| |
I
Know My Lines By Heart
By Jerri Phillips
As I write this, in the background of
my mind, I hear my own voice repeating my
monologue for the Resurrection play that
our church is doing. I have the exciting
honor of being Mary, the mother of Jesus.
My part is a page long, and no one is
with me to cue me or pick up the
discussion if my brain should go blank.
Quite frankly, despite the varied roles I
have played in the past, this is probably
the hardest part I have ever played. It
is most certainly the longest monologue I
have learned since high school when
Joann. Hinzman made us memorize
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend
me your ears…”
Periodically, when I think about the
play and look at that page that is full
of words that I am to remember, I begin
to get nervous. However, instead of
panicking, I go back to my sheet and
start reciting lines again. If I miss a
few words, I read them again and recite
again. On the process goes until I can
literally do the part in my sleep,
without thinking, until I am so familiar
with the moods, movements, and mind of my
character that Jerri falls away and all
that the audience sees is Mary, a mother
grieving for her crucified Son.
If you have ever performed in front of an
audience, you, too, know the rigors of
preparation. You know the hours spent
learning your part, whether it be
dramatic or musical. If you have
participated in a performance, you know
the time spent in researching the mood
and character of your role. In order to
be good, you not only memorize lines or
notes, you prepare yourself mentally and
sometimes physically.
You consider the proper attire, the
way to carry yourself, and how to convey
each word or note to achieve the desired
affect. Often you find yourself going to
sleep at night with the information
running through your head or wondering
about this or that. What if you tried
this movement or this intonation instead
of that one? Is that really the proper
response mood? Sometimes you find
yourself lying awake atnight reciting
lines or walking through your motions in
your head. Personally, I found it common
to have some level of my brain always
workingon the analysis or recitation of
the role I was to perform.
That is where I find myself now as I
prepare for the role of Jesus’
mother. I do this work because I want to
be ready when it is my turn on that stage
and all eyes watch me, ears wait to hear
Mary speak, and hearts wait to feel what
she is feeling. They did not come to see
Jerri. They came to see Mary, and that is
what I want them to see.
In fact, I’m wanting people to see
Jerri less and less.
The past two weeks have found me in a
most humbling position. I have come in to
my study, sat down at my computer, and
found that I had nothing to write.
Silence is not golden when you are
waiting for the Lord to impart
encouragement for a hurting person or
words of wisdom for someone in need of
direction. I have no idea how many hours
I have spent typing only to erase what I
had typed. Finally, I just stopped
because I’ve battled on in silence
before, and to be honest, I wasn’t
impressed with what I had written, so I
doubt anyone else was. It seemed flat and
useless, just noisy air, as Anna says.
You know why it was noisy air? It was
Jerri.
If I had sent out any of the articles I
had been working on, you wouldn’t
have read anything from God. You would
have read Jerri’s opinion or
Jerri’s pet peeves. And while they
may have been based on truth, they were
still of Jerri, and that, my friend, is
dangerous. “How dangerous could it
be?” you ask. Well, do you recall
some people called Pharisees and
Sadducees in the Bible? They based their
long list of rules and regulations on the
truth of the Mosaic Law. By the time
Jesus came around to fulfill the law, the
Mosaic Law had expanded into oral
traditions that eventually became the
Mishnah, which contains over 500
chapters. And yet, Pharisees were people
who based their teachings on the truth.
Human interpretation and teaching can be
a very dangerous thing, even when based
on the truth of God’s Word.
Because of that, I didn’t want you
to see Jerri. It is truly my desire that
every time you read something I write,
you see Jesus. It is my heart’s
desire that when my children look at me
to imitate me that they see Jesus and
learn to act like Him. When my husband
comes home from work and is tired, I want
Him to be greeted by the Servant Jesus,
Who does not demand His own way but has
come to serve. When someone bumps into
the back of my car, I want Jesus to get
out of my driver’s seat to assess
the damage and speak with the other
driver. It is truly my greatest desire
that when people look at my physical
presence that they see the heart of
Jesus. I want them to see His mind. I
want them to hear His words. I want them
to feel His love. I want everyone to
experience Jesus any time they come in
contact with me.
Despite my greatest desires, though, I
have to confess that I am not there yet.
However, I keep trying. I keep preparing
and saturating myself in the character of
Christ because tomorrow when I’m
tired of listening to Anna tell Robert to
leave her toy alone and his crying as a
result, I will step in front of my
children, and they will either see Jerri
yell from frustration or they will see
Jesus be a peacemaker. Tomorrow evening,
when I’m the one who will be
greeting my husband when he has battled
traffic and worked hard to meet our
needs, he will either see a stressed out
Jerri who is still trying to balance two
children, the laundry, the dishes, and
the myriad of other commitments we have,
or he will see Jesus standing peacefully
in front of him asking about his day,
showing him to the table where dinner is
ready, and listening as he debriefs about
his work. And I want them to see Jesus.
In order for that to happen, I must
become so much like Christ that Jerri
becomes a mere shadow and Christ becomes
the reality. I have to learn His
character. I must analyze His mind. It is
imperative that I find out His
motivation. I have to study Him until He
becomes everything, until at all times my
mind is rolling over facets of Him,
thinking of how He would respond to
various situations, contemplating His
feelings, considering His thoughts, and
then, I must act upon my knowledge of
Him.
However, unlike preparing for other
roles, it isn’t enough to merely to
read about Jesus. There are several
people who have great knowledge of the
Bible but know nothing about Christ.
Without revelation knowledge of the
person of Jesus, the Bible is merely
literature, Christianity becomes nothing
more than a well-written philosophy for
how to live. Unless I have a relationship
with Christ with Him as my Savior, I can
never hope to become like Him. I may be
able to modify my behavior, but that is
often temporary or only stable as long as
circumstances are.
If I really want to become like Christ, I
must know Him. My mind must become like
His, and that can only happen through the
working of the Holy Spirit. Paul says,
“And we, who with unveiled faces all
reflect the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into His likeness with
ever-increasing glory, which comes from
the Lord, who is the Spirit (2
Corinthians 3:18).” He also says in
Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any
longer to the pattern of this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your
mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God’s will is-His good,
pleasing, and perfect will.”
In other words, I will never be like
Christ on my own, in my own power. If I
want to be like Him, I have to allow Him
to work in me and change me into His
image. That requires an ongoing, intimate
relationship. Reading the Bible five
minutes right before I go to sleep
won’t suffice. Praying a rote
blessing for food won’t make a
difference. If I truly want my children
to see Jesus when they look at me, I have
to spend a lot of time in prayer. I have
to learn how He would respond when they
are fighting over toys. I have to ask Him
what His definition of justice is in such
cases, and I have to make myself
available to learn.
But even that is not enough. James says
that people who look into the
perfect law and are unchanged are like a
man who looks in the mirror and forgets
his reflection (1:22-25). If I want
people I come in contact with to see
Jesus, I have to act in accordance with
what I know His character to be. It would
be utterly useless for me to research
Mary and spend hours learning my lines
only to stand in front of the audience
and tell them about our trip to the stock
show last week. First of all, the
audience would be confused. Second, our
director would be let down, but most
importantly, my chance to impact lives
for the kingdom would have passed as
wasted time.
In the same way, it helps no one for me
to memorize chapter after chapter of the
Bible, to read of Christ’s
compassion and mercy, or to know how He
would respond to a hurting person if I do
not act accordingly. When I profess to be
a Christian, I am claiming to be a
“little Christ”, and when I
choose to act like Jerri instead of
conducting myself as I know Christ would,
the people around me are confused by the
inconsistencies in character. I
disappoint the Father, and I have wasted
an opportunity to impact lives by
exposing those in contact with me to the
character of the One who can change their
lives and meet their every need. I have
failed in portraying the One I desire to
emulate. At hat point, my character is no
longer believable, and I have probably
lost the audience’s attention.
Still, there are some who are captive
audiences, and sometimes even when we
fail miserably, there are those who give
us a second chance to get our portrayal
right. Then there are those once-only
shots, like the play I will participate
in two weeks from now. In either case, I
want my portrayal to be the very best it
can be. I don’t want regrets. I
don’t want to make the blooper
clips. Quite frankly, I want the Best
Actress award every single time, and to
do that, I have to know my stuff, and I
have to portray it
well.
Granted, the success of our Resurrection
play does not depend solely on my
shoulders, but how someone sees Jesus
might. I want to make sure everyone who
sees me sees Him in all His glory, and
they can’t do that if there is any
Jerri shining through. So, if you will
excuse me, I have prep work to do. I have
lines to memorize, a woman to study, and
a Character to learn. After all, if I see
you, I really don’t want you to see
me. I’d much prefer that you see
Jesus, and I am still learning that
Character.
|
|
