Facing Life's Uncertainties (Inspired by Wilma, Who Knew How)

[This morning, the funeral and graveside committal services for a member of our Saint Matthew family, Wilma, took place. Wilma was 92 and except for the final two months of her life, was in great physical health. She had some memory loss, but beyond that remained remarkably healthy. 
[The funeral service today had three purposes: to celebrate Wilma's life, to commit her to the hands of God, and most importantly, to proclaim the hope that all who turn from sin and death and turn to Jesus Christ are assured of life forever with God, the good news.]

The Message
This morning, I want to share a few thoughts with you based on what may seem like a strange Biblical text for Wilma’s funeral. But somehow, it seems appropriate to me. It’s Luke 12:16-21, which is Jesus’ famous parable of the rich young fool.

[Jesus says:] “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Except for the past few months, when first, I had some health issues and then, Wilma became ill, I visited with Wilma every month in the past three years.

It took Wilma about a year for her to remember me from visit to visit. Once, she called the church office to say that the appointed time I was to be at her house conflicted with a doctor’s appointment and in talking with my secretary, she referred to me as “that guy.”

A couple of times, though she habitually wrote everything on her calendar, she was caught unaware when I arrived, sitting in her stocking feet, reading, and apologetic for her lack of preparation when I showed up to once more bring her Holy Communion.

Over time, she came to remember me and in fact, on one of our last visits, I was surprised and touched when she threw her arms around me to hug me.

I came to know Wilma as warm and friendly, with a great sense of humor. As I told my wife when I learned of Wilma’s passing, “I really liked her and I always looked forward to our appointments.”

I didn’t know Wilma when she was younger. But like anyone who knew her as an older person, in any given visit, I might have heard the same stories and comments about family and life experiences several times: about her two sons and where they lived; about her extended family in Elyria; about her growing up; about her niece Eloise, who looked after her and provided her with plenty to read; about the difficulty she had in finding people to mow her lawn; about planting her flower beds in the spring and cleaning them out in the fall; about her need to write everything down, including when to take her medicines.

Wilma, in fact, struck me as a disciplined person. I got the impression that even before her memory loss necessitated her taking extra care to keep her life organized, she was always organized. The neatness of her house and its lack of unnecessary furnishings and goo-gobs that most of us acquire in our lifetimes were testimony to this.

But something else struck me about her self-discipline. In Jesus’ parable of the rich young fool, a man thinks that if he disciplines his use of time and saves his money, he will get to a point when he’ll be in control, he will have conquered the world, and he can simply sit back and relax. In a way, this young man deludes himself into believing that he can be his own little god, self-sufficient and invulnerable. No obligations or responsibilities to anyone but himself. We have a term for people like this today: We call them control freaks.

Wilma was no control freak. She laboriously worked out her daily schedule because she didn’t want to be a burden to anyone!

“When I get to where I can’t take care of myself anymore, I’ll go to the Care Center,” she told me many times. And in the hospital little more than a month ago, she said, “I always said when I couldn’t take care of myself, I would go to the Care Center. They might as well send me there now.”

Wilma could be determined when she needed to be; she often talked about how she learned to drive after being widowed. But Wilma was also a realist. Though her willingness to go to the Care Center no doubt had something to do with losing one of her sons, Bob, exactly three months before she suffered a stroke, she also understood, unlike the rich young fool in Jesus’ parable, that we are not in control. We are vulnerable. Life does hit us with unexpected setbacks, even tragedies.

But that doesn’t mean that you stop living! Instead, like Wilma, you live the life that you have been given. You exercise appropriate self-discipline. You take care of the gifts God gives you—whether it’s your health or your house. You live in appreciation for the gifts of brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and extended family.

Rare people like Wilma, are ones who, I think, can only be described as ordinary people who, in quiet, unassuming ways, lead extraordinary lives.

That’s because Wilma had something that the rich young fool in Jesus’ parable didn’t have. I don’t mean to paint her as some stained glass saint. You all will know her faults more than I do. (Of course, we all have faults and if anyone thinks they don’t, that’s a big fault in itself!) But I got to know Wilma when life—and the God Who lovingly disciplines His children—had worn off her edges. Adversity has a way of showing the real person beneath the veneer. The masks come off the more vulnerable life renders us. And this is what I saw in Wilma: a person of humble faith in Jesus Christ.

She wasn’t the type to go around advertising her faith. (She wasn’t the type to go around advertising anything, as I experienced her.) But she was always anxious to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, always anxious to join in with the Order for Confession and Forgiveness, every word of which she knew by heart and recited with me during our visits. In the sense of vulnerability that I know Wilma felt each day, in spite of the physical vigor she enjoyed until the very end, she knew that she needed the God revealed to all in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. Not barns or baubles, just Jesus. She needed Jesus.

And so do you.

Wilma lived a long life. I think of one her life’s lessons is simple: There is nothing to a life like that of the rich young fool. Nothing in this world lasts. But there is everything to a life lived with Jesus Christ, Who has conquered sin and death and gives eternity with God to all who turn from their sin and entrust their lives to Him.

When you know Jesus Christ, you can face this life with all its uncertainties and unfair twists, you can look forward to the future Christ has secured for all who believe in Him, and you can do it all with a smile on your face, with hope in your heart, and with peace.

May you make knowing Jesus Christ the number one priority of your life so that the blessings of being part of Christ’s new creation can be yours here in this imperfect world and in the perfect world awaiting all who follow Jesus Christ. God bless you.
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The other Biblical texts shared at Wilma's funeral were: Proverbs 20:29; Isaiah 46:4; and John 11:17-27.
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This bit of doggerel, found among Wilma's papers, was read. The fact that she cut it out and kept it shows something of the humor and humility with which she approached life and fit in well with the Proverbs and Isaiah texts above, which in turn, remember the wisdom God grants to those with gray hair, who are attentive to life's lessons, and recall that God promises to save us even in our old age. The author is the ubiquitous, "Anonymous":

Thought I'd let my doctor check 'cause I didn't feel quite right,
All those aches and pains annoyed me, and I couldn't sleep at night.
He could find no real disorder, but he wouldn't let it rest,
What with Medicare and Blue Cross, it couldn't hurt to do some tests.
To the hospital he sent me, though I didn't feel that bad.
He arranged for them to give me every test that could be had.
I was flouroscoped and cystoscoped, my aging frame displayed,
Stripped upon an ice-cold table, while my gizzards were x-rayed.
I was checked for worms and parasites, for fungus and the crud,
While they pierced me with long needles, taking samples of my blood.
Doctors came to check me over, probed, and pushed, and poked around,
And to make sure that I was living, they wired me up for sound.
They have finally concluded (their results have filled a page),
What I have will some day kill me: My affliction is OLD AGE!

That's essentially what took Wilma's life in the end, old age, and we were blessed to have had her with us. As one of the prayers in our funeral liturgy puts it:

O God of grace and glory, we remember before You today, Wilma. We thank You for giving her to us to know and to love as a companion in our pilgrimage on earth. In Your boundless compassion, console those who mourn. Give them Your aid so that they may see in death the gate to eternal life, that they may continue in their course on earth in confidence until, by Your call, they are reunited with all who have gone before us trusting in Christ as God and Savior; through Your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Who God Can Use...Not Only Who We Think

From R.T. Kendall's God Gives Second Chances, R.T. Kendall writes:

The best antidote I know for conquering a lust for power is to embrace the implications of John 5:44: "How can you believe if you accept the praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?"...

The problem is that we suppose that our ambition to succeed is a love for God. Because we believe the Bible and the basic truths of the Christian faith, we tell ourselves that our quest for more influence is for God's gory. This is how we deceive ourselves. We justify our drive to be more successful by saying we can "reach more people," "save more souls," "get our message to the world." Such rationales are nothing but a camouflage for the foolish ego trip we are on...

...making an effort to obtain the praise of God means seeking the lower seat (Luke 14:7-11), refusing to vindicate ourselves, choosing total forgivenes, and the sheer waiting on God's timing. In a word, it is the way of the cross, the life of self-denial, and the participation of the sufferings of Christ... 

I don't always agree with R.T. Kendall. I have major issues with the neo-Pentecostal or Chrismatic movement of which he is a part. I take issue with some of the things Kendall writes in this book.

But the observation above is, I believe, right on target! God does give second chances to those who learn to subordinate their egos and themselves to Christ and the Word of God. I've seen it countless times in the Bible, in Christian history, and people I've known. Repent for sin and surrender to Christ and I am sure that "by the power [the power of the Holy Spirit Who comes to every believer in Christ] at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20).

But God can only do great and eternally lasting things in the lives of those who don't care how many great things the world may say about them. Their only concern is for what says about them. Today--and for a long time to come, I'll be asking God to help me ignore the approval of others and seek approval only from God!

The Right Way

Great thoughts from Pastor Deb Grant:

By following Christ, we are given a way to walk that protects us from our own wandering ways, nourishes us consistently and still gives us the freedom to move at our own pace. 

Read the whole thing. (It's not long!)

What Suffering Can Do for Us

"Your suffering doesn't make you clean before God. Yet it drives you to reach for God's Word and hold onto it more tightly and firmly. This is how God exercises your faith." (Martin Luther)

"Pray and Speak Up for Iraqi Christians"

That's the title of this post from John H. Armstrong.

It contains this observation by Joseph Kassab of the Chaldean Federation of America:

Iraqi Christians are being systematically murdered and driven from their homeland. This situation must, repeat must, be addressed by an international security coalition with members from Iraq, the U.S. and the U.N.

Please read John's entire blog post. Then, please pray for the safety of Iraqi Christians. Please also write to the White House and the State Department asking our government to press our Iraqi allies to put a stop to the persecution of Christians in their country.

That's it, three quick and simple action steps:

• To contact the White House, go here.
• To contact the State Department, go here.
• Most importantly, to contact God, call out in Jesus' Name.

Repentance: Orienting Our Lives to Christ

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Matthew 3:1-12
As a seven year old who usually found worship less than exciting, young Jim Cymbala nonetheless found himself impressed by a preacher named Howard Goss. As Cymbala explains it, Goss, unlike many of the preachers who came to the Pentecostal church of his childhood, “didn’t rant and rave to make a point. Nor did he use emotional gimmicks as he delivered the Word of God. He simply explained the truths of Scripture in an easy, conversational tone.” Yet, something about Goss’ personal faith impressed the seven-year old Cymbala far more than anything Goss said.

Years later, himself by now a Pentecostal pastor, Cymbala met the son of Howard Goss. The younger man remembered “a big camp meeting” held in Canada when he was a kid. Every prominent preacher of their tradition was there and the event attracted huge numbers of people to the morning, afternoon, and evening preaching services.

As Goss’ son recollected, all the preachers jockeyed to be picked to preach at the evening events, when the crowds were bigger and the prestige greater. “Suddenly,” Howard Goss’ son remembered, “one of the leaders asked where my father was. He was…highly respected by everyone. They wanted to consult him [about the preaching schedule]…They finally heard that he was last seen in the kitchen and dining hall area, so [the son recalled] I went with them to find him. They could scarcely believe their eyes when they got to the kitchen. There was my dad on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor with some of the…workers!”

When told that the prominent preachers wanted to know what his preferences were on the preaching schedule, Goss demurred. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he told them, “But I found out that they’re short of help here in the kitchen so I thought I’d lend a hand.”

Here was a man, the direction of whose life was altogether different from what we see in the lives of most people in the world…maybe even in the Church. Most people allow the directions of their lives to be dictated by the sinful orientations with which each of us is born. As we cave in to these sinful orientations or impulses, we wander farther and farther from God, like the lost sheep that wander from the shepherd in Jesus’ famous parable. In these Advent and Christmas seasons, we remember that God has acted as a good shepherd seeking those who have wandered from Him and Who, through His death and resurrection, has done everything necessary to bring us back under the gracious rule of God, where we can experience life forever with God.

But, as I’ve said before, God does not force His eternal kingdom on anyone! Nor can it be earned by acts of religious piety. Nor can it be claimed simply because we were raised in the church, or held high offices—whether as clergy or laypeople—in the church, or because we were nice, polite people, or because we were in worship every single week. The people who enter God’s kingdom are like Howard Goss: They turn from the sin to which they are naturally oriented and they turn in faith to the God Who came into the world on the first Christmas in Jesus Christ!

Of course, when Jesus was born, few in the world took notice of it. He lived in obscurity until God the Father signaled that it was the right time for Him to begin a ministry that would culminate in His crucifixion and resurrection. Matthew 3:1-12. our Gospel lesson for today, the Second Sunday of Advent, finds John the Baptizer preparing the people of Judea and the world for the disclosure of the long-awaited Messiah. Today, John’s words can prepare us for the return of that Messiah, the crucified and risen Jesus, Who, at a time known only by God the Father, will come back to this world to fully establish His eternal kingdom. John was telling His original hearers and you and me to get ready to meet Jesus.

But how do we get ready? John says—in words similar to those Jesus Himself would later deliver in His own sermons: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” Turn from your sinful orientations and turn to God so that God transforms you from an enemy of God to a friend of God, John is saying.

It’s interesting, too, that the word, “Repent” in the original Greek of Matthew’s Gospel is in the present tense, meaning that repentance isn’t a one-and-done phenomenon. Repentance, constant reorientation to the rule and will of God, is to be part of the daily life style of a Jesus-Follower. This is no doubt why Martin Luther, who taught clearly that we cannot earn our salvation by obeying God’s commandments, nonetheless began The Small Catechism with a discussion of the Ten Commandments. Every grateful follower of Jesus will want to turn each day to God, asking God to show them where they have disobeyed God, so that they don’t, slowly and ignorantly, wander away from the gifts of God’s grace and salvation.

To repent then, is much more than to be sorry for one’s sins. In fact, it’s possible to feel sorry for a sin and not be repentant. Years ago, I met a woman in a nursing home. She was then in her eighties. But she had done something wrong when she was seventeen for which she still felt life-crushing shame. She refused to receive Holy Communion when it was offered to her because she was sure that God could not and would not forgive her. She acknowledged her guilt, but she would not reorient her life to the loving Lordship of Jesus over her life. She would not accept God's offer of forgiveness. It was incredibly sad! Repentance entails both the recognition of one's need of God's forgiveness AND the willingness to receive that forgiveness. For some reason, that woman saw her need of forgiveness, but couldn't accept it. She was like a person dying of thirst on the rim of an unseen oasis.

I sometimes try to explain what it is to repent in this way. In space, when a satellite wanders or gets knocked from its orbital path, the satellite must be re-oriented in order to avoid trouble, things like collisions with other objects or falling into the gravitational pull of the earth, resulting in a crash. But with a simple radio signal from ground control, the satellite can be re-oriented, put back into its orbit around the earth.

Each time we turn to God, asking God to show us our sins, to help us to turn from those sins, and to live differently, we’re responding to a signal from God’s Holy Spirit and, in repenting, God corrects the course of our lives, keeping us in orbit around Jesus Christ, “the way, and the truth, and the life,” the only pathway to God.  

Repentance then, is no small matter. Not to chase anyone away from the centrally important discipline of regular worship attendance, Mark Allan Powell, a professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, points out that repentance is even more important than worship. In a book on the subject of worship, he writes:

…if worship is an appropriate response, it is not the ideal one. [Through Matthew’s gospel, we see that] the ideal response to [all that God has done for us] is repentance…[In fact,] Jesus never upbraids people for failing to worship or give thanks in this gospel…but he does upbraid those who have witnessed his mighty works and not repented…We know from Jesus' teaching in Matthew that people can worship God with their lips even when their deeds demonstrate that their hearts are far from God…

That’s exactly what John the Baptizer seems to accuse the religious leaders, members of the Judean sects of Pharisees and Sadducees, of doing in our lesson as they join the crowds flocking to the Jordan River to undergo John’s baptism of repentance.

“You brood of vipers!” he says to them. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that is worthy of repentance.” When we orient our lives to the Lordship of Jesus and the will of God, rather than our own sinful desires, our lives will bear fruit. There will be something different about us. We’ll swim against the cultural tide. Our values won’t be the same as the surrounding world. We’ll be in Jesus’ orbit.

Sometimes, the world will count us as weird as John the Baptizer must have seemed to the people of his day, foraging for locusts and wild honey, living in the wilderness that ancient Israel once escaped by crossing the very river in which he baptized.

How weird are you willing to be for Jesus? In his wonderful book, Learn to Dance the Soul Salsa: 17 Surprising Steps for Godly Living in the 21st Century, theologian and historian Leonard Sweet writes that driving our cars has, for many, become war by other means. So, why not engage in spiritual warfare when you drive?

“Other people talk on their cell phones…” Sweet says, “I talk to God. I know people think I’m crazy: sometimes I’m crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes talking out loud, sometimes lavishing impassioned outbursts into empty space.”

“In spite of the double takes” we may get from others, Sweet urges, “make drive time devotion time.”

In the end, how high a price is it to be considered strange or undesirable by a world ticketed for destruction, while remaining in the hands of Lord Jesus Who has conquered sin and death for those who trust in Him?

A song many of us were taught as kids tells us, “If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it.” On the banks of the Jordan, John the Baptizer taught a similar lesson, “If you’re repentant and you know it, then your life will show it. You will bear the fruits of repentance.”

This doesn’t mean that you’ll be some holier-than-thou snob! It means that your humility before God, your surrender to Christ, and your submission to the Word of God and the will of God will show up in how you live.

It might find you on your hands and knees scrubbing the floor of someone else’s kitchen.

It might find you telling fellow sinners where forgiveness and life can be found.

And it most certainly will find you, each and every day, turning to the God we know in Christ, praying with the psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart…See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

It’s those who daily and authentically ask God to orient their lives to Him who are truly prepared for the kingdom of heaven, truly ready to meet Jesus! May we be prepared. May we live in daily repentance!

Matching the Walk with the Talk

From today's devotion by Julie Ackerman Link in Our Daily Bread: 

I’d rather see a Christian
Than to hear one merely talk;
I’d rather see his actions
And behold his daily walk. —Herrell

God, forgive me for all the ways in which I have failed to live a life consistent with the faith I profess. Help me to walk like a Christian and not just talk like one. In Jesus' Name. AMEN

You'll want to read the entire devotion and the passage on which it's based, Titus 3:1-8.

UPDATE: From Stanley Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew, chapter 3:

It is not what the Pharisees and Sadducees say that John [the Baptizer] and Jesus condemn; but rather it is the inconsistency between their lives and what they commend. (emphasis mine)

Jesus Brings Comfort AND the Demand for Allegiance to Him

In studying the text for this coming Sunday's sermon, Matthew 3:1-12, just read this from New Testament scholar, N.T. "Tom" Wright:

Jesus'...mission was quite different from what people sometimes imagine; the comfort and healing of his kingdom-message was balanced by the stern and solemn warning that when God comes back he demands absolute allegiance.

Many people, including many pastors and theologians, seem to want the Jesus of comfort and healing, but not the Jesus Who demands are absolute allegiance. Truth is, like the rest of the human race, I'd rather that Jesus didn't demand my allegiance. I would rather that He not demand my utter acquiescence to His Lordship and His will.

It reminds me of a joke I heard Mel Brooks tell once on The Tonight Show. According to Brooks, God originally gave fifteen, not ten, commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. When the Israelites saw that, they immediately claimed that was too many commandments. So, Moses went back to the top of the mountain to renegotiate with God. When Moses came back, the Israelites asked, "Well?" "I've got some good news and some bad news for you," Moses told them. "The good news is, I got God down to ten commandments. The bad news is that the no-adultery one is still in there."*

Jesus has come, as the New Testament reminds us, to free us from the condemnation of God's Law, as embodied in the Ten Commandments. None of us is capable of keeping God's commands and, if it weren't for Jesus, we would all stand condemned and bound for hell. "The wages of sin is death," is how the apostle Paul puts it in the New Testament book of Romans. But Jesus, God in the flesh, took the punishment for our sins. He calls us to repent and believe in Him and so be spared the punishment we deserve.

Yet Jesus also insists God's commandments are not to be ignored:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-19)

The good news is that Jesus, the perfectly obedient representative of the human race, destroyed the power of God's law to condemn all who trust in Him. The bad news--or at least, what we may see as bad news if we choose to hold onto some sins that God commands us to turn away from--is that, in response to this enormous gift, we're not just to give our total allegiance to Jesus. We also are, out of our gratitude, to seek to live obedient lives. (God gives the Holy Spirit to help us in this quest. But that's another story.)

The problem for those of us who want some of Jesus, but not all of Jesus, is that Jesus can't be divided. I can't let His comfort, healing or grace into my life without letting that other part of Him--the God in the flesh Who commands me to follow Him alone and obey the commands of God--into my life as well.

The forgiveness, life, and blessings that come as free gifts--examples of what the New Testament, in its original Greek, calls charitas, grace--are absolutely free. We can do nothing to earn them.

But if we want to take them from Christ's hand, it will entail laying aside every other allegiance we have, whether to ourselves, our families, our jobs, our possessions, our countries, or anything else.

Each of these things will have their places in our personal priorities, their importance often changing depending on circumstances. But Jesus says that, if we're to have His comfort and life, none of them may take first place.

Consider this speech where Jesus' insistence on "absolute allegiance" to Him is given in "stern and solemn" tones:

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. (Luke 14:25-33)

Jesus is not here commending the emotion of hatred. In Semitic languages like Aramaic, which Jesus spoke in everyday conversation, hate was a comparative word, a priority word. He is saying, "Unless you love Me more than you love your mother and father, husband or wife, etc., you can't be part of My kingdom." Those words are "stern and solemn" enough. But He is not commanding us to hate our relatives! (Or anybody else, for that matter.)

Some will wonder whether Jesus isn't exhibiting some kind of megalomania here, demanding allegiance to Him. Jesus once said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). If Jesus is the only means through which the power of sin and death over our lives can be destroyed, it's hardly an act of arrogance on Jesus' part to insist on our allegiance to Him alone. If the only way for a drowning man to get to shore is to hold onto the lifeguard, you would hardly call the lifeguard arrogant for saying so to the thrashing victim.

Our problem, of course, is that we're control freaks. We want the Jesus Who will love us as we are, but we're not as keen to have the Jesus Who sets out to make changes in the lives of those He saves. But Jesus leaves us no choice in the matter: We will either have all of Jesus or we will have none of Jesus.

May God give me the grace, faith, and courage to choose all of Jesus every day. And if life with God is what you want, may God give you these things, too!

*You can read the real story of God giving the Ten Commandments and other commands to Moses in Exodus, chapters 19 to 24. Brooks later incorporated something of this joke into his movie, The History of the World, Part 3. Only there, his Moses held three tablets, one fell from his arms, and Moses announced that God had given "these fifteen...[one tablet falls] Oy! Ten commandments for all to obey!"

How to Help a Grieving Friend

Part 1
Part 2