Rev Jethro and the Home Boys*

So… long ‘bout thirty hundred years ago, Moses, with a colossal amount of help, led the Israelites out of Egypt. After the big pool party they hosted for their dear buddy, Ole Pharaoh, they decided to bivouac out in the desert for a while.

Big Mo’s wife and kids had been visiting her daddy for a while, Reverend Jethro. They’d been there for as long as he could stand ‘em, so he comes traipsin’ cross the desert and catches up to Big Mo. “I believe these is yore’s,”  he sez, turning Zippy and the young’uns back over to his favorite son-in-law.

He and Mose do some catching up and Big Mo fills him in on all the cool stuff Jehovah has been doing on behalf of his Chosen. You know, had them Gypshuns swattin’ flies and dodgin’ frogs back in Brick Town, and of course, the grand finale at the big pool party. Jethro was mighty impressed and right well he should have been. Jehovah had done some mighty impressive stuff back in Egypt and all along the way since then.

But it wasn’t all hallelujahs and praise the Lord’s out there in the Desert of Sin and the Den of Iniquity. They’d had to kick some serious Amalekite butt at Rephilim.

Poor, dumb Amelekites… they saw Big Mo standing on top of the hill with his hands lifted up and they thought he was surrendering! Then, when they saw Aaron and Hur holding Moses’ hands up in the air, they thought there’d been a coup and they wuz taking Big Mo into custody. Man oh man, wuz they wrong about dat!! Got themselves slaughtered is what happened.

So, the next day after his favorite father-in-law showed up, Mose just sat around the whole livelong day, listening to folk’s complaints and quarrels and settling them for ‘em. From dawn to dusk, nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble. Moanin’ and groanin’ about everything from goats eating somebody’s robe to donkeys peeing on the neighbor’s chrysanthemums. And Big Mo having to straighten it all out.

Now, Jethro, being a preacher, couldn’t just sit there, see all them carryin’s on and not say something. No siree, couldn’t keep his mouth shut fer nuthin’!

So, later that night, while they’re sitting in the tent puffing on a hookah and reminiscing about that bush that was on fire but wouldn’t burn up and such, Rev. Jethro tried to speak some wisdom into Big Mo’s thick head.

“Lookit!” he sez, (most folks didn’t know Jethro spent some time in Connecticut), “What in the name of tarnation are you doing?! Sitting there all day, listening to nothin’ but quarrels and arguments?! Boy, you got yourself busier than a one-armed man with his pants on fire!

“You keep this up and you gonna be more frazzled than a bush-whacked whipsee-doodle!”

So, Big Mo sez, “Well… what you reckon I ought to do? “ (Ole Mose weren’t from Connecticut. Or New Jersey, neither.)

“Glad you asked,” sez the Rev. “You needs to delegate.”

“Do what to the gate?” answers Mose.

“Get yoself some help!”  comes the answer. “Quit wearing yoself thinner than a cheap pillowcase on a mountain goat’s noggin and git you some good help!”

And then the Rev says, “Find you some good homies from out there amongst the folks. You know, the kind of dudes you’d trust with yore huntin’ hound, yore best geetar… or your daughter. Dudes that would rather crawl through broken glass than lie to somebody or about somebody. Ones that hate cheaters worse than skeeters! Ones that would rather die broke than pull a toke from under the table. You know what I mean, right?”

Mose, sez, “Yeah, I know some guys like that. Guys that can’t be brought, sold, hooked or crooked. Those the kind of fellas you tawkin’ ‘bout?”

“Yessir, that’s exactly what I’m talking about! You take those guys, dudes that know right off when somebody’s lying to them and trying to run some kind of a game.

“And you put them in charge of all them little arguments and stuff. They can handle that stuff ez well as you can. Spread ‘em out amongst the people and let everyone know that these dudes is gonna hear all them everyday sort of cases. You know, the goat-chewin’ and the donkey peein’ and stuff like that.

“You save yoself for them Sunday Specials, those important cases. That way, ain’t none of you fellers overwhelmed and worn out… ‘Cause listen, Mose, when you gets good peoples in charge of makin’ decisions, you gets good decisions…

“And that right there is what God’s peoples needs.”

* See Exodus 18 for an alternate version.