our visit with Jonathan, our son who lives in Alaska, he reported that his son Silas has been cast as Moses in their school play about the Old Testament patriarch. Silas is in third grade and the leading role of Moses requires him learning seventeen separate speaking parts, most of which are several lines each, a potentially daunting task by my observation for an eight-year old. Surprisingly, Jonathan reports he has the speaking parts down pat but is still working on getting the powerful movements that Moses did with his staff just right. You know, the ones where he ceremoniously dipped it into the Nile River and the river turned to blood and the ones where Moses forcefully raised it over the Red Sea and the waters parted and then again when the waters crashed down on Pharaoh’s army. There is plenty of staff action in this story.

Now my guess is that Silas is going to be just fine handling the staff. As I recall, he has been waving Luke Skywalker’s light saber effectively since he was three years old. I think he’ll be pretty effective in this role even if he has a thick head of curly blond hair.

This leads me to the question: how effective are we in our role as Christians? Now there is a huge difference. Our role as Christians is a very real life-style not just acting in a play and it is infinitely more important than pretending to be a totally different character than you are.

During Lent, we saw Debbie Connor portray a number of interesting female biblical characters who were vital to the Gospel story. Debbie was so good in these roles. The difference with Debbie is she lives her Christian life-style for everyone to see. It is not acting and it’s an example we all can follow. We are blessed with many at Green Tree who try hard to live like Christ calls us to live. Each week we gather in church to help find direction for our life’s role. How effective we are may make a huge difference in someone’s life.

If we fulfill our role as followers of Christ and Silas fulfills his role as Moses, we can all listen to the applause for a job well done. Some of us will hear the applause of angels. For Silas, no angel yet – just a group of happy third grade parents. Pastor Rod