Holy Moses

Lenten Scripts on The Ten Commandments

Pastor James Gordon
jgordon@tds.net
Calvary Lutheran Church
Neillsville, WI 54456

Moses-1  (1st & 2nd Commandments)

Oh, hello there.  (surprised) Who are you?  And where am I?  (looking around) This doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.  Well, never mind.  Since I’m here, you probable want to know who I am and what I’m doing here.  I’m Moses.  And I’ve got a story to tell you.  

Have you ever stood in the presence of God?  I mean the real, burning, searing, honest to God presence?  Well, I have, and let me tell you, it’s a frightening experience.  I suppose you’ve all heard of the burning bush.  That’s not something I want to repeat.  I was just minding my own business.  All of a sudden this bonfire is talking to me. Terrifying experience! Terrifying.

One thing I learned though, it doesn’t matter where you are, or what you’re doing, God is gonna find ya.  He knows where you are, and what you’re doing, and what you’re thinking, and you know something?  It doesn’t stop him from loving us.  Yes sir, he knows what’s going on in your beady mind.  You can be the lowest person, think the rottenest thoughts, he’s still gonna love you.

He doesn’t love everything you do, or say, but it doesn’t stop him from loving you.  You know what I mean, the person you really are.  The person inside that’s hiding from everyone else.  The person God intended you to be.  God never stops loving us because it’s his nature to love.  And God sees infinite potential in every one of us.

That’s why he gave us The Law.  It was God’s way of blessing us and protecting us.  There’s a lot of evil out there in the world –and [pointing to his chest] a good deal of it is right here inside of us as well.  Believe me, I know.  I’ve not only seen it, I’ve experienced it.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  I’ve got a long story to tell you, and it begins with who God is, not who I am, or who we are.

I see by your bulletin tonight that you’re talking about the 1st Commandment.  Do you know why it’s #1?  Do you??  Do you know what it means to have no other God but the Lord?  In my day, people had all kinds of so called gods they worshiped.  You know, wealth, fame, popularity, sports.  You don’t have any of those things today, do you?

I hope not, because, really, there’s only one God, and that’s the Lord.  That’s right, the Lord.  He even gave me his personal name to use, and it was such a holy name that no one else dared even to speak it.  He didn’t needed to tell us to not use his name in vain, we hardly dared use it at all.  Names were important to us.  To know someone’s name was to know something intimate about them.  God’s name was special too.  How many of you know what God’s name means?   No?  Well, let me tell you, if you knew, you wouldn’t be so glib about using it.  It’s a holy name.  Sacred.  Pure.  Eternal.

I’ll tell you what it means, if you promise not to misuse it.  Will you do that for me?  Promise?   …Good.  You just promised not to break the 2nd Commandment.  I wouldn’t treat that lightly if I were you.  God had a way of scaring the begeebers out of us when we went against him, and I’d hate to see anything happen to you nice people.

Ok, here is it...  God’s holy name means….[pause]   Naw, I can’t say it.  It’s been so long since I’ve had that name on my lips.  It just doesn’t seem right.  God is so holy and we are so weak and sinful.  You’d probably laugh anyway, and that would be worse.

Let’s just say that God is a jealous God, and wants both respect and our absolute, undivided attention.  Anything else is idolatry!

Well, that’s all I can tell you for today.  I hope I see you next week.
Moses-2   (3rd & 4th Commandments)

Hello again.  I see you all made it back here tonight.  That’s good because I’ve got something special to tell you, and especially you kids here tonight, but before I do, let me tell you, …(looking around)… I’ve never seen anything quite like this.  I see an altar, and candles, and a robe on that guy over there.  Is this a place of worship?  …Well I never.  Pretty nice place you’ve got here.  Sturdy walls, padded seats, good solid timber overhead.  Yes sir, you’ve got it pretty good.  All we had in my day was a portable tent.  That’s where we worshiped.  And that was good enough for the Lord too.  That’s all he wanted.

Course we were always on the move back in those days, so I guess it didn’t pay to build anything permanent.  We called it the Tabernacle.  God gave me explicit directions on how to build it and what to put in it.  He was very particular about that!  In fact, he insisted that we spend one day a week resting from our work and turning our attention to him.  God is a jealous God, you have to realize that.  He doesn’t want anything else taking his place, and so he commanded us to turn our thought and praise to him.  Not because he needs it, mind you, but because we need it.  God knows we have this tendency to forget him.

That was the biggest problem I had with God’s people.  For some reason they kept forgetting him.  I’d go up on a mountain to talk with God, and they would forget him.  They’d get hungry, and they’d forget him.  They heard reports of giant-like people in the land we were going to, and they’d forget him.  Seems like whenever they thought about themselves, they’d forget God.  I guess that’s why he commanded us to set aside the Sabbath as a day of remembrance.  Every Sabbath, we were supposed to do two things:  Stop working, and start worshiping.    The problem was, there was always so much to do.  We used to say, resting on the Sabbath was easy for God, HE got all his work done in 6 days.     …Ok, that joke never went over very good in my day either.

God wasn’t just concerned about our relationship with him though.  No sir.  He had something to say about all our relationships.  One in particular, I want to tell you about tonight.  It’s the starting point for all our other relationships.  God commanded us to honor our mother and father.
Most people think that was written so little children would obey their parents.  That’s not quite true.  You see, our culture was a lot different from yours.  To tell little children to obey their parents would have been like telling them to eat or breathe.  No one had to tell you to do it.  You just did.

No sir, like all the other commandments, this one was directed to adults too.  It warned them not to adopt the heathen practice of abandoning old people to the wild animals.  Some of the pagan nations actually did that when people were no longer able to care for themselves.  This commandment left no doubt that God’s people were to respect their elders.  That’s why the command comes with a promise, that our days may be long in the land.  Remember, we were on our way to a new land when God gave us these commandments.  The young could not expect to have a good life there unless the old had a good life now.  Human life is sacred to God, no matter what the age.

But, I want to say something to the young people tonight too, so I’m going to ask them to come down to the front.  If you’re 16 or under, come on down.  Can you do that for me?

(after they come down)  Well, hi there boys and girls.  Tell me something.  Have you been obeying your parents?  Do you do everything they tell you to do?    No?  How do you think God feels about that?  God thought it was so important that he gave us a special commandment about it.  Do you know what it is?  …That’s right.  We should honor our father and mother.

Sometime that’s hard, isn’t it?  Maybe that’s why God gave us this commandment.  He knew that we would forget, or that there are times when we just don’t feel like it.  So God says, honor them, whether you feel like it or not.  They are God’s gift to you.  God wants them to love and protect and care for you.  That’s their job.  Your job is to listen to them and do what they tell you.  Do you know why that is so important?  Do you?  …Because it pleases God.  Sometimes that’s the best answer there is.  God would never ask us to do anything wrong, would he?  So when he tells us to honor and obey our parents, it’s because it’s the right thing to do.  Can you remember that?  Good.

Thanks for coming up.  Why don’t you go back now and give your parents a big hug. Ok?  I’ll see you all again next week.

Moses-3   (5th & 6th Commandments)

Hello again.  It’s good to be back with you people.  I’m starting to enjoy these little visits with you, although what I have to say to you tonight isn’t all that “enjoyable.”  I guess that’s because it hits me personally.

I want to talk to you tonight about living and loving, part of what makes us human, and gives us both dignity and misery.  I’m talking about God’s commandments not to kill or commit adultery.  Mind you, I was never unfaithful to Zipporah, my wife, but…you see…I do know what it’s like to be a murderer.  That’s right…I killed a man, and it’s haunted me ever since.  I killed him with my own hands, in cold blood.  I guess you would call it a crime of passion, but that still doesn’t excuse it.  No one has a right to take another man’s life, no one but God.

The scary thing is, it was so easy.  I saw this Egyptian soldier beating a fellow Hebrew, and…well… I just went crazy.  I couldn’t just stand there and let it happen.  I had to do something.  When you see injustice taking place, you have to do something, don’t you?  (pleading) You would, wouldn’t you?  That soldier thought he was so great, so high and mighty, so puffed up with his own importance.  Beating on a defenseless Hebrew brother of mine.  At first, all I wanted to do was stop him.  But then I realized that if I interceded, the soldier might become suspicious.  No one knew that I was a Hebrew.  Remember, I grew up in Pharaoh’s court and lived a comfortable life among the Egyptians.  I always knew though that I was not one of them, and I used to dream of a time when my people would be free of the burdens Pharaoh had placed upon them.

Well, when I saw this guy beating what could be my kinsman, I knew there was only one way to stop him.  I crept up behind him (yes, it was premeditated) grabbed him around the neck, and plunged my dagger into his side.  The Hebrew ran away, I buried the body in the sand, and went on my way, sure that no one would know.

But someone did know.  God knew.  God sees everything.  Apparently the Hebrew told what happened because the next day, the word was out, and I had to flee for my life.  That’s when I ran into the hills and became a shepherd.

I tell you this because I know how easy it is to do the wrong thing and call it right.  I had no right to take a life, but I convinced myself that it was the right thing to do.  That’s how devious sin is.  It convinces you that wrong is right, and that you’re the exception to the rule, or at least you’re not as bad as someone else.

It’s the same argument people use when they commit adultery.  It’s always someone else’s fault.  They were driven to it, or they just couldn’t help it.

Marriage is sacred, just like life itself.  In fact marriage is a new life.  A union of two lives into one.  And from that oneness comes more new life:  God’s gift of new life, to be cherished and protected and nurtured.  You can see why God protects the sanctity of marriage, can’t you?  Without it, there would be chaos.  We would be no better than the wild animals and cattle.

Sex was a pretty serious subject in my day.  We didn’t talk much about it, but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t think about it.  No sir.  Some things don’t change, and young men lusting after young women is one of them.  You young folk here think you’re the only ones to have sexual thoughts?  Let me tell you something.  Your parents were young once too!  I know, it’s hard to believe, but they had the same feelings you have.  That’s why they worry about you.  They know the pressures and the feelings and the emotions going on inside you.  God does too.  That’s why this commandment applies to you too.  

God wants you to treat your body with respect, and to treat others that way too.  God isn’t saying “No” to you.  He’s saying, “the best is still to come.”  Waiting is worth it, because marriage should be beautiful and holy.  And loving that one special person is one of the most rewarding things in life.

Well, that’s all I have time for tonight.  I hope that you are beginning to see that God’s commandments make sense.  They aren’t burdensome.  He’s simply trying to protect us from ourselves.

Goodnight now.  I’ll see you next week.

Moses-4   (7th & 8th Commandments)

Well, I’m back again, and I see you are too.  It’s good to see you again.  I hope you’re learning a lot about how God wants you to live, and what he’s done to make life so good for you.

Tonight I want to talk to you about 2 things:  lying and cheating.  Believe me, I saw a lot of that going on in my day.  You wouldn’t think that would be the case among God’s special people, but people are what they are, and they were no better than anyone else.  In fact, sometimes, I thought they were worse.  There were times when their petty differences wore me out.

You see, I used to try to solve everybody’s problems.  I was their leader, so I wound up being judge and jury.  They would come to me with their problems and I would tell them the right thing to do.  You would think they could figure out some of that stuff themselves, but noooooo.  “Let’s go ask Moses,” they would say.  It got so that’s all I did, all day long:  listen to other people’s problems.

One day my father-in-law, Jethro, showed up and I didn’t even have time to talk with him, I was so busy with everyone coming to me with their quarrels. You know what he did?  He laughed at me.  He just shook his head and told me I was crazy trying to do everything myself.  Guess I’d never thought of it that way.  I just thought I was being a good leader.  Jethro convinced me that some of the other men could do just as good a job, at least with the simple stuff.

You know what that meant, though, don’t you?  It meant trusting someone else besides God.  That was hard for me to do.  But that’s really what’s behind God’s commandments to not steal or lie about each other.  It’s a matter of trust.  Trusting someone to respect your things …and your good name.  Without that, a man’s got nothing.  That’s why God says, “Knock it off!”  Don’t steal his possessions and don’t damage his reputation.

Of course, there were plenty of times when that reputation wasn’t so good anyway.  Those were the times when I wondered if it was worth it to try to lead this rag-tag little nation.

Why, at one point, out there in the desert, even God got so upset, he was ready to destroy them all and start over again with me and my family.  Now, that would have been interesting.  You suppose we would have been called the Mosites instead of Israelites?  Don’t laugh.  You Lutherans might have been called Hussies instead of Lutherans if John Huss had been listened to 100 years earlier.  But, you know something?  God would never have started over with me.  And you know why?  Because God made a promise to Abraham, and when God makes a promise, that settles it.  God never, ever, breaks a promise.

Not like us, right?    Our word may be shaky, but not God’s.  God made all kinds of promises to us, and he kept them all.  He promised to bring us out of slavery.  He promised to be our God.  He promised to protect us.  He promised us a beautiful new land to live in.  And God kept his promises.  That’s one thing we eventually learned out there in the wilderness.

Oh sure, the people weren’t always happy with the way God did things, and I told him so a few times myself.  But, you know, you can’t argue with God.  Some of you have probably tried, but it doesn’t do any good, does it?  God does what God wants.  I guess that’s what makes him God.

And that’s why these commandments are so important.  They’re not some law maker’s idea of how to live.  They came from the one who created us.  That ought to tell us something right there.  Pretty hard for the pottery to argue with the potter, I say.  It just can’t be done.  At least his hands are gentle and his purposes good.

Well, my time is up for tonight.  I’ll be seeing you one more time next week, and then it’s back to the pages of the Bible.  I hope that you will continue to listen to God’s commandments, though, and study God’s Word.

See you next week.

Moses-5   (9th & 10th Commandments)

Hello.  It’s good to see you all again.  This is my last chance to talk to you, and I want to be sure that you don’t get the wrong impression about God’s laws.  They aren’t burdensome or unfair.  God gave them to us because God loves us, and he wants us to love him and each other.  The only way we are going to do that is if we understand what God has done for us.  Why, he saved my people from slavery and an early death.  He gave us a whole new life, not because we were so deserving, or so righteous in his sight, but because he had compassion on us and loved us.  It’s pretty hard to ignore that, and do whatever we please, don’t you think?  I mean, we owed our very existence to him.

Well, tonight we come to the end of the list of commandments God gave me.  You might say God saved the best til last, because these last two are real doozies.  You don’t even have to do anything to break them.  What do you think of that?  For instance, you’re probably sitting there right now wishing you had these fine duds I’m wearing.  I know, they’re a lot more practical than the funny stuff you’ve got on, that’s for sure, but you don’t even have to steal them from me to go against God’s will.  The problem is, we’re our own worst enemy.  Always comparing what we have to someone else.  We’re never satisfied with what we’ve got.  We’re always wanting more, bigger, better.  And when we want what belongs to our neighbor, that’s coveting.

My people were the same way.  They were grumbling and complaining all the time.  Some of them even wanted to go back to Egypt.  “Oh the melons, the cucumbers, the garlic, the onions.” they would say.  Can you imagine coveting a bunch of onions?  But when you don’t have ‘em, and someone else does, that’s where coveting starts.

And that’s why it’s so dangerous.  Because you don’t have to do anything to break these commandments.  It happens deep down, in the heart.  You see something someone else has, and you want it.  Pretty soon, you’re plotting how you can get it.  So God says, “stop it,” before it even gets started.

It’s not just things either.  It can be reputation, power, position, talent.

One day I was outside the camp with the elders when God’s Spirit descended on them and they spoke in the name of the Lord.  Two of the elders had stayed inside the camp and they too began speaking for the Lord.  Wouldn’t you know it, someone came running up to me all upset.  “Eldad & Medad are prophesying back in the camp.”  He sounded like a little kid tattling on his brother.  (mocking) “Eldad and Medad are being naughty.  Make them stop!”  He didn’t care what Eldad and Medad were saying.  He was just jealous.  What he was really doing was coveting.  Probably wishing he were them.

Another time, Aaron and Miriam, my own brother and sister, became envious of me because of my relationship with the Lord.  Can you imagine that?  I didn’t ask for this job!  I’ve got hundreds of thousands of people I’m responsible for, I’ve got every family in camp wailing and complaining about food or water or something, I’ve got God himself ranting and raving over their faithless behavior, and they want to be me!  Hey, it wasn’t my idea to bring all those people out there into the desert.  I’m not the one who promised them a gift-wrapped moon.  But do you think I got any respect from my own family?  No way.  All I got was envy because God spoke to me face to face, and not to them.

I’m telling you, coveting crops up everywhere, and we hardly recognize it because it’s in our mind, not out there in the open like stealing or murder or adultery, so we don’t think it’s so bad.  We’re just looking, just admiring, just wishing.  God knows better though, because he knows that that’s where the sin starts, in the longing glances we throw at what belongs to someone else.

That’s why God gave two commandments for something that appears so innocent.  One is for the longing glances we give to someone else’s property, and the other is for someone else’s relationships.  They go together, but they’re miles apart when it comes to their consequences.  You can replace lost property, but a lost relationship is gone forever.

Well, my time is up with you people.  It’s been good talking to you.  Remember that God is a jealous God.  He doesn’t want anyone or anything else taking his place.  God’s laws are good and true.  And he loves each and every one of you.