This page is part of a range of resources designed to help you organise a day of fasting and prayer in your Church to highlight the dangers posed by climate change to the whole of Creation. The main page of this set can be found here or at www.operationnoah.org/node/256.

Noah Drama-Sketch

The sketch below can be used any time in your Church.

The Rainbow Covenant, which God made with Noah after the Flood, is under threat from man-made climate change. The signs are already visible, but the people who will suffer most - future generations - have no voice with which to beg us to take preventative action. But perhaps their entreaties can reach us, through a character from the mythical past who saw climatic catastrophe.

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Cast: Noah, Mrs Noah, three young visitors dressed in white, Narrator

Props: two chairs, a small table, a kettle, two mugs, a large box of tea, a basket of clothes, a Jey-cloth, two newspapers
As Noah and Mrs Noah enter, Noah speaks
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Narrator: Noah and his wife are on dry land at last after forty days in the Ark with a lot of animals. Not surprisingly, they are heaving a huge sigh of relief. Animals can be good company, but even the best company can wear thin.

Noah: Phew, I never thought they'd leave. Some animals just won't take a hint, will they. It reminds me of your 500th birthday party - do you remember that. Never again, I thought - but I never thought we'd have to do this. I need a cup of tea.
Mrs: Good idea, Noah, ask the dove if she'll pick some tealeaves for us. I'll put the kettle on. (Noah walks to edge of stage to release dove) (Mrs. looks out of the window while putting the kettle on). Oooh, look at that rainbow! It's a while since we saw one of them.
Noah: (Looking through the window) Something tells me we won't be seeing another flood like that - not if I have anything to do with it. Mind you, I'm a dab hand at Ark building now. Shame if no-one's going to need Arks any more, isn't it!
Mrs: I still can't get used to having our friends around. Sometimes I find myself wondering how Rachel is, or if Joe's managing to get out now after his accident ... but they're all gone. It's hard being the only ones left, isn't it. We don't want another flood like that again.
Noah: No, we don't want another flood like that. (Wistful pause) Oh, here comes the dove! (A packet of tea is thrown to Noah from offstage. He passes it to Mrs, looks up for the dove, and follows it as it flies away.) Thank you!! (Sits down with a great sigh of relief and pleasure) You know, I think I need to build a garage for the Ark. Don't you?
Mrs: A garage? Why?? I thought you said you weren't going to need it again! Why don't you sell it?
Noah: (throwing open his arms) Who to - there's only us!!
Mrs: (realising her mistake) Oh well, cut it up for firewood or something.
Noah: It's still damp (winks mischievously at audience)
Mrs: Oh, Noah, you've got an excuse for everything

Narrator: Five and a half thousand years later, on a cloud called Abraham's Bosom. It's 2003 [year] in earth years

Mrs: I must say I'm very pleased with the spot they've managed to find for us up here. Shame about that monstrous Ark still in the garage. You said you'd move it. That was five and a half thousand years ago and it's still there. God said we'd never need it again. (looks expectantly at Noah)
Noah: (nonchalantly) Well, I reckon I can trust him, but it's people you've got to watch ... you never know what they might get up to. It takes two to tango, you know. (Noah throws out a hand for a tango. She folds her arms impatiently)
Mrs: (gazing downwards) You can see the whole world from up here. And the whole of history, back as far as the dinosaurs, and beyond, right through to the end of the world. And it's so interesting meeting people from different ages. One minute you're talking to someone from the Ice Age, the next you're talking to someone who hasn't yet been born, and won't be born for centuries
Noah: Ha, it's like travelling through time, isn't it. Dr Who eat your heart out. (His eye is caught by the rainbow out of the window, and he gets up)
Mrs: (Quizzically) Dr Who??
Noah: Never mind darling (peering worriedly just above the horizon). Darling, our rainbow. (Indicates the shape of the rainbow in the sky) Do you think it's as bright as it was?
Mrs: (Getting up, peering through the window) Mmm, now you come to mention it. It seems to be... obscured. Come to think of it, I've been noticing smoke coming up from down there, and a sort of burning smell - for, well, about a century now. I wonder if that's got anything to do with it?
Noah: It’s getting stormier as well, you really have to look for the gaps (pointing down through the clouds) and people in Britain are getting flooded every winter now.
Mrs: Well, it might be where you're looking, but it's hardly rained at all in Southern Africa for years. Look, down there, those people are digging roots out of the ground and eating them. They're looking famished.
Noah: Oh, and look, there in the Pacific Ocean, I'm sure there used to be an island there. The sea level must be rising as well
Mrs: (Returns to her chair to read newspaper. Noah is still looking anxiously at the rainbow) Oh, fancy that. I'm reading the newspaper that new fellow brought with him the other day. It says in here that the climate is becoming more unstable up because people are burning oil and coal and suchlike and releasing (struggling with pronunciation, as if for the first time:) car-bon di-ox-ide (repeats it, quietly) - what's that? (Noah shrugs, nonplussed) It says here the UK is contributing more to climate change than the whole of Africa put together, and every person who lives there today contributes more than people in nearly every other country in the world. (reads on ...) Oh, but this isn't fair: "The countries most harmed by changes in climate will be Si-e-rra Le-one - Don't they have funny names? - E-thi-o-pi-a and Af-ghan-i-stan." It says "sea levels will rise up to a metre before the end of the century, and go on rising for 500 years, displacing millions of people. And 5 million people in Britain are at risk from increased storms and flooding."
Noah: (His face lights up) Flooding?! Ah ha, you see, I knew the Ark would come in handy one day!
(Visitors start walking up the aisle)
Mrs: (Steaming, looking frustratedly at audience) Ooogh! Anyway, a fat lot of good an Ark's going to do them - there's six billion of them down there now, and what about all the animals?
Visitors knock at the door in front of the stage
Noah: Hello, who's that? (goes to door) yes, what can I do for you?
Visitor 1: Uncle Noah, we think you might be able to help us. We are the great grandchildren of people at [Name of Church]. We haven't been born yet, but we think we might have a problem when we get down there. We’ve decided to ask for your help. We think you're the best person to help us. The problem is, we're worried about what sort of world we will have to live in after we are born. Most of our great grandparents in [place] won't be around, but we need to get a message to them. Worst of all, we don't like the sound of this 'climate change' and 'global warming'. We want to be safe; we want to know the earth will still be able to provide a livelihood for everyone. But what from what they are saying it's all looking pretty insecure. It's not going to be like our great-grandparents know.
Visitor 2: I want to see white Christmases, like they used to be able to. I want there to be polar bears still at the North Pole when I'm born.
Visitor 3: I want to know that coral reefs and rainforests are still teeming with life, full of noise and colour. Just like before they started warming up the earth.
Visitor 1: You see, if they damage creation, we won't be able to remember God once we are born - you understand that, uncle Noah, don't you? But we can't tell them to do the right thing. We can't get a message through. We're not going to be born for a while yet, and so we can't make them hear us. They've got all this technology, all this know-how, to stop causing global warming, and they're not using it. They're fighting over oil as if there is no tomorrow, when they could easily make clean energy if they wanted to. Noah, they know you - can you tell them for us? Can you help us?
Noah: Well, I'll see what I can do - but they will have to want to listen... (muses to audience) Do you think they'll all fit on board my old Ark? No, my wife's right, they won't all get in. But I might be able to show them how to build a new one of their own. Yes, I know, it's not cypress wood they need. What they need to build their Ark is a few tonnes of compassion - a boatload of justice - renewable energy ... and a simple lifestyle to keep it all shipshape. Yes (imagining) I can see that now. (To his visitors) OK, my friends, where did you say your great grandparents were?

The visitors point to the audience, and the cast exit that way.

Operation Noah would like to thank Christian Ecology Link for permission to use this resource sheet
(http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk).