A nightmare of every high school drama teacher is the student who lands a big part in the Senior Class Play but can’t seem to remember the lines. Opera houses and other premier theaters do, in fact, have a prompter’s box (or corner, usually stage left) directed toward the on-stage actors to feed lines when necessary. However, most of us amateur thespians are at the mercy of a voice from the wings, behind the curtain, or even at the edge of the stage to restore the dialog. It is the rare, fledgling, on-stage actor who is capable of steering the play back on track when a fellow performer stares with panic-stricken bug-eyes, mind utterly blank about what should be said or done. Breathing stops momentarily; mothers in the audience pull buttons off their sweaters (my mother did when I was Pickering in My Fair Lady). The drama teacher suddenly regrets not having accepted the banking position when it was first offered. For this reason, actors go over lines and actions repeatedly and musicians practice until the piece is woven into their psyche. Performers learn to expect what other actors or musicians will say, play, and do, who from offstage should be coming through the door stage right, for example, or the clever sound effect (that just better be there!) which furthers the drama. A gifted accompanist senses how the soloist will shape a phrase.
Some famous characters – Macbeth and his Lady, Hamlet, Eliza Doolittle going head-to-head with Mr. Higgins, and so many others – have been immortalized by actors who have portrayed them, bringing mere words (the script) on a page into a living reality (what life is all about). Vivian Leigh’s defiant visage is emblazoned on our corporate memory as she shakes her fist at the harsh realities of the bleak, post-War South, but is as readily able to dramatically shift gears, proclaiming that “Afterall, tomorrow IS another day!” The better actors become for the play’s duration the characters they portray. They stay “in character,” knowing their parts and their fellow actors’ parts so well that there will be little likelihood of “…going off script.”
Children certainly know the land of “Make Believe,” playing cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, playing house, playing the role of parent, perhaps even seeking a bit of revenge at their own parent’s disciplinary methods by wailing the daylights out of a babydoll for a make believe wrong. One of my Rev. Spouse’s fond memories was her daddy’s 6 foot-plus frame scrunched down around a child’s tea set with his three daughters to partake while mama was at choir rehearsal. For the most part we grow out of those childhood games more recently spun out of recognition by the bewilderingly varied on-line games including Dungeons and Dragons ® which have followers well into adulthood.
However, avoiding reality by immersing ourselves in “what ifs????” and imagined worlds can establish itself as acceptable behavior for the shy and retiring, troubled, or insecure. Mistaking play-acting for normative adult behavior has its consequences. We get caught up in disastrous scripts beyond our computer screens and control – a place to hide ourselves, the lure of McMansions, trophy-spouse, other people’s business, auto / boat / plane / bling better than my friend’s, or pursuing relationships without having a clue how or why one cultivates them with any semblance of integrity. The ill-fated and star-crossed leading actors in the Broadway and film musical Showboat [Jerome Kern / Oscar Hammerstein, 1927, based on Edna Ferber’s 1926 novel of the same name; MGM film, 1951] sing of their ambivalence and confusion in a duet, Only Make Believe, presenting each other with wishful thoughts and platitudes: Others find peace of mind in pretending /Couldn’t you? / Couldn’t I? / Couldn’t we? Not at all sure how they could make possible their hoped-for relationship, they make light of their worst fears: And if the things we dream about don’t happen to be so, that’s just an unimportant technicality. Is Gaylord Ravenal speaking for all of us in that bittersweet moment?
The question that yet to be asked is simple: How and why do we at our peril go off script? For those hoping to blame it on the past generation, or the Millennium, Smart Phones, dang “feriners,” or any other folks from off, the Feminist Movement, the Swinging Sixties, gender conundrums, Covid, or for a few of us, the Industrial Revolution (?!), GET OVER IT!!! God’s people have been wandering off script since the Garden of Eden. Here’s the text of the primal script [Genesis 2:16-18]: And the Lord God commanded the man, You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner. It’s rather an easy script to commit to memory and heart. Getting off script begins with the serpent’s wily enticement [Genesis 3:4]: But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…” It remains the most devastating distraction from the divine/ human relationship that ever was voiced!
Genesis tells a lovely story of beginnings (and one of the best openers for any story imaginable!) – the Creator God seems to long for companionship and so creates folks “in his own image…” It is a daring idea to say the least! Murder mystery author and no insignificant amateur theologian Dorothy L. Sayers once remarked that to be created in God’s own image was to be created a CREATIVE CREATURE [Mind of the Maker, [London, Methuen, 1941]; it is not dependent upon gender. Nothing in the biblical account suggests that it’s about the male having dominance or superiority over the woman – they both are created for companionship, mutual support, to inspire and encourage one another graced by the love of God who invites us to be companions in this holy life of love. [The history of godly grace unfolding supports this admirably!]. They also are graced, when and if possible, for the gift of an intimacy which continues God’s creative work, making folks potential “co-creators” in this mystery called life. Please remember, not all folks are able to have children. Parenthood itself is NOT the determining factor for this godly, life-long abiding relationship! What seems evident in Genesis is that the obvious give and take of partnership, companionship, and support are sadly corrupted by the selfish desire to get ahead on one’s own! If you think you are “like” God, there’s no need “for” God, is there [think carefully before answering!]?
With the arrival of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, we are unavoidably confronted (thank God!) with the bald facts of Mark’s Easter Gospel [Mark 16:1-8] from the lectionary: the women who came to the tomb were told of Jesus’ resurrection by someone who might well be an angelic messenger (…and did say, after all, “Do not be afraid!” – always a good clue!!!). They run away simply because they are human – being women has nothing to do with it! Mark’s passage is an honest description of human proclivities: 16:8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Not to put a spin on this Easter’s Gospel reading, but this is one of the weirdest but understandable statements in Scripture – period. The women at the tomb heard these words and apparently said nothing. Somehow, many others also come to hear the announcement, fully, without reservation, not mincing words, neither hedging bets, AND consistent with what the Lord of Life had been telling folks all along – first his closest associates and then others. THAT, brothers and sisters, is the authentic script! Take a look: [Jesus] took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again’ [Mark 10:32b-34]. Any questions? Conclusions contrary to this holy revelation simply are going off script, always a dangerous thing to do! Ask Peter, for example, or the women who have dutifully and lovingly arrived to prepare Jesus’ body for the grave. Jesus already had given them the script which they obviously have forgotten: I will be raised on the third day. No need at all for burial spices and wraps, then, is there?
In Mark’s gospel we hear, perhaps with amazement, that …they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. This should not be such a great surprise, because it is very, very difficult to imagine we would do anything else than this. God’s script confounds and defies everything we expect about life and death. Thus, they, we, and almost everyone else through the ages go off script? The prophet Micah gave a clear word about this: [God the Lord] has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God [Micah 6:8]? That’s it in a nutshell. God’s script is first presented as Eden’s Garden – a dwelling place lavishly crafted by God out of loving regard and respect for the two made in God’s own image. The script is reviewed in the commandments [“Remember, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage… Therefore, it self-evident that you will / you won’t do…”], the everlasting Covenants with Noah, Abraham and descendants, clear promises made in love, a divine wellspring of forgiveness, and the ultimate, incarnate gift of God’s own self in the one longed for, born into our poverty and suffering, who went beyond death into a resurrected life to be lived – together – by ALL. Anything and everything else which distracts us from that central script of loving, merciful regard for one another no matter what gender, skin color, and position in life makes us go off script. We do NOT take on God’s role, thinking we can declare who’s in and who’s out. We do NOT attempt to harangue some targeted bunch of sinners into God’s kingdom by threats, rejection, shaming, suspicion, and hatred. We do NOT decide we can “get right with God” on our own. Learning to trust God’s loving invitation to live in love may well scare us to pieces because we assume we can come up with all sorts of reasons why God’s idea won’t work. Ephesians 5 summarizes how straightforward the invitation is: Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. That’s the script we should strive to learn by heart so we can live it fully day by day. Study your lines; clothe yourself with righteousness; and for heaven’s sake, TRY NOT TO GO OFF SCRIPT!!!