State of the Kingdom

This was first preached on November 20, 2005. There has been some updating.

Back when the History Channel presented history, I watched a 4 hour documentary on the crusades. Some historians think Pope Urban II dreamed up the first crusade at least in part as a way to stop so-called “Christian” princes from fighting one another. He hoped to redirect their energies towards liberating Jerusalem from the Muslims and making it safe for pilgrims to visit. If so, this pope never heard that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. As it was, the road to Jerusalem was awash in the blood of countless Muslims, Jews, and even Eastern Orthodox Christians, slaughtered by zealots assured that God sanctioned the enterprise. The resulting crusader kingdom lasted for less than 100 years. None of the subsequent crusades were able to retake the Holy Land.

I thought of this shameful episode in the history of the church when reading today's gospel passage from Matthew 25. I was struck by a phrase I hadn't paid much attention to before. The Son of Man says to those on his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you...” (v. 34) The reason it intrigues me is that, contrary to what the crusaders set up, the kingdom of God is not a place. It's not heaven either. “The kingdom of God,” Jesus tells us, “is within you.” (Luke 17:21) It can also be translated “The kingdom of God is among you.” It is not a temporary, external location; it is a state of being, an internal and eternal way of living. It is God reigning in the heart of the Christian.

And that means the preparation of the kingdom is not done to some place but to someone, namely, you and me. And what does the preparation consist of? After reading this passage from Matthew, you might conclude that it consists in following the rules Jesus articulates in judging people: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the immigrant, visit the sick, etc. But it's not quite that obvious. Because rules, however good, can't make people good.

First of all, nobody can follow all of the rules all of the time. We can try but our desires, our fears and our flagging intentions work against us. In a documentary on users of crystal meth, a doctor told a teenage girl in the E.R. that unless she stopped using the drug, she would never live to see the age of 30. So she stopped. But she admitted that if her mom was away and her friend offered her some meth, she'd probably use it again. She didn't really want to change, even with death on the line. I've personally seen this attitude. When I was a home health nurse, I had a patient who could barely breathe because of emphysema. She was on continuous oxygen. And somehow she got enough tubing for her nasal cannula, about 25 feet of it, that she could reach the door of her room. So she would stand outside the door and smoke! She knew that having a flame near the source of the oxygen could cause a deadly explosion. She also knew her smoking had caused her emphysema. But she wasn't going to change.

The finest doctors and nurses in the world can't save someone who doesn't want to make the necessary changes. Neither can God. He won't force people to accept him and so he can't save those who won't let him in and let him work. As C.S. Lewis once said, the doors of hell are locked from the inside.

But even if people are motivated to obey the rules and obey them scrupulously, it doesn't actually make them good. How many terrorist bombings took place in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's reign? Next to none. Do you think that was because the people were more virtuous under him? Of course not. The things we saw after he was deposed—the ethnic and religious divisions, the impulse to strike out rather than reach out to those who were different, the greed and arrogance and rage—were there all along. Hussein's oppressive rule just kept a lid on all that. Once he was removed, the festering hatred and rage exploded. It wasn't love of morality that made them follow his rules; it was fear of mortality by him. Rule-following can only go so far, especially if it is done out of fear. It can't make you a good person.

This may surprise you. After all, Christianity has rules. And many of the rules are similar to those of other religions. This has given rise to the superficial idea that all religions are alike. One difference is that the rules serve a different function in God's kingdom. We don't follow the rules in order to be good; we follow them out of the goodness within.

To understand this paradox, we must approach the problem from another direction. We've established that the rules can't make anyone good. So what can? Only God. God alone can redirect our desires, calm our fears, and transform our minds and hearts. And it is transformation that we need, not more rules.

So how does he transform us? First, we have to want to change. And that's hard. We don't want God to start tinkering with us. We're afraid of what we'll become. That's because we've bought into the lie that goodness isn't a positive trait but a lack of either courage or experience or the capacity for fun. Our popular culture tells us that good people are dull and pleasure-deprived. Reality tells us differently, if only we listen.

Countless studies tell us that in general marriage is a good thing. Married people tend to be happier, healthier, live longer and have sex more frequently. But someone from another planet, monitoring transmissions from our TV broadcasts, would think that marriage is some sort of sado-masochistic relationship. Sadly, this is because writers find bad marriages easier to mine for comedy or drama. Depicting a good marriage realistically requires more skill. But we are inundated with the idea that marriage for most people is either a joke or a tragedy.

Again studies show compassionate people are happier. Sophisticated entertainment depicts them as dupes. What passes for heroes in movies these days are so ruthless and cynical that they make Dirty Harry look like Mr. Rogers in comparison.

Innumerable studies show that religious people tend to be happier, healthier and more successful in life. Books, TV and movies depict us as either delusional, judgmental, dangerous or all 3.

If we want to be transformed and prepared for the kingdom our next step is to trust God and really open up to him. It's difficult and it doesn't happen all at once. In the process of trying to follow Jesus and become more Christlike, you will stumble and fall and have to start over from time to time. But the transformation, whether sudden or gradual, is real. A non-Christian man said of his ex-addict sister that she was such a different person now that it must be her faith in Jesus. He had no other explanation.

Are there those who fall from grace and lose their faith? Of course, just as there are rehab patients who drop out of treatment. That doesn't negate the reality that the patients who stick it out get healed.

Are there phony, untransformed “Christians”? Of course, just as there are counterfeit $100 bills. Nobody counterfeits $1 bills because they are not worth it. People only counterfeit what's valuable. It's the same with Christians; the existence of phonies just underlines how powerful and attractive the genuine article is.

The next step in the process of being prepared for the kingdom is to get acquainted with God. You do this in 3 ways—by prayer, by reading the Bible and by meeting with other Christians.

Prayer is as simple as a conversation. You tell God what's on your mind—your hopes, your worries, your failures and the things you're grateful for. Just look at the Psalms. Then listen for him. Don't expect to hear the voice of Charlton Heston in your ears. Expect something along the lines of the “still, quiet voice” Elijah encountered in the wilderness. (1 Kings 19:12-13) God speaks through our hearts and minds.

And how do you know that you aren't just talking to yourself? Some awfully odd people have said that God told them awfully odd things which sound either silly or scary. That's why you need to check things against the Bible. It contains 66 books by more than 40 authors detailing people's encounters with God for more than 2000 years. In it we get a complex but consistent portrait of a God who is both holy and loving, demanding but forgiving, trustworthy but still surprising, whose moral character never changes, though his responses to various circumstances do. Sure, there are passages that are difficult to fit in with others, but it is amazing how often apparent contradictions are resolved by noting different contexts. For instance, when growing up, and especially during adolescence, my children have told me both that they love me and that they hate me. Were they severely conflicted in their feelings for me? Or was it just that sometimes they liked what I did or said and other times they were either angry or sarcastic with me because I forbade something or punished them for doing something foolhardy or wrong?

Also ask if something in the Bible is intended as an example of what to do or what to avoid. And ask if something is meant to be taken literally or figuratively. I find it interesting that people who like to point out what they see as contradictions in the Bible often resort to being as unreasonably literal as the people they criticize.

The key to understanding the Bible is in 1 John 4:8: “God is love.” If you love someone and they are in danger, you will cajole, warn, plead, reason and do all kinds of things to save them—even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice. The overwhelming majority of what God says and does is explained when you realize how much he loves us and how much he is willing to do to save us from ourselves.

I saw an example of this way of reading a text when I played a detective in a play which quite frankly had even the director baffled by its apparent contradictions. The first act read like Agatha Christie, with a dead body and several characters to be interviewed. But the second act, which contained the mystery's solution, read like Monty Python. In addition, neither I nor my leading lady could make heads or tails of our relationship. She was the prime suspect and throughout 90% of the play I was badgering her about her alibi. But by the final curtain, we were suddenly in love. Very close to opening night, the actress asked me if I knew why we ended up together; she didn't. I pondered it and the next day, while running through my lines, it hit me. It didn't make sense if we fell in love at the end of the play, but it did if we fell in love at the very beginning. When we played the scenes that way, everything else fell in place. Instead of me trying to trap her into confession, I was trying to urge her to give me the information I needed to exonerate her. Instead of trying to evade my questions because of her guilt, she was trying not to divulge facts that sounded so crazy I would think she was making them up. Our confrontations became more like lovers' quarrels. The change in tone softened the contrast between the classic mystery of the first act and the increasingly bizarre solution in the second act. Mind you, no words were changed, just the way they were said by us and the intent behind them. It was no longer a murder mystery with a bit about love tacked on at the end; it was a love story all along. We found the true spirit of the play.

Ultimately the most important part of being transformed into a person being prepared to be a part of the kingdom of God is embodying the Spirit of God. We have all heard the words of God spoken in the wrong spirit, one of hatred or self-righteousness or hypocrisy, and we have seen the damage done by that. Many have turned away from Christ repelled by counterfeit Christians, who say and do things Jesus explicitly told us not to. But we have also seen the great good that can be accomplished when the word of God was proclaimed and acted upon in the right Spirit. And the fruit or results produced in those living in the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Remember what we said about how rules were powerless to make people good? If, however, people are already good, and if they understand the Spirit behind the rules, then the rules become expressions of that Spirit. God prepares the kingdom for us by preparing us to be the kind of people who don't need to be told that hungry people should be fed, thirsty people should be given a drink, naked people should be given clothes, immigrants should be welcomed, and the sick and those in prison should be visited. And the way we learn that is by living among Jesus' brothers and sisters, all the while looking for and serving Jesus in each other. God is love and we cannot learn to love if we keep to ourselves. We have to interact with people as flawed and as frustrating as we are. And as we get the knack of loving others, the kingdom grows within us and among us, revealing God to us and through us. And we realize that the kingdom is not some other place in some future time but it is here and now and always has been, wherever 2 or 3 gather together in the Spirit of the love that creates and redeems us.

What God Really Hates

This was first preached on November 17, 2002. There has been some updating. 

Is God a grouch or what? As we end the church year and approach Advent, we seem to be reading all these really depressing texts in the lectionary, all about judgement and sin and punishment. Why are these in the Bible? Why isn't it all sweetness and light?

Because life isn't all sweetness and light. There are bad things out there: murder and betrayal and sexual abuse and theft and greed and hypocrisy and arrogance and gluttony and genocide and envy and gossip and laziness and neglect and exploitation and cruelty and prejudice and pollution and rage. Do you really want a God who turns a blind eye to all that and says, “Oh, well. Boys will be boys”? If God really loves us, he has to hate those attitudes and behaviors, just as any parent who loves her childlren hates to see them pick on each other and fight. If you really love someone you want the best for them and you want the best out of them. You want them to be the best version of themselves that they can be. And sometimes you have to let them know that while there are no limits to your love, there are limits to what behaviors you will tolerate. We have all encountered parents who let their kids get away with selfish and destructive ways of acting that society will not allow them to do when they get older. They are setting up their kids for a life of conflict with others.

God loves us too much not to warn us about the consequences of our actions. Like any parent it seems half the time he is telling us he loves us and the other half he's telling us that what we are doing is wrong. And, like all kids, what really drives us crazy is that deep down we know that he is right.

Mosts of the things God hates are well known. They are in the ten commandments. They are catalogued in Proverbs 6:16-19. But in today's lectionary we see 2 things not usually mentioned: complacency and fear.

In our passage from Zephaniah, we find out that God really hates indifference to sin. He is pictured as prowling the streets of Jerusalem at night, paying back those who sit around and ignore all the injustice and evil in the world, rather like Batman. Not only are they blasé about the violence and deceit which Zephaniah mentions in verse 9 but they are indifferent about God as well. They cynically say, “God won't do anything, one way or the other, despite what anyone does.” It's an attitude one finds among people who consider themselves sophisticated and worldly. But this idea is both self-serving and wrong.

If you really think God is indifferent to evil, why bother to fight it? Or even to resist it? This attitude does get you off the hook. Injustice and inequities has always been with us; they will always be with us. Why try to change things? It's a very comforting way of thinking...if you're not the one suffering from injustice. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...” (Matthew 5:6) The Greek words are more intense. This is better translated “Blessed are those who are starving and parched for justice...” God wants us to feel keenly what's wrong with the world and work to make it a better place. God never blesses the status quo.

You may have heard the saying, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” We saw this complacency when the Nazis rose to power in Germany. They never won the majority of votes. Yet Hitler was granted power by people who naively thought they could control him.

We saw it when Senator Joe McCarthy rose to power by lying about ever increasing numbers of Communists in our government. People's careers and lives were destroyed yet those in power, like President Eisenhower, didn't shut him down.

We saw it after the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, the unsuccessful attack with a truck full of explosives. John P. O'Neill, who was head of the FBI's counter-terrorism unit in New York, knew that this would not be the last terrorist act carried out against the US. He was not surprised by the attacks on our soldiers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and on the USS Cole in 2000. He investigated each and was behind the intelligence efforts that stopped a wave of terrorism on the eve of the millennium celebration. But those higher up in the FBI and officials in the White House thought he was an alarmist and not a team player. So he was sidelined and quit in frustration. Without his agitation, our government became complacent. Ironically, on September 11, 2001, John O'Neill was beginning his third week as head of security at the twin towers. He died saving people from the evil actions he had foreseen and tried to prevent.

Another reason we don't do what we ought to is fear. That's what Jesus' parable of the talents is really about. The master in the story isn't concerned about how much each servant makes; he simply wants them to make whatever they can out of what they have been given.The Greek word “talent” originally meant a unit of weight and when it came to precious metals, a measure of wealth. Somehow in English it has come to mean a natural ability. This parable says that God has given each of us gifts. Viewed properly, they are treasures which he expects us to use. It is our duty to be good stewards of the time, treasures and talents God has graced us with. He doesn't expect us to work miracles with them, just develop what is inborn. Often what stops us from doing this is fear.

Fear can be healthy. Fear tells you not to do stuff that is reckless. Don't approach the growling dog or the wild buffalo in Yellowstone Park. Don't jump off your roof into the pool like the idiot on You Tube did. Don't play with fire. But other fears are irrational. One very common fear is that of public speaking. I have never heard of anyone dying of public speaking but there are people who would rather die than get up in front of a large group of people and speak. That's not too bad because they can still function in other roles and situations. Other folks suffer from agoraphobia, fear of open spaces, and shut themselves up in their homes. Some are unable to go to the store, or to work or even to the doctor. Which is too bad because psychiatrists and psychologists can treat these unreasonable fears. These extremes fears can serve as natural parables about how fear can make your life narrow and unfulfilled.

We have all encountered someone whose hidden talent we discovered by accident. They may be secretly an artist or a writer or a singer or have extraordinary insights into the world but they are too shy to share these abilities with others. Imagine how poor the world would be if Bach had kept his music to himself, or if Einstein had put his observations in a diary he locked away or if J.K. Rowling had never sent her Harry Potter stories out to publishers.

Sometimes we are embarrassed to reveal our talents to others. After all, our abilties may not compare with those of famous people. But that's not the point. You may not sing like Taylor Swift but you may sing well enough to help out a choir. You may not be the CEO of a major corporation but you may do just fine as a member of a church council or civic organization. You may not be a trained psychologist but you might be a good enough listener to help someone in distress through a crisis.

In the parable it's not the quantity of talents given that's important. We are told that the master passed out the talents to each servant according to his ability. So he made allowances for their individual capabilities. While the servant who is condemned in the story only received one talent, the master isn't expecting him to get as good a return as the man with 5 talents. He praises the man who made 2 more talents with the same words he used for the man who made 5. He was, however, expecting the 1 talent man to invest as much effort as the other servants. Just so, God doesn't hold us responsible for results as much as whether use our gifts to serve him.

And we are not talking about salvation here. What we do doesn't save us; God saves us. If you come to a surgeon with a broken hip, he, not you, can replace it with a new one. But he would be very disappointed if you had the surgery and then never followed his orders to go to physical therapy and never got out of your wheelchair to learn to walk again because you were afraid of the pain. He didn't give you the new hip so you could do nothing with it. In the same way, God doesn't want us to just sit there on our assets.

One thing that most people don't know is that a talent was not just a unit of weight; it was a major one. It was as much as a man could carry. In silver, it was as much a man might earn in 15 years. That's a considerable fortune. So one talent was nothing to look down upon. The master had entrusted the 1 talent servant with plenty. It was the man who sold himself short. His lack of trust in himself and in his master was what led to disaster.

Faith is the antidote to fear. If you have trouble trusting in your own abilities, then trust the God who gave them to you. He feels you can handle them. He doesn't ask you to exercise abilities you don't have; just develop the ones you do. None of them are lowly. And we should not look down on any of them. For instance, most people would probably rate the ability to write and preach a sermon as more important than the ability to lift a can of garbage. But if you went 2 weeks without hearing a sermon and 2 weeks without having your garbage collected, be honest: which would you miss the most?

You may not see how your talents fit into God's plans. It doesn't matter. Some day you will find that your talent is exactly what is needed at the moment. David's gift for music brought him into contact with King Saul, whose depression was eased by the shepherd's songs. Later David's skill with the sling brought down Goliath. This led to his military career and then to his becoming the next king of Israel. Similarly, Joseph's foresight eventually led to his rise from a slave and a prisoner to Pharaoh's vizier, which enabled him to save a nation, and his family, from famine. But not being famous or powerful doesn't diminish your importance in God's plan. God commanded an obscure Christian in Damascus to go to a man he had never met and heal him. In fact, Ananias was afraid of the man, who was a persecutor of Christians. He went anyway and laid his hands on Saul of Tarsus in the name of Jesus and helped both his physical and spiritual blindness fall away. Saul became the apostle Paul. We don't know what became of Ananias but his courage and his gift of healing changed history.

God doesn't make junk. You are a work of art in progress. God doesn't give crappy gifts either. He gave you abilities for a reason, even if you don't see what it is at the present. So work on them. Refine them. Hone them. Explore them. Grow them.

When I went to college, my mother made me a decorative pillow. And on it, in needlepoint, were the words, “What you are is God's gift to you; what you become is your gift to God.” Conquer your complacency with caring and your fear with faith. Dare to make your life the most splendid gift you can, worthy of the trust and love God has given you.

The Big 10

This was preached on November 11, 2005. There has been some revising.

The suggestion I drew from the sermon box was to do the 10 Commandments as “Ren and Stimpy.” One of the kids must have written that one. And, I'm sorry, I'm not going to do that because (A) while I am aware of those cartoon characters because my kids watched them as children, I never managed to make it through an entire episode and I don't think I could do them justice. And (B) Ren, the dog, speaks like Peter Lorre. If I did that voice for the whole sermon, I wouldn't have much of a voice for the rest of the liturgy. But I understand the impulse to retell stories in a lighthearted fashion. I think Mr. Magoo's version of A Christmas Carol is still the best musical version, if not the best dramatization, of Dicken's classic story. And humor is great for bringing out truth. So with the help of my ventriloquist dummy Ebenezer, I'd like to recreate the giving of the 10 Commandments.

Ebenezer: Oooo! Do I get to be the Lord?

Chris: No, you get to be Moses.

E: How come I never get top billing?

C: Because without me, I think you'd find yourself speechless.

E: [Sigh] I told Kermit the frog we needed a union. [looking at his costume, a towel] When it comes to costumes, I can see you've spared every expense.

C: Stop complaining. Time to get in character. [Calling] Moses!

Moses: Here I am, Lord! [Panting] Did you have to choose such a high mountain? I'm 80, you know! Isn't there some nice Starbucks in the valley where we can talk?

God: Don't you like the view?

M: Well, yes. I mean I would if there wasn't so much smoke around! [Coughs]

G: Sorry. That just happens whenever I manifest myself as fire.

M: Couldn't you manifest yourself as something else? It gives me the willies talking to this huge pillar of fire. [Coughs] Not to mention the whole secondhand smoke issue.

G: Believe me: this is the least scary thing I could appear as.

M: How about appearing as a human? You'd be a lot easier to relate to.

G: Hmmm. I'll think about that. Do you know what I called you up here?

M: Toasting marshmallows?

G: No. It's time we talked about our relationship.

M: Oh, boy! This isn't going to be any fun!

G: Why do you say that?

M: Because it isn't fun when my wife says that. I can't imagine what it means when your God wants to talk about your relationship!

G: What I mean is the relationship between me and the people of Israel. We need to lay down some rules.

M: That seems fair. How many rules are we talking about?

G: 613.

M: Whoa! Whoa! Can't you just give us the Cliff's Notes version?

G: Well, I was thinking of starting out with 10 big rules.

M: Ten? That's ok. We can let the lawyers work out the rest.

G: Lawyers?

M: I've got to give them something to do now that they can't file that class action lawsuit.

G: What class action lawsuit?

M: Against Egypt for making us slaves. It was just a backup plan in case the 10 plagues didn't work out. But now that Pharaoh and his army are drowned, there's no one to sue. The lawyers are really upset about all the hours they could have billed.

G: Nevermind that. Let's get started.

M: Wait a second. I don't have a papyrus or reed to write with!

G: I'll do it myself. In stone.

M: Of course. Mountaintop. Fire. Rules written in stone. You sure like symbolism, don't you?

G: It's a language everyone understands. Let me begin this way: “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

M:That's a rule?

G: No, that's the preamble. I'm setting out who I am and why I am making this covenant.

M: Covenant? That's like an agreement, a contract, isn't it?

G; All the kings are making them these days.

M: So you're our king?

G: And God. Which brings me to the first rule: “You shall have no other gods besides me.”

M: None? That's new. The Egyptians had so many gods—for rain, for sun, for this and that. Folks got used to it. You knew who to go to for what you needed. That's gonna be a hard habit to give up.

G: That's the deal. Who do you think those 10 plagues were targeted at? Those imaginary Egyptian gods. Those plagues showed that no one was in charge of the sun or the Nile or health or life but me. Remember: I liberated you from slavery in a foreign land and I am taking you to the land I promised to your ancestors. Our relationship is exclusive. And if it makes it any easier, there will be only one person to go to now—me. There's no bureaucracy in heaven.

M: That's a good point. One God, one set of rules for everyone.

G: As a consequence of that, here's rule 2: “You shall not make images of anything in heaven, or earth, or elsewhere...”

M: Not even dollies for the kids?

G: I'm not done. “...and you shall not worship or serve them.”

M: Oh, I see. That's the exclusivity thing again. Like in a marriage.

G: What can I say? I'm a passionate and loving God. If you reject me, the source of all good things, you are going to see the effects, not only in your own life, but in those of your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But if you stick with me, you will see the positive effects of living in my love for thousands of generations.

M: Kinda like karma. But why not let us make images of you?

G: First of all, how could you make an image of me? I'm Spirit. Look, I have nothing against art. I just don't like being reduced to something a lot smaller and completely comprehensible and controllable. Because I'm not. People are always trying to whittle me down to something they can manage, something with limitations and with borders I can't cross. I'm not that kind of God.

M: But borders are so comforting. Oh, well. Next rule?

G: “You shall not use the name of the Lord your God in an empty or deceitful way, for the Lord will not clear the person who does so.”

M: You mean like swearing?

G: Yeah, but also swearing falsely. Or using my name as a magic word. I'm not a genie. And I don't like having my name thrown around casually. I also don't like my name attached to people's statements or actions thoughtlessly. I don't do endorsements of human agendas. After all, you wouldn't want someone using your name to justify any old scheme they came up with?

M: No. And that reminds me. I need to talk to that guy who's selling hot dogs to Hebrews.

G: 4^th big rule: “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” I rested after 6 days. So should you. Unlike me, you need rest.

M: I guess the slaves will have to take up the slack that day.

G: No one is to work then, not even the slaves or the beasts of burden. In sacred matters, all people are equal. In the first 3 rules, I've told you how not to dishonor me. This is the one thing I ask you to do to honor me. I want you to spend time with me. So set aside the day as holy.

M: That's only fair. It's very easy to forget someone if you don't spend time with them. What's the next rule?

G: “Honor your father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

M: Hey, that rule's not about you, though. That's about humans.

G: I care about humans and how they're treated. That's why I made you in my image. That's why whatever you do to each other you are in a sense doing to me. Especially parents. They are supposed to be my surrogates. They are supposed to raise you in love and teach you my rules. You should respect them for that.

M: I'm all for that. If my parents hadn't hidden me in that basket, I'd be dead. And I wouldn't have been raised as an heir to Pharoah. Nor would I have my brother Aaron to speak for me.

G: By the way, where's that speech impediment so severe that you said you couldn't be my spokesman?

M: Oh, uh...I just get that way when I am afraid. Like when I have to do public speaking. Uh, what's next?

G: “No murder.”

M: No w-w-w-what?

G: Murder. Murdering a person created in my image is like murdering me symbolically. Remember?

M: But what if someone is, uh, beating a slave? A Hebrew slave? And he's an Egyptian?

G: I know all about what you did. And yet I'm still entrusting all this to you, aren't I? But, yes, everyone is made in my image and so every murder counts. But I am forgiving. We'll get to the matter of atonement later.

M: Whew! Next rule?

G: “No adultery.”

M: Well, that's straightforward. And, to be honest, hard.

G: Remember what you said about this covenant relationship being like a marriage? You're right. And I expect respect, love and faithfulness in both relationships.

M: Of course. What else?

G: “No stealing.”

M: No explanation needed. Next?

G: “You must not say false things about your neighbor.”

M: Another good rule. And last of all?

G: “You shall not desire your neighbor's household; not his wife, not his slaves, nor his livestock, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

M: Uh, Lord? This rule is different. The others are about behavior. This one is about—emotions.

G: People usually break rules for emotional reasons—greed, envy, anger, lust, fear, hatred, laziness, arrogance. I want you to know I'm interested in people obeying the spirit of the law, not just the letter. Basically, obeying these laws is about love: loving me with all you've got and loving your neighbor as much as you do yourself. Hey, that's good. I want that in my law as well. As I've said I've got more to say on these things.

M: Well, we're gonna need more than a couple of stone tablets to get it all down. We may need to write a whole book about what you've got to say as well as what you've done for us. And we can title the book “God.”

G: I think it'll take more than just one book.

M: Well, then we can do a sequel. We'll call it “Son of God.”

G: I like it!