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Curated Sermon Illustrations on Ambassadors
Explore powerful illustrations on ambassadors. Discover stories, analogies, humor and more as you illustrate the timeless truths from scripture.
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In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson wanted to make a point. The new British Ambassador had just come to Washington - the representative of the aristocratic government the new Republic had defeated in the War of Independence, and the Empire Jefferson still loathed. A few days after Ambassador Merry arrived, Jefferson hosted a reception dinner for him.
When it was time for dinner, everyone walked into the dining room - and all the guests were surprised to see a single, very large round table in the dining room. Jefferson took a seat and gave Dolly Madison the seat of honor on his right. Mrs. Merry was given a back-of-the-pack seat a good distance from the President. But Ambassador Merry wasn’t escorted to his seat at all. He was left with a crowd of people Jefferson had gathered for the dinner - some important Washington personages, but some ordinary citizens who were invited - and that crowd of people headed for the table in what came to be called a “Pell-Mell”- no hierarchy of seating where the important people got seats of honors - everyone headed to the table, jostling one another, and grabbed a seat wherever they could.
The Ambassador knew an outrageous insult was in the making, and he had a choice - make a scene or try to grab the best seat he could. So he headed for the seat two down from Jefferson, but was cut off by some crude savage who bore the title “congressman” and ended up taking just any old seat, certainly not one befitting his prestigious office as an Ambassador of the British Empire.
Jefferson wanted to make a point - because he understood it wasn’t enough to write a Constitution that guaranteed freedom from the stifling power of an aristocracy - you had to show you paid no honor, gave no deference, to someone just because he had a title and represented a hereditary line of kings. It is said that Jefferson only used round tables in the White House because they removed the aristocratic custom of ranking the importance of guests by how closely to the head of the table they sat.
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