The Academy Award winning movie, BABETTE'S FEAST, is based on a book by Isak Dinesen. Dineson wrote the book on which the movie, OUT OF AFRICA, was based.
In BABETTE'S FEAST the author very creatively weaves the story of Phillipa and Martina, two daughters of a well-known Lutheran pastor in a village in the north of Denmark in the late 1870s. Their father's very rigid and strict religious discipline has shaped the entire community~s approach to life and to the expression of their Christian faith. The community shows a decided lack of JOY and CELEBRATION.
The father is very possessive of his daughters and prevents them from marrying. Eventually he dies leaving his daughters to carry on the tradition of rigid discipline which he has established. The daughters do carry on just as their father would have wanted ” with his same cold and austere religious piety. However, the community is growing older and many of its devoted members are dying out. Even worse, the community begins to fight a great deal among themselves. This adds to their lack of joy and celebration.
One stormy night a woman who is a political refugee from Paris shows up on the sisters~ doorstep and reluctantly they take her in. The woman, named Babette, is grateful to the sisters and to the community for giving her shelter, but she is curious at the lack of joy and celebration. Still, they are good folk and they are willing to provide her a place of sanctuary. In exchange for a place to stay and food to eat, Babette agrees to take care of the two aging sisters. Babette lives and shares in the life of this small community for many years.
Then one day a stroke of luck befalls Babette. A friend in France has purchased a lottery ticket in Babette~s name every year since she left her homeland as a refugee. To Babette~s amazement she has won a small fortune. Babette decides to throw a great feast for the sisters and for the community that took her in. There is excitement over this turn of events, but secretly, the sister's are saddened by Babette~s good fortune because they feel that Babette will now leave them. However, Babette goes about throwing her feast ” the likes of which they have never seen before.
But the sisters and their little community of faith have a dilemma. Such a feast is sinful according to the joyless faith they have adopted. Their~s is a faith of fasting not of feasting. They decide they will go to the feast but they will have no fun. They will be first-class "party-poopers."
What they do not know is that Babette was a renown chef in a fine French eatery in Paris before she became a refugee and came to their community. She knows how to throw a party. She prepares for the feast by acquiring the finest foods available. No one in the comunity has ever sat before a banquet like the one Babette prepared. These simple, austere people try really hard not to enjoy this great feast but soon laughter and joy overwhelm them.
They all ” including the sisters ” are so transformed by the feast that they open up their lives to the celebrative power of the Holy Spirit and it is like the Day of Pentecost. The power of joy is bubbling over. They sing a hymn of praise and joy. One of the sisters is heard to say, "The stars have moved closer tonight." In this happy ocassion the sisters learn the truth of something Joseph Marmion once stated: "Joy is the echo of God's life and presence within us. Christianity stripped of joy is not Christianity at all."
However, Babette can sense the sisters are sad because they believe she will soon leave them. In order to ease their concerns, Babette declares:
I cannot leave you now
I have no funds
I spent it all on the Feast. (1)
In our reading from Luke's Gospel today, we see Jesus dining at the house of a Pharisee. The Pharisees are watching Jesus closely ” in all probability to "trap" him. It makes you wonder if they are enjoying their meal at all. Certainly they are missing an opportunity to enjoy the wisdom of the man they had invited. At this dinner, Jesus gives the Pharisees a foretaste of the Kingdom of God.
FOR ONE THING JESUS REVEALS TO THEM THAT THE GUEST LIST IN THE KINGDOM IS SUBSTANTIALLY DIFFERENT FROM THEIR GUEST LIST. At the Kingdom feast there will be room for all the "Babettes" of the world. People who are fleeing injustice. People who have been on the outside looking in ” the poor, the disabled, those who cannot see with physical eyes. The overlooked, the downtrodden, the dispossessed all will have a place in the Kingdom of God. Listen to Jesus' words: "When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you."
Some years ago Senator Bob Dole, who was then Senate Minority Leader, got caught up in a slightly embarrassing political flap. Actually he took Jesus' advice ” though he did not recognize it at the time. It seems his office dispatched a 2 1/2 page letter inviting a man named Bosko Struminikovski of Memphis, Tenn., "to accept membership in the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle."
In the letter Senator Dole explained to Bosko: "The Republican Senatorial Inner Circle is made of individuals who. . . discuss national and regional topics in a comfortable mix of business and social gatherings. Our next Inner Circle briefing will be held in Washington D.C." As much as he might have liked to, Bosko was unable to accept the invitation to join the Doles in Washington. He is a prisoner at a federal penitentiary in Memphis, serving a 23 year sentence for possession of firearms, drug trafficking and bribery. (2)
Sometimes politics do make strange bedfellows ” but this invitation was in error according to Senator Dole. It's one of those things that happen when you are working with thousands of names on a mailing list.
Still, this political faux pas does remind us of how tempting it is for all of us to want to restrict our relationships to those who are members of our own "Inner Circle." We are going to be surprised when we sit at the Lord's table. At that feast we are going to be breaking bread with people we didn't even know existed. We didn't know they existed because they are not of our circle. That is the first thing Jesus is saying to us about the feast we will one day enjoy in the Kingdom of God. The kingdom list is substantially different from one most of us would have selected.
But there is a second thing we need to see. AND THAT IS THE GENEROSITY OF THE ONE WHO THROWS THE FEAST. This party is only for those who cannot repay the invitation.
There is a subtle theme present throughout the New Testament ” -it is of a God who throws parties. A woman finds a lost coin and throws a party ” a lost boy comes home and his father also throws a party. Remember how Jesus compared himself to a bridegroom at a wedding feast. He contrasted himself sharply with the ascetic John the Baptist who came fasting. Jesus was a man filled with life and joy and a spirit of celebration. Many Christians even today have a difficult time with this side of our Lord's life. Many of us have an easier time thinking of him as "a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief" than we do as the joyful man the common people of his own day came to know and to love.
Dr. Fred Craddock tells of growing up during the depression and how often money was in short supply for his family. The family had to move to town to seek work. Every able family member tried to find some work to earn money. The family kept a cigar box on the kitchen table where all the funds that were earned were kept in order that his mother could pay the rent and buy the necessary food items. However, once in a while his Dad on a Friday night would take the money and go to town and buy Fred's mother a box of chocolates or a beautiful rose. She would always "fuss" and tell her husband that they did not have the funds. One day his father said something that Fred Craddock never forgot. He said to Mrs. Craddock, "When our lives are defined by what goes in and out of the box, we will then be poor people. Life would have then robbed us of our joy."
Joy is an essential part of the Christian life. The Pharisees who Jesus was trying to educate were very much like the sisters in BABETTE'S FEAST. They had that same joyless pietism that Judas expressed in John chapter 12:1-8. It was Judas, you'll remember, who was offended when a woman anointed Jesus' feet with expensive perfume. After all, the perfume could be sold to provide for the poor. Caring for the poor is important. But it is also important for the community of faith to celebrate the goodness and the generosity of God. It is important for us to share in the joy of being part of the family of God. After all, God rejoices every time a sinner comes home. God is a generous, gracious God who throws parties.
And this brings us to the last thing we need to see: OUR NAME IS ON THE PARTY LIST. Did you hear what I said? Jesus is throwing a feast and you and I are invited. All we have to do is accept the invitation.
But you say, "Pastor, I don't deserve to go to Christ's party." And I say, "That's the point." Read the story. The only people worth inviting are people who don't deserve it and can't do anything to merit it. As James T. Draper says in his book, LIVE UP TO YOUR FAITH, the only way a person ever comes to salvation is through what God does. There is not a work of righteousness we can do. We are saved by God's works of righteousness ” God's mercy and grace. We are saved by God's works, NOT OURS. We are not saved because of an agreement between God and us ” but because of an agreement between the Father and Christ. God provides Salvation. Our part is simply to RECEIVE IT!! (3)
Everybody is worthy to attend the banquet because the king deems us worthy and clothes us in the righteousness of God. The only thing that could keep us out is our refusal to accept the invitation that has been extended to us.
It's like the story of a small lad whose mother, unknown to him, planned a surprise birthday party. After he got home, he went upstairs to his room. Then all his classmates and teachers gathered in the living room. When his mother went to his room to get him, he was gone. He had climbed down a tree outside his window and was hiding in a nearby park. The rest of the children went on to enjoy a good time, but Johnny never turned up. When he came in for supper his mother asked where he had been; he had missed a wonderful time, planned just for him. He tearfully confessed he had heard her call but hid until suppertime because he thought she had a chore for him to do!
How sad ” for him and for us if we make the same mistake. There is a party being prepared. The guest list is all inclusive. No matter how many parties we have missed in this world, we don~t have to miss out on this party. The One who throws this party is all loving, all gracious, all generous. We are invited even though there is nothing in this world we can do to repay our host. All that is asked is that we accept the invitation.
This message was inspired by a seminar by Dr. Fred Craddock and by the author's first-hand experience of the movie, BABETTE'S FEAST.
1. PARADE Magazine, October 28, 1990 edition.
2. James T. Draper, LIVE UP TO YOUR FAITH, Tyndale House Publishers, 1978, pages 103-104.
3. Eric Ritz is pastor of the First United Methodist Church, Schuykill, PA.