Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Posted by Reverend Ref + at 12:18 PM

QUICK ON HER FEET

I've been meaning to blog this for a few days now, but things seem to have a way of distracting me.

The congregation at both parishes read the Passion Gospel this past Sunday, with various people reading various parts. At CC I was able to hand out the script so that I made sure all the roles were covered. It also let me meet with "Jesus" to work on some pronunciation.

That didn't happen up in VC. I had laid the scripts on a table downstairs and then went up to prepare for service and direct people to the undercroft as they arrived. When I got downstairs, everyone already had a script. I neglected to find out who was reading the part of Jesus. I didn't remember until we were already reading the Passion.

As it turned out, an elderly woman ended up reading the part of Jesus. I'm thinking, "Oh -- this isn't going to be pretty." As I'm reading the narration, all I can think about is how badly she's going to mangle "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani."

We get down to the final scene at the crucifixion and I read, "Then with a loud voice Jesus cried out," . . . and I'm thinking, "Here it comes."

"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

I almost laughed right out loud. Rather than mangle the sentence she couldn't read, she just went directly to the English. Now that's some quick thinking.

After service I told her, with a big smile, she made the right decision.

3 comments:

Anonymous | 1:48 PM, April 12, 2006  

I had two folks all picked out for the passion reading on Sunday. One had to cancel because of work, the other discovered right as the service began that there was children's church that day after all, and she was teaching.

The "sub" knew he might be reading, and had marked up a copy, and was ready. But the person playing Jesus had been handed the script as the service was beginning... And he got to that line, paused... And read it perfectly!

This is a non-Episcopalian, too. Cool.

Brooke | 1:26 PM, April 14, 2006  

Slightly off topic: I just read this article on U2 and wondered your thoughts. Apologies in advance if I've missed an earlier post on this!

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1842397&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Reverend Ref + | 4:00 PM, April 14, 2006  

Brooke: No, I haven't seen it, thanks for the link.

I like it. Leave it to the Episcopalians to devise a liturgy around a rock concert.

I've got a book about preaching on U2, so it makes sense that someone was going to figure out a way to devise a liturgy around them. I especially like what it says about relating to shades of doubt and anger.

Post a Comment

First time comments will be moderated.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)