Proper 15B, August 19, 2018
1 Kings 2:10-12;3:3-14, Psalm 111
Ephesians 5: 15-20, John 6:51-58
St Thomas the Apostle
The Rev’d Joy A. Daley
A couple of days ago my microwave died. I hadn’t realized how much I relied on it – for my oatmeal at breakfast, for those steam fresh veggies that just take a few minutes. But the thing that really got me was when I was watching a movie and went to throw in a bag of popcorn to microwave… How can we be fed if we don’t have the means to prepare a meal? But this morning at least, we don’t have to worry about getting a meal together. The food we really need is prepared for us by Christ… with a little help from the Altar Guild. All we need to do is to come and receive all that is here for us. Jesus in his wisdom gives us himself. He is the feast that provides all we need for our souls, if we will receive him. Or we can retreat to our heads like the Pharisees and skeptically ask, “How can he feed us with his flesh?” We can question the gift away or sometimes ignore the richness of what we are given from God’s table, the nourishment that provides all we need to live in him and for him. It is wise for us to come here and receive what God has to offer. And being wise is different from being smart or logical sometimes. Perhaps, it would have seemed smarter to sleep in to meet the immediate need for rest but wisdom has a much broader view than immediate need or simple logic. We see that in our reading from Kings today. In the world’s terms it might have been smarter for Solomon to pray for riches or power that met immediate appetites and yet he humbly asks for understanding and discernment so he might be a good leader. God was pleased explaining that as long as he walked in God’s ways he would have what he asked for and more. I’m sure many of Solomon’s contemporaries thought he was crazy. Wisdom at times can look like foolishness.
This can be seen played out in the classic movie, “Babette’s Feast”. The movie is set in the 19th century. An ascetic community founded by a protestant minister lives faithfully without luxury serving the poor and trying their best to be faithful to the gospel. The minister’s two daughters have given up getting married so they may follow in the practices set up by their father. Despite their prayer and discipline there are grudges and conflicts within the community that separate one from another. At each week’s prayer meetings the hostilities even break out between them. Babette comes into their lives after having fled the brutal war in Paris. They take her in and she becomes their maid and cook. She helps the sisters and the little community by shopping and cooking. She faithfully serves them for many years. Her only contact with her former life as a master chef in Paris is that a friend buys a lottery ticket for her every year. Low and behold she wins the lottery. The sisters expect that she will take her money (logical and smart) and leave their small simple community but instead Babette asks them if she can prepare a feast for the 100th anniversary of the religious community’s founder. The sisters and community had planned on having a very simple celebration. The thought of a sumptuous meal is horrifying to their ascetic sensibilities but they are very fond of Babette, so they do not want to hurt her feelings. They decide they will eat the meal out of obligation to her but they will not enjoy it. Babette orders all the food she needs from France and as the meat and various delicacies arrive the sisters become more anxious. The night of the celebration arrives. The table is set for 12 and the setting is beautiful, glittering dishes, shining silverware. The people of the little community exchange glances and murmuring goes on as they remind each other not to pay any attention to the food. One of the guests is a general from outside the community who many years before had been a suitor of one of the daughters. He came to the feast intent on impressing everyone but instead is in awe of the cook behind the scenes. He comments on each course. Meanwhile in spite of themselves the simple community begin to enjoy the food and beverages and as they do the walls between them come down, their cold reserve melts. People whisper words of reconciliation to each other, a couple finally come to terms with their past and two men forgive each other over cheating on a business deal. Towards the end of the meal the general stands to make a speech. He tells this little community that is so faithful yet so restrained of the infinite quality of God’s grace, that we may give up our fear, that wrong choices do not lead to swift painful judgment but that everything is brought together in God’s divine mercy. (McNulty pp.147-151)
Babette is in the background working her heart out but she is happy to fulfill her own role of providing the wonderful feast and the meal becomes a free offering as she spends all her lottery money for what becomes a means of grace and reconciliation for the little community whose main goal was to serve God and who thought deprivation was the only way to do that. Their experience at the feast shows them that this is not the case. The film does not tell us to fill ourselves for the sake of our own satisfaction The letter from Ephesians reminds us that excess in and for itself is wrong and foolish. We do not fill ourselves as an end in itself. This meal is not for glutinous consumption. In Eucharistic Prayer C we pray deliver us from the presumption of coming to this table for solace only and not for strength for pardon only and not for renewal. We are to live as though we are filled with God and we will be filled with God if we are wise enough to come to the table, if we are awake to the fact of who we receive each time we hold out our open hands. It is then that we are truly able to live in thanksgiving for all that we have received.
Babette happily spent all that she had in order that the community she had grown to love was reconciled, healed, and filled to carry out service to the God they loved. She spent all that she had to prepare the luxurious meal with selfless love and sacrifice. Foolish but deeply wise. The people she prepared it for were reluctant to receive it at first but then wisdom took over and they were overwhelmed with gratitude. After the feast we can only imagine how they lived out their gratitude. How will we live ours?
