(Ex. 3:1-15; 4:1-15)
Now Mike was minding his own business, walking down a nameless street in Nagoya, and he came to Irinaka, his chosen subway station. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flickers of light from within a streetlamp. Mike saw that though the streetlamp had electricity it did not fully light. So Mike thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight -- why the streetlamp does not fully light."
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the streetlamp, "Mike! Mike!"
And Mike said, "Yo."
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your shoes, for the sidewalk where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Mike stared in disbelief, and came to believe in modern-day revelation.
The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Japan. I have heard them crying out because of tremendous overcrowding, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hands of their landlords and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey -- I'm not sure where yet, but that's none of your concern. And now the cry of the Japanese has reached me, and I have seen the terrible overcrowding. So now, go. I am sending you to the Ministry of Housing to free my people the Japanese from their condition."
But Mike said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to the Ministry of Housing and free the Japanese from their condition?"
And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have freed the Japanese from their overcrowding, you will worship God at this streetlamp."
Mike said to God, "Why don't I just stay here and do that instead? Suppose I go to the Ministry of Housing and say to them, 'The God of our fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
God said to Mike, "I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Ministry of Housing: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
God also said to Mike, "Say to the Ministry of Housing, 'The LORD, the God of our fathers -- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob -- has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation."
Mike answered, "That can't even be translated into Japanese! Besides, what if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'You're in the wrong dispensation; the LORD could not have appeared to you'?"
Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"
"Fifty yen," he replied. "I was going to play a video game."
The LORD said, "Throw it on the ground."
Mike threw it on the ground and it became a one-yen coin, and he ran from it. Then the LORD said to him, "Reach out and take it by the tails." So Mike reached out and took hold of the coin and it turned back into a fifty-yen coin in his hand. "This," said the LORD, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of your fathers -- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and ..."
"The God of Jacob!" Mike said.
"... has appeared to you," the LORD finished. The the LORD said, "Put your hand inside your jacket." So Mike put his hand into his jacket, and when he took it out, it was golden, as if touched by Midas.
"Now put it back into your jacket," he said. So Mike put his hand back into his jacket, and when he took it out, its value had depreciated considerably, for it had become like the rest of his flesh.
The the LORD said, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they may accept a bribe. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from their coffee maker and pour it on the dry carpet. The water you take from the coffee maker will become blood on the carpet.
Mike said to the LORD, "O LORD, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue, and besides, I'm only in Intermediate Japanese this semester."
The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
But Mike said, "I thought that stuff was genetic. At any rate, O LORD, please send someone else to do it."
Then the LORD's anger burned against Mike, and Mike decided to run quickly to the Ministry of Housing. They tolerated him until he dumped blood on their carpet, and then Mike was deported.