Short Dramas and Plays

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Hospitals Are for the Sick?
© 2001 Rosalind Morris


Introduction: In Matthew 9:10-12, Jesus was criticized for hanging out with the wrong crowd. His response to the criticism was "Healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do.” The following sketch takes that idea literally with a young lady that just does not get the purpose of hospitals.


Characters:

Courtney
Nicole
Jeanette
Dr. Yeshua

Setting: Three friends standing around talking (Downstage right) One of them is very sick. Dr. sitting at his desk (Upstage left).

Courtney: I tell you what guys. If I get anymore excited about this trip, I will burst.

Nicole (Opens her mouth to speak and starts to cough. She tries to stop but only coughs more. Her two friends are starting to stand slightly away from her.)

Jeanette: Nicole! (Pats Nicole on her back) You have had that cough for weeks. You need to go the hospital and see Dr. Yeshua.

Nicole (Struggling to catch her breath, finally stops coughing. Voice is strained at first, but clears to a normal tone.): The Hospital! There is no way I am going there. I hate hospitals. (Cough, Hack, Cough)

Courtney: How can you hate hospitals? Hospitals help people to get well. Aren't you tired of feeling bad all the time? You keep this up, and you will not get to go on the trip with us. You've gotta go to see Dr. Yeshua at the Hospital. I was talking to him yesterday...

Nicole: I know (hack, cough) you were not talking to one of those doctors about me?!

Courtney: Calm down, Nick. I did not use your name or anything. I just said that I knew this girl who was really sick. I told him about your coughing and those funny green circles around your eyes, and I told him how tired you have been. He said you need to come and check into the hospital. (Very serious tone)

Jeanette: The Dr. is right, Nicole. Especially if you want to go on the trip. You need to see the Dr. and soon!

Nicole (Cough, Cough, Hack) Speaks very dramatically: Please! All those hypocrites I see coming out of the hospital, acting like they are all healthy. Then later own you see them, and they are smoking and drinking. That stuff is not healthy. I may not be well myself, but at least I don't act like I am Ms Health Nut all the time.

Both friends are looking at her like she has lost her mind.

Courtney (Puts her hand on Nicole's head): Nicole I think you are getting delirious. Don't you understand what hospitals are for? Hospitals are for the sick. People who are healthy don't need the hospital. Sure people do all that stuff. Some people even do it after they have been in the hospital, but if their choices make them sick again, they just go back to the hospital. It is there for just that purpose.

Nicole starts to cough again, her friends are fed up so they each take one arm and say simultaneously: Friends don't let friends stay sick!
(They escort her to the Hospital to see Dr. Yeshua. She is now too weak to fight them.)

The Doctor ushers them in and gets a chair for Nicole. Then he starts to examine her.

Dr. Yeshua: How long have you had this illness?

Nicole (Cough, Cough, Hack, Hack)

Jeanette: She has been sick for a long time, Dr. Every since she played in the rain for hours a few weeks back.

Courtney: Did we get here in time, Dr.?

Dr. Yeshua: She will be fine as soon as she drinks some of this medicine (He brings a cup to her lips, and gets her to drink a little. After she tastes it, she starts to regain her strength. Her hands move up to hold the cup herself.)

Dr. Yeshua: She is going to be okay.

Jeanette and Courtney looked relieved. They sigh really big at the same time.

Dr. Yeshua: Why did you wait so long to come to see me, Nicole?

Nicole: I did not want to come in here and get well, and then go back out and play in the rain and get sick again.

Dr. Yeshua: Nicole, don't you know why I am here, why we have this hospital? It is to help people who are sick to become well. Some people do get well here and leave only to get sick again sometime in the future, but that is all right. It is why the hospital is here. If everyone was healthy and could stay healthy on there own, there would be no need for a hospital. People who are well do not need a doctor. Hospitals are for the sick.

Nicole (As if she finally gets it): Hospitals are for the sick?

Dr. Yeshua: Hospitals are for the sick.

Narrator: It took Nicole a while to understand the purpose of Dr. Yeshua and the hospital. How many people look at us, the church, with the same misconceptions that Nicole had about hospitals? How many times do we forget that church is not a place for the spiritually elite, but rather a place where people who do not have it all together, come to be healed, delivered, changed, and set free.


THE END

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