Guests In The World

Rabbi Tanhuma (A.D. 380) told this story:

“Once a boat load of gentiles was sailing the Mediterranean.  There was one Jewish child in the boat.  A great storm came upon them in the sea.  Each person took his idol in his hand and cried out.  But it did not help them.  Once they saw that their cries were of no avail, they turned to the Jewish child and said, ‘Child, rise up and call out to your God.  For we have heard that he answers you when you cry out to him, and that he is heroic.’  The child immediately rose up and cried out with all his heart.  The Holy One, blessed be He, accepted his prayer and quieted the seas.  When the ship reached dry land [at the port], everyone disembarked to purchase his needed staples.  They said to the child, ‘Don’t you wish to buy anything?’  He said to them, ‘What do you want of me?  I am just a poor traveler.’  They said to him, ‘You are just a poor traveler?  They are the poor travelers.  Some of them are here, and their idols are in Babylonia.  Some of them are here, and their idols are in Rome.  Some of them are here and their idols are with them, but they do them no good.  But wherever you go, you God is with you.’”

Eckhard Schnabel* comments,

“… people who know that their god is far away feel free [to live as they please (ap)] and at home everywhere because their god cannot see them; people who know that Yahweh is omnipresent realize that he is, as Creator, the Lord of the world, in which a person can only be a guest.”

Today we are feeling our status as guests here in the world and particularly Togo.  We are spending the day at home while the rest of the country is voting in very controversial presidential elections.  Many are predicting trouble regardless of who is announced as the winner.  Because we know that our God is heroic, because  he is Lord of the world, we are at peace as we wait and pray for the people of Togo.

*The above story and Schnabel’s comments are found in Eckhard J. Schnable, Early Christian Mission, Vol. 1, Jesus and the Twelve (Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 167-169.