Thirteen for supper

A radio play for two voices.

Scene One

Music: Introduction

Omnes:  Fade up: background murmur of bar conversation with clink of glasses, furniture-shuffling, etc

FX: laughter, cash register ‘ker-chings’, rustling pages of a book

Simeon: Yes, Jethro, that’s what I wrote in the bookings register. Just how you instructed - you’re the boss! Look, Upper Room, Thursday evening, five ‘til nine, thirteen covers.

Jethro: Oh, good. So they came to confirm it, then?

Simeon: Yes. It was odd, you know. I couldn’t help noticing it was a sort of pencilled-in booking?

Jethro: Yes, right, well, I know we don’t usually do that, Simeon, I know, I know. But they’ve paid their deposit now.

Simeon: Yes, sir, one of the party came in at lunchtime and paid the deposit.

Jethro: Big bloke, beard, northerner, a bit scruffy- looking?

Simeon:  Oh, no, Jethro, this was a neat-looking gentleman. Quite well turned out, I thought. Had a very expensive-looking moneybag, and some rather lovely silver coins in it, too…

Jethro: Doesn’t sound like the chaps I met yesterday.

Simeon: It was a bit of a strange story…  he said it was his colleagues who had met you yesterday – well, he described it under unusual circumstances. But as he was the treasurer for the group, he’d come to settle up with us. Oh, such a quality piece of buckskin, this moneybag, though, with his initials embroidered onto it, near the drawstring.

Jethro: Initials?

Simeon:  The letters J and I, interwoven. A lovely monogram. Very classy. Can’t have been a cheap moneybag. It had the motto Mine, All Mine embroidered on it, too.

Jethro: But he paid in full?

Simeon: Yes. Well, the full deposit, because they don’t yet know what they will owe by the end of the evening, obviously.

Jethro: Fair enough.

Simeon: Oh, and he paid in cash for the lunch snack he had while we were doing the transaction.

Jethro: Didn’t try to stick it on the tab?

Simeon: Well, he tried, but I wasn’t born yesterday!

Jethro: Good fellow! What did he have?

Simeon: Tankard of our finest mead, and the Herring & Vine Leaves bagel.

Jethro: You did offer…?

Simeon: (reciting the menu) Lamb Scratchings, Fowl ‘n’ Focaccia Wraps, Cheesy Corn Chips, Mixed Nuts, Hot Toasted Teacakes, Fig Flan, Dried Fruit Selection, Knish or Bagels with a selection of fillings…

Jethro: Fine, fine.

Simeon: But Jethro, I still don’t get why it was only pencilled in. A provisional booking? You’re always telling us a booking doesn’t exist until it’s secured with a deposit and booked on the schedule. There’s no such thing as a booked maybe… (they speak across each other)

Jethro: …yes…

Simeon: …only firm bookings…

Jethro: …yes…

Simeon: …you always say…

Jethro: …yes, yes, I certainly do, but then this was a special exception that proves my rule. I can bend the guidelines – my own rules, created by me, you see? I can bend my own rules on occasion.

Simeon: Okay. Just out of interest, what was so special?

Jethro: It was… different.

Simeon: How?

Jethro: Well, just different.

Simeon: Go on…

Jethro: Anyway, did anything else of note happen while you were on duty?

Simeon: (taken aback byJethro’s reluctance to explain) Well, er, no, not really. The place was busy, and everyone who booked tables booked them firmly and paid their deposit. How was it different? (pause, butJethro does not rise to the bait. Suddenly remembers) Oh, Mr Potter came in, wanting me to put up an advert for him. He’s selling a few bits of farming equipment, one of his fields, some cattle and geese, that sort of thing. I pinned it up with the other adverts.

Jethro: Good. Okay, well, when are you next on duty?  

Simeon: Saturday lunch.

Jethro: Okay, See you then.

Simeon: (knows when a conversation is over) Right you are.

FX:  (door closes)

Music: Linking

Scene Two

Omnes:  Fade up: murmur of bar conversation with furniture-shuffling and clink of glasses (as before)

FX: laughter, cash register ‘ker-chings’, rustling pages of a book (as before)

Simeon: (fades in) … So that’s a booking for fifteen the week before Passover, in the name of Caiaphas, and another the next day… name of Zacchaeus, paid in advance.

Jethro: Marvellous!

Simeon: And we also had two additional bookings for this Sunday night and for next Sunday night as well.

Jethro: Good.

Simeon: You know, proper bookings. Firm ones. With a paid deposit and everything.

Jethro: (Oblivious. Or seemingly so) Fine. Big numbers?

Simeon: Not bad. One of them did get a bit strange at first. The chap booked initially for thirteen, and we did all the calculations to work out the amount of the deposit, and then he said ‘Oh, but thinking about it, I wonder if there might be only ten of us by Sunday.’ Most odd. He said there had been thirteen of them for three years or so, but that by Sunday there’d only be ten. One had another appointment, one was probably not going to be want to show his face, and the one he called ‘Rabbi’ may very well be deceased. Very peculiar. So he booked for ten.

Jethro: Strange, I agree. A dead Rabbi?

Simeon: No, seems he’s still alive at the moment. The way the chap spoke about the Rabbi was with… well, regret. A great deal of warmth, but definitely tinged with sadness. Perhaps he’s got a fatal disease, and the doctors have given him just a few more days to live… you know the way they do. Probably so that if they survive, their relatives will pay more out of gratitude.

Jethro: Perhaps so. Although I think you are being a bit harsh about a well-meaning body of men.

Simeon: No,Jethro, in my experience all doctors are crooks and charlatans. The only ones you can trust are the faith healers. Like that preacher my brother-in-law saw the other week. My nephew got better even though the preacher never even turned up at the house. Quite remarkable.

Jethro: That, um, sounds a bit, well, unlikely...

Simeon: I know it’s odd, but the kid’s back at school, and that’s after several doctors came and gave him potions and ointments and jollops and none of it did any good.

Jethro: Be that as it may, it’s not important right now. Except if this rabbi has got some hideous disease, probably it’s best that he doesn’t come here and infect everyone. Or die during the dinner – that would be awkward, keeling over while on the premises. Anyway, did you say more than one booking?

Simeon: Yes, I did. He also booked the Upper Room for the following Sunday night. There was some uncertainty about how many covers he’d want a that meal, as well, but we eventually settled on eleven, with the possibility that a twelfth person might join them later on, but only staying for the fish course. It sounds like a strange arrangement.

Jethro: Yes, very peculiar. Just coming for the fish course, you say? How did you charge for that?

Simeon: No problem: he paid in full. I got the impression he was hoping the twelfth man would be there.

Jethro: Well done! Anything else?

Simeon: Oh yes, indeed. I saved the best until last. (very pleased with himself) He also booked the patio and garden, for Pentecost weekend. And listen to this this, boss – one hundred and twenty covers!

Jethro: (can hardly believe it) No!Simeon, that’s fantastic! Really great!

Simeon: It’s even better than you think. It’s a breakfast event! Seven til nine in the morning! We can still book tables for both lunch and dinner!

Jethro: (drums on counter) We are drachmas in!

Simeon: Brilliant, eh?

Jethro: Fabulous. And we’re expecting to get the Sanhedrin Annual Outing, as well as the Tax Collectors’ Man of the Month awards dinner… Things are definitely looking up! (they hi-five each other)

Music: Outro

Credits: That was Table for Thirteen, by Matthew S'gospel, 

featuring Luke Warm as Simeon, and Mark Time as Jethro. 

Music by The Emmaeus Ensemble. Produced by Percy Vere for ActsTwo Broadcasting

Iscariot books the Upper Room  

What clues to Judas’ attitude are given away

by the style and contents of his moneybag?

What was the state of Judas’ heart: when Jesus sent

Peter & John to find the man fetching water; when

he booked the room for Passover; when he ran away?

What motivated Peter, do you think, to book the rooms

and the ground floor for later meetings?

What other Bible incidents are referenced in the story?

Right behind the burly bloke

Dear Martha,

       Hope all is good with you and Mary and all the gang at Bethany. I was very concerned to hear that Lazarus has been poorly (someone told me it was sleeping sickness?) Hope he’s better soon. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about this amazing thing that happened to me and the other girls when we were out with the Galilee posse for a walk.

       We came across a large crowd, who were milling about, trying to get near to the miracleman. I’ve heard that you might know him, and that he’s been around your gaff in recent weeks. Or is it that he’s a friend of Lazarus? Either way, you almost certainly know the man of whom I speak.

       It seems everyone was so enthralled by the teachings of this Jesus that they drifted, as crowds do, to that hillside out of town and listened to him all day.

       When I heard his voice, I realised it was full of authority and certainty, unlike any other Rabbi I’ve ever had to endure. His words were packed with life and hope. Hardly anyone noticed we’d all missed lunch until late into the afternoon. Jesus was so interesting to listen to, that no-one tore themselves away to go to the local all-day convenience store and buy a pastie or even a wineskin of pop.

       But tummies started to rumble (the tummy of the burly bloke a few seats in front of us rumbled so loudly we could hardly hear what Jesus was saying), so dinner was becoming rather more urgent.

       Up jumped some sweet little lad with a handful of cheap breadsticks and a bit of sardine flavouring, and offered it to Jesus for him to share out among the vast crowd. How foolish! I don’t know what he thought Jesus could conjure out of that, but it was a meagre lunch for the lad, let alone a grown man. Hopeless.

       But Jesus accepted the boy’s gift, blessed it with a simple prayer and broke it up for the disciples to hand round! It was quite obvious that this pathetic amount of food would never be enough. It might just have kept body and soul together for the boy until he got home, but it was of the size best described as ‘a mere morsel’. The burly bloke was particularly unimpressed. Anyway, if we hadn’t been so hungry, we would have dismissed the boy as a joke.

       By this time, the crowd was enormous: perhaps ten thousand people, including all us women and children. My friend Julia said she thought there was twenty thousand, but you know how much she exaggerates. I’ve told her a million times about that…

       We were invited to sit in groups (about 100 men in each group, plus all the women and children) and there were perhaps fifty groups, which my adding-up skill tells me there were 5000 men, which makes Julia’s estimate a bit on the strong side. But Jesus knew what he was doing, except he didn’t divide up the men from the women, or follow any of the other food laws – you know, washing and all that.

       Anyway, we were chatting while the disciples were busy with the people at the front.

       We knew we could always go home via Bar-Donald’s for a demi-ephah of fries and a quarter-bushel of Seven-Up. Or go to that Stuffed Crust Hut on the Piazza for a Margaret ‘n’ Peter (they should try to shorten that name, methinks) or a How/Why ‘Un. Or Kidron Fried Chicken for a hot wing or three. Some other people were preferring the idea of Boaz’s Kin Robin’s for some ice cream.

       But one of the disciples (the one called Simon – or is it Peter? They all look the same to me) came over to our group of fifty. We could see the food he had, and somehow there was enough for everyone in the front row, and there were about ten blokes and a similar number of women and children in each row. The food seemed to stretch and Simon managed to give lunch to everyone in the second row as well, even the big burly bloke (he’d pushed forward in all the kerfuffle), who took an extra-large portion. Greedy guzzler! We could see that there would never be enough by the time Peter reached us in the back row. But somehow, we all got a big handful of bread and enough fish to make it a very pleasant snack indeed. More than a snack, actually.

       How much nicer it would have been with a dollop of mayo or wholegrain mustard – fig chutney, perhaps – or just a grinding of black pepper! Perhaps with a few salady bits… But it was a generous meal, all the same.

       We ate the food and enjoyed it. Julia wondered if there was any more going, and amazingly, there were seconds! She stuffed her face (actually, we all had a little more), but despite this there seemed to be lots left over.

       The Greedy Guzzler wandered by, vacuuming up our leftovers, which was unpleasant to watch, as you can imagine.

Simon came to clear up the mess, as we sat on the grass digesting and wondering how this miracle of multiplication could have happened. You know, the disciples were putting large lumps of leftover food into their wicker baskets, and they’d filled a dozen of them without gathering up the crumbs at all. The really tiny crumbs would fall straight through the weave of the baskets, anyway.

       If it had been you, Martha, you’d have prepared a vast buffet for everyone. You’d wave the young lad away, perhaps with a disdainful sneer. There was no chance that his puny dinner would... and yet, somehow, Jesus had fed all these people.

       Jesus is even more amazing than we thought. He seems to have the grace to accept the smallest gift given with a generous heart - and bless it, multiply it and make it incredibly effective.

       My God, he’s wonderful!

       That’s all for now. Be great to see you soon, especially for one of your fancy dinners (we know you can always be relied upon to make a well-prepared slap-up feed!)

       Squeezy hugs from your BFF,

       Naomi

PS Have you noticed that Mary seems to have that annoying faraway look in her eyes even more often these days? Tell her to snap out of it!

5000 people benefit from a major culinary miracle

What inspired the boy with the meagre packed lunch

to give it to Jesus? What did he imagine might happen?

Why didn’t Jesus send the enormous and hungry crowd away

to get their own dinner?

How this miracle echoed in the way Jesus turned the water into wine?

On surviving the purge

Being a disciple was pretty tough in those early days. You had to be made of stern stuff.

       Oh, I don’t mean the early, early days, way back in the days of being with Jesus – the days of all the guys eating corn on the Sabbath or seeing the miracles, listening to his amazing sermons and stories, being involved with massive catches of fish. They were days of interrupting weddings by totally solving the catering disaster. They were days of interrupting a walk through a village by giving eyesight to a man born blind. And they were days of interrupting funerals by cancelling them. They must have been amazing days!

       Okay, it can’t have been easy when it all went horribly mulberry-shaped but you still had the memories of the dozens of men, women and children who had been miraculously healed, the extraordinary confrontations with the religious authorities and the incredible hours of teaching and laughter and fellowship and fun and care and personal friendship and closeness and honesty and encouragement.

      No, there must have been something really special about those days. I wasn’t around then. I didn’t get involved until all the disciples got bladdered at breakfast (or so it was said at that time). You know the one I mean, the morning at Pentecost when Big P stood up and preached his marvellous talk.

       There were a lot of us joined up at that time – three thousand plus, someone guessed.

       I’m sorry. It wasn’t really a case of ‘joining up’. It was a spiritual thing, to be honest. I was convinced in my mind and in my heart that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah sent from God and that he had died on the cross in my place, and had been raised from the dead by the power of God.

       I could be sure everything the Messiah said was true, and I knew God was pleased with him.

       So, I became a disciple. Yes, part of the early church.

       As I said, it was tough being a disciple in those days. No Jesus to be impressed with or encouraged by, since he’d already ascended into heaven. But on the other hand, he’d sent the promised Holy Spirit, who provided power and courage to be a follower of The Way (no-one called us ‘Christians’ for a while), which was great since we really needed him. Really needed him.

       You see, the first thing that happened to us when we became disciples was that our families despised us, disowned us or declared we were dead, which was no fun. Then our synagogues chucked us out (or refused to have anything to do with us – this became known as being sent to Kadesh-Barnea). Finally, the PA (the Pharisee Authorities) set Saul the Destroyer on us. You were in serious trouble if that bloke got his claws on you, I can tell you! I lost a lot of friends in the first weeks of the Purge.

       Zach, Lizzie, Hal, Maria, Gloria & Uma, Ezzie, Manny and Liz and their three little children – all were put to the sword. It was terrible.

       At about the same time, there were two dozen chaps thrown into the prison in Damascus, and they were chained up, awaiting implementation of their sentences.

       My husband Mel been found guilty of ‘blasphemous preaching, preaching without an official permit and behaving in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace.’ I was so proud of him for his boldness for the sake of the Lord Jesus! But the big cheese was on his way to oversee the executions.

       I was genuinely frightened, and the prisoners were on the edge of losing their nerve. They weren’t about to deny the Lord, but they were in fear for their own lives and for the well-being of their wives and children.

       S the D was a nasty piece of work. He was a law-loving Pharisee, committed to what he called The Letter, and filled with a passionate hatred for anyone who made any messianic claims. He didn’t seem to realise that perhaps someone, one day, would be telling the truth. No, to him, everyone was a heretic and deserved punishment, along with everyone else who had been drawn in. Nasty, as I say.

       I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose, but I have to admit that I was flabbergasted when God miraculously intervened!

       Apparently, S the D fell off his horse somewhere along the journey, and heard a voice from heaven. He was blinded by the light; God told him not to persecute Jesus anymore and his companions had to lead him away. He turned up in Straight Street, where Brother Ananias prayed for him to be healed (boom!), and started him on a New Believers’ Course. There was serious rejoicing at the time. Well, at first. The news that the Destroyer was giving up his campaign was brilliant! It was no longer dangerous to admit you were a follower, and we could get on with spreading the word. 

       Unfortunately, this short spell of celebration was followed by a longer period of panic when the rumour went round that S the D was claiming to be a WayFollower himself, now.

       This was too much to believe all at once, and folks assumed he must have hoodwinked some people (perhaps Brother Ananias was among them), putting it all on and lulling them into a false sense of security. His real intention, they reckoned, was to infiltrate the church, uncover followers of Jesus and then throw off his disguise and reveal himself in his full horribleness.

       A sort of double-agent.

       Awesome Powers, International Man of Mystery, kind of thing. Double-oh Saul, licensed to kill.

       But as it turned out, thank the Lord, Saul the Destroyer had become Paul the Preaching Pastor. All our menfolk released from prison, the charges were dropped and the Damascus Followers Fellowship was soon established. I never actually met PPP, because he was always on the move, and I was on holiday when he visited DFF later the same year.

       I’d wanted to talk to him. I think it would have been a positive meeting, despite my sad memories of all those dead friends. I suppose we’ve all come to terms with the reality that he’s being an important influence over every follower of Jesus.

       I wonder how influential he’ll become as time goes by? Perhaps he’ll fade and we’ll all stand on our own two feet.

       Or maybe we can go on leaning on him and what he teaches for a few more years yet. He always said he was a man committed to The Letter, but now he’s a man who’s committed to sending a Letter or two to the churches he’s helped to establish.

       God has a marvellous way of working things out, doesn’t he?

Salvation, Pentecost and 2999 others in the crowd

Do you think it was easier to be a disciple of Jesus

in New Testament times, or now? Please define ‘easier’.

Why didn’t the early church go ‘underground’

to avoid the Purge? If you were accused of being a Christian,

would the charge stick? Is there any evidence?

How did Saul the Destroyer become Paul the Preaching Pastor?

Has anything similar happened to you?