Category: Messages (Page 1 of 2)

The Banquet Story

Have you ever attended a large banquet? One where there were so many utensils that you didn’t know which one to use first? Perhaps it was a banquet requiring black ties and tuxedos for the men and gowns for the women. If you haven’t, consider yourself fortunate.

But everyone loves a feast. In the US the most popular holiday of the year is Thanksgiving, a veritable banquet in many homes. We read that it was an event initiated by the Pilgrims to thank God and the Indians that they were still alive. Tradition has it the feast included, among other items, wild turkey, pumpkin and corn. Drawings and sketches usually have the Pilgrim’s seated outside their houses, resplendent in their broad rim hats, waistcoats, breeches and stockings, with Indians in feathers and war paint at the table as well. The women were of course cooking and doing most of the work.

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Hebrews 11:¹: Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ² This is what the ancients were commended for.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Abel (faith offering), Enoch (pleasing faith), Noah (salvation faith), Abraham (following faith), Sarah (child-bearing faith), Isaac and Jacob (faith blessings), Joseph (faith burial), Moses (faith exodus), but all “still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. ¹⁴ People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.”

There were others mentioned: the Israelites who “passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.” Joshua, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, ³³ who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. ³⁵ Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. ³⁶ Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. ³⁷ They were put to death by stoning;^[e] they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— ³⁸ the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.”

 ³⁹ These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, ⁴⁰ since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

The story doesn’t end there: The language of faith by people with faith and their stories; People with actions; People in places; People with names. Here are some names from the book 131 Christians Everyone Should Know by the editors of Christian History magazine (2000).

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I once meant a woman on a flight in Australia who told me this story. She had a companion who was traveling with another woman. It was back in the days when full meals were served on domestic flights and real silverware was provided to eat the meals. At the conclusion of the meal one of the women said to the other: “Do you suppose they would mind if I took this silverware?” The second woman commented that she was sure that the airline would indeed care. But the other woman took the silverware, wrapped it in a napkin and carefully put it into her purse. In a little while the plane entered a thunderstorm area and there was considerable bumping and moving about, the plane going up and down – many of you know the feeling. A few minutes into the storm the woman with the silverware reached into her purse, put the silverware on the tray table and remarked, “Now I am right with God.” However, after a little while the plane left the storm area and broke into the clear with smooth flying once again. And at this point the woman quietly put the silverware back into her purse again.

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Introduction

Last week I had my 69^th birthday and, as usual, I had some interesting dreams the night before. In fact, I have always been a dreamer: my wife can attest to the variety and hilarity of them and always tries to find their deeper meaning, just as Freud could undoubtedly analyze my parental conflicts and sexual repressions. I have passed on this gift of dreaming to my daughter and other family members. The night before my birthday I dreamed I was back in PNG (I am often there) and that I was at a particular meeting house and that a orientation video was being shown. Only instead of sitting down watching it, we were outside of a rectangular room looking through louvered glass windows. But I had to leave the meeting and return to our house, and in doing so I had no shoes on and was walking through thick mud (mud and bad roads often come into my dreams) and a deep clear river near our house made it impossible for me to continue. So I retraced my steps and found myself inside the house, helping to clean it because the previous occupants had left it a mess. And so it goes: dreams of this sort are disconnected, bear some resemblance to what has happened in life, but are largely surreal and impossible.

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