Here’s a two-voice readers’ theatre setting of John 6:35, 41-51, the suggested gospel reading for Proper 14 B (the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost). It is based on The Voice translation of scripture.
Readers’ Theatre
John 6:35, 41-51
One: I am the bread that gives life.
If you come to my table and eat,
you will never go hungry.
Believe in me, and you will never go thirsty.
Two: The Jewish people were complaining to one another about Jesus,
because Jesus had said,
I am the bread that came down from heaven.
'Surely this is Jesus son of Joseph and Mary', they said.
'We know his father and mother.
How can he now say:
‘I have come down from heaven?'
But Jesus said to them:
One: Stop complaining to one another.
You can not come to me
unless drawn by the One who sent me,
and I will raise you up at the last day.
It is written in the prophets:
‘They will all be taught by God,’
and to hear the teaching of God,
and learn from it, is to come to me.
Not that anybody has ever seen God,
except the one who comes from God.
I tell you most solemnly,
everybody who believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert and they are dead,
but this is the bread that comes down from heaven,
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I shall give is my flesh,
and the bread that I shall give is my flesh,
for the life of the world.
