So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes. – Deuteronomy 9:17

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 8, 2012): Deuteronomy 9

I admit that it sometimes bothers me when people ask me for my advice and then ignore what it is that I tell them. It feels like all they want is my absolution to do what they want to do rather than my advice. But I also, on some levels, understand. You have to make the decisions as you live your life. And you are the one that will have pay the penalties (and reap the benefits) for those decisions. It is just that I really want my friends to succeed - and I hurt when they hurt.

A number of years ago I had an uncomfortable conversation with a friend in which he admitted that he was in the midst of doing something that he knew was wrong. And yet, despite the fact that he knew it was wrong, he continued down that path. Many years have passed since that conversation and we are still friends, but now I get to stand with him and cry with him as he pays the price for the decision that he made years ago - a decision made even though he knew it was wrong.

Moses breaking the Ten Commandments is a poignant moment in history.  But I think that when we dramatize this moment in it is too easy to see it as a moment of uncontrollable anger for Moses. As he steps off of the mountain and his intense time with God and sees the nation that he has been interceding for in the midst of their sin, anger (and frustration) seems to be the natural response. And yet, I am not sure that the breaking of the tablets was done in anger. As Moses looks back at that moment in time, he stresses that he broke the tablets in front of the eyes of Israel. For Moses, I think it was an illustration of what Israel had done. They had broken the first two laws on the tablet that he carried – they had replaced God with another god and built an idol. They had broken the law so Moses physically broke the tablets giving the people an illustration of the sin that they had committed. He needed them to see the sin that they had committed.

And maybe that is what we need. When we sin, we often have in mind a picture of the temptation in our minds, but rarely a picture of the sin. Maybe if we could envision the sin better, we would have a better chance of resisting the temptation.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 10