If your worship this Sunday includes Jesus’ short kingdom parables in Matthew 13, here’s a 2-voice readers’ theatre version of those passages which might be useful.
Matthew 13:1-3, 31-34, 44-53 (based on The Voice translation)
Narr: Jesus left the house in which he was staying,
and went to sit by the sea.
Large crowds gathered around Him,
and He got into a boat on the sea and sat there.
The crowd stood on the shore, waiting for His teaching.
And so Jesus began to teach.
On this day, He spoke in parables.
Jesus: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,
which a sower took and planted in his field.
Mustard seeds are minute, tiny—
but the seeds grow into trees.
Flocks of birds can come and build their nests in the branches.
Narr: Jesus told another parable about a baker who,
by adding a small amount of yeast to his dough,
changes a flat and uninteresting product
into a valuable commodity.
Jesus: Imagine a woman preparing a loaf of bread.
The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast
she folds into her dough.
She kneads and kneads
until the yeast is worked into all the dough.
Without the yeast, the dough remains flat.
But the secret is the almost invisible yeast
making her loaves fluff and rise.
Narr: Jesus gave all these teachings to the crowd in parables.
Indeed, that day He spoken only in parables.
Jesus: The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure
that is hidden in a field.
A crafty man found the treasure buried there
and buried it again so no one would know where it was.
Thrilled, he went off and sold everything he had,
and then came back and bought the field.
Or the kingdom of heaven is like a jeweler
on the lookout for the finest pearls.
When he found a pearl more beautiful and valuable
than any jewel he had ever seen,
the jeweler sold all he had
and bought that pearl,
his pearl of great price.
Or think of it this way:
the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea,
a net that caught a world of flickering fish.
When the net was full, the fishermen hauled it to shore.
They separated the good fish from the bad,
placing the good fish in a bucket and throwing out the inedible fish.
That is what the end time will be like.
The heavenly messengers will separate the good from the bad,
the righteous from the wicked,
the repentant from the prideful,
the faithful from the hard-hearted.
The bad, the wicked, the prideful, the hard-hearted
will be thrown into the fiery furnace
where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.
Do you understand?
Narr: They answered: “Yes, we understand.”
Jesus: Every scribe and teacher of the law
who has become a student of the ways of the Kingdom
is like the head of the household
who brings some new things and some old things,
both out of the storeroom.
Narr: And with that, Jesus finished teaching His parables,
and He moved on.
Scripture taken from The Voice™.
Copyright ©2006, 2007, 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 is one of the suggested scripture passages for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost (July 24, 2011). For more worship resources related to this passage, or other scripture passages for that Sunday, click on Proper 12A in the list of “Labels” at the lower right side of the page. For more Readers’ Theatre resources, click on readers’ theatre in the list of “Labels” at the right.
