Jonah return to screen.
JONAH: [very angry!] It is better for me to die than to live.
GOD: Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?
JONAH: [very angry!] Yes, angry enough to die.
GOD: You are concerned about the plant, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow. It came into being in a night and perished in a night. Should I, God, not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people?
NARRATOR: This is the end of the passage. May our hearing be blessed with understanding.
