Here’s a
readers’ theatre setting of James 5:13-20, the epistle reading for Proper 21 B
(Ordinary 26 B) – the gospel reading for the eighteenth Sunday after
Pentecost. It is set for two readers.
Readers’ Theatre:
James 5:13-20
One: Are
any in your community suffering?
They
should pray.
Two: Are
any celebrating?
They
should sing praises to God.
One: Are
any sick?
They
should call the elders of your church
and
ask them to pray.
They
will gather around
and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
Two: Prayers
offered in faith will restore them from sickness
and bring them to health.
The
Lord will lift them up from the floor
of despair;
and
if the sickness is due to sin,
then
God will forgive their sins.
One: So
own up to your sins to one another
and
pray for one another.
In
the end, you may be healed.
Two: Your
prayers are powerful
when
they are rooted in a righteous life.
One: Remember Elijah?
He
was a man, no different from us.
He
prayed with great intensity
asking
God to withhold the rain;
God
answered his prayers
and did not allow a single drop of rain to fall
for
three and a half years.
It
did not rain until Elijah prayed again for
God to open the skies,
when
the rain came down and the earth produced a great crop.
Two: Brothers
and sisters,
if
someone you know loses his way
and
rebels against God,
pursue them in love and bring them back to the truth.
One: Know
this:
If
you turn a sinner back from the error of their ways,
then
you will rescue them from the grips of death
and
cover the pain and consequences of untold sins.
~ taken from The Voice™ http://www.hearthevoice.com/
Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008
by Ecclesia Bible Society. Adapted slightly to make it inclusive.
