MOSES REPLACED BY 'RUFUS'

For a number of reasons I have had a lot of exposure to the book of Exodus this year. It has taken my Bible study group over a year to cover just the first 30 Chapters at our snail like pace. In addition this quarter's international series of Sunday School lessons has started off on what many historians call the big move and it just seems like everywhere I look someone is talking about the Jews escape. The entire story is really interesting, but I can't help but wonder how these events would be viewed and reported today. It is pretty easy to look back thousands of years through history and wonder about the actions and reactions of Moses, Aaron, Pharaoh and the other cast of characters but what would it be like today if the same things happened.

Let's say some guy named Rufus who had been in trouble with the law 40 or 50 years ago, showed up one day with a message for the President of the U.S.A. from God. Rufus had been living in Mexico for all those years hiding from the Sheriff in Lawrence County, Al because of a stack of DUI tickets he amassed years before. While in Mexico Rufus had been working for a Chinese company that made 'handmade authentic Mexican artifacts & souvenirs' that were to be sold to tourist in Cancun. Rufus's life had been simple for all these years, the Lawrence County sheriff had no intention of chasing Rufus and besides that was ten sheriffs ago and the records were long ago lost when the county clerk switched everything to computers. Rufus's folks were just as glad he was gone because of his propensity to drink and just generally act a fool. Rufus had married a Mexican lady and they raised a couple of kids who were about as smart as Rufus and were now working with him making treasures for the tourist.

One day on the way to work Rufus attention was drawn to a cactus near the small dirt road he traveled each day. Rufus pulled his '73 Ford F-100 over and walked to the cactus that seemed to be on fire but was not burning up as one would expect. As Rufus approached, constantly looking over his shoulder for someone to approach the cactus with him, he was shocked by the same message Moses had heard so long ago. "Take your shoes off Rufus, you are on my ground" blag, blag, etc and etc. Rufus remembered he had not had a drink in years because the condition he drank himself into earlier in his life. He knew something of the experience Moses encountered so long ago from the Bible readings his Mexican wife made him endure every Sunday morning in lieu of attending the local Catholic church. In what would have come as a total shock to anyone in Alabama that ever knew Rufus, it did not take long for Rufus to get the message the voice in the cactus was giving him and for the shoes to come off, dirty socks and all.

"You know who I am", the voice first said, "yes, I think so", said Rufus. "Then you know I've got something for you to do", the voice continued. "Aw God, I can't do anything big, I'm just now learning to speak Mexican and I've been here forty years", Rufus knew from the book it was not going to do any good to argue with God. "You don't have to speak Mexican for this", God said, "I'm gonna need you to speak English". "I don't speak that too good either", was all Rufus could say. Rufus knew it was not going to do any good fight'en God on this. "I'm not stupid, what do you want me to do"? Rufus said weakly. "Here's the deal", the Lord said, "I want you to go back to the United States and tell the President I want him to dismantle the whole military of the United States, I want him to destroy all the weapons, nuclear included, and send all the soldiers home, immediately". "You can't be serious", Rufus said after regaining some degree of presence and preparing to duck. "I know you are God, and you know what your doing, but this ain't Egypt and I will not be talking to some Pharaoh that inherited the job from his old man", Rufus did not want to challenge God but he was not sure God's mind was everything it used to be.

(to be cont'd)