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It’s a grim winter- frost is thick on the ground.

 

The white-bearded old Dean

leads his band of starched puritans in a long virtuous grace

before they silently consume their boiled cod and a gruel.

 

The wild Scandinavian night scrape and howls at the door.

 

The few candle flames leap and flicker and threaten to give up the ghost

as the cracked stone cottage leaks cold air generously into the room.

 

What few worldly pleasures could tempt a peasant , this sect has renounced.

Faithful to a fault   –      All wear black.

 

We used to read our gospel story of the wedding feast at Cana

on the first Sunday of Epiphany… before the wise men muscled in.

 

It was read then-

(in the relative warmth of the Mediterranean New Year)-

because that was also the end of the feast of Dionysius-

(or Bacchus if you were Roman…)

 

The Dionysia or Bacchinalia was a week-long orgy

of drunkenness, murderous revelry,

and dramatic escape from the mundane.

 

It was a public celebration of the most bombastic of deities….

the doyen of disorderly return and supposed superabundance

the one who comes barging in with noisy self-indulgence.

 

 

In their wisdom- the early Church fathers-

decided this would be the perfect day for our celebration of Epiphany too,

and they would use our very own wine making story to mark the occasion.

 

The contrast of the story tells us much

 

And for those of us feeling the pinch this WINTER

And as we face the challenge of exactly to respond to so much need.

 

It is a great encouragement that with God- there is no lack.

And it is a great reminder that we are called to live as if that were true.

 

 

 

 

In his 1977 book ‘Violence and the Sacred’

Rene Girrard suggested that Christ was the anti-type of Bacchus-

The complete opposite.

 

In a world like ours, perhaps a grasping-God like Bacchus makes sense.

In a world like ours- perhaps  the kind of God revealed at Cana needs explaining…

 

A good way of explaining this kind of God

And he calls us to live- is by comparing

Bacchus’ banquet…with Babette’s Feast

 

 

Babette’s feast is a 1956 novel by Isak Dineson, the author of Out of Africa.

 

And the film version opens with that scene at dinner I described earlier

as the Dean’s family grimly plough

through another cold supper in their dimly lit cottage.

 

The story goes that one of the Pastor’s daughters had a wonderful singing voice and that very day she met a French opera singer down in the village.

 

As the expert tenor heard her voice he realised

that she should be gracing the stage of the Grand Opera in Paris

not doing her fathers weekly shopping.

 

 

So he begs to be allowed to teach her to sing properly,

promising great wealth and fame,

 

and the chance to dine regularly at the magnificent Café Anglais.

 

But ALAS it was not to be.

The singe- spurned- had headed back to Paris that very afternoon.

 

 

Years later, late one night the sisters hear a loud knock at the door,

and when they open it a woman collapses inside.

 

Babette could speak no Danish, but as she struggles to stand-

she hands them a letter from the French opera singer,

who left in a hurry all those years ago.

 

It explained that Babette was a refugee from the civil war, and describes how the singer had sorted out a safe passage for her to this village.

 

The last line of the letter read:  ‘Babette peut cuisinar’- ‘Babette can cook.’

 

Unsure about taking on a maid and suspicious of indulgent French cuisine,

the sisters reluctantly take her on

and so for 12 years:

Cleaning, and clearing, Boiled Cod, and gruel.

 

 

Then-           out of the blue- Babette receives a letter

notifying her that she has won 10,000 francs in the lottery.

 

 

 

Convinced she will now return,     the sisters are surprised again

when Babette requests, instead,

that she be allowed to cook a meal for the old Dean’s birthday.

 

Crates, and boxes begin to arrive at the port.

Turtles, champagne, truffles, figs, grapes and goose…

 

Babette- soon revealed as the famous female chef of the Cafe Anglais in Paris-           doesn’t leave the Sisters in their dour misery as she had every right to,

but transforms their lives with one extravagant act

A fortune wasted on a foolish, finite feast.

 

Is this an inappropriate expression of love?   A waste of money?

A lost opportunity to get ahead, and get one step ahead?

Time to hoard- and look after number one?

 

Most certainly….         from a certain Bacchanalian point of view.

 

But not from Gods

 

At Cana- for no good reason at all- God pours out pure gift.

And reveals- through a crack in time and space- his own self.

An infinite and free resource that we can freely participate in.

 

 

 

As we are locked-down in this GRIM winter

We should remember that.

There is far more to this world than can be counted.

Gods outpouring of himself

is not only something we can find encouragement from

but something we can imitate ourselves

 

 

In fact- Christians are called to imitate this seemingly illogical and irrational activity

Holding back from what we love.

Holding on for people we have never met.

Giving generously when we are all counting the pennies.

Holding-open of the door, making space, & finding room for the other.

 

Though we believe that it is not really irrational at all…

 

It would be irrational,

if there was only a finite amount of resource to go around.

It would be irrational,

if there was only a finite amount of space to be allocated

It would be irrational,

if there was a finite deposit of Grace and Love in the world

 

But there isn’t.

What we find at those two wedding banquets in our readings,

Fuels the superabundance of Babettes Feast

 

God’s Grace is NOT a finite resource.

And it’s not going to run out if we try and use it all up…

 

 

 

 

After washing down his turtle soup, with another splash of Verve Cliqueot 1896

one of Babette’s guests stands to make an impromptu toast.

 

And I suggest that separated as we are this morning

And as we feel the pinch- and punch- of this HARD winter

 

we make this toast our own…

and remember God’s grace and blessing

 

“We have all been told that grace is to be found in the Universe”,

                    the old Dane says, rising to his feet….,

 

          “But in our human foolishness and in our short-sightedness

                    we imagine divine grace to be finite”,

 

He is crying now… and the tears blur his sight:

 

“Thank God, the moment comes when our eyes are opened,

                    and we see indeed…   that Grace is- in fact- infinite!……………

 

& we give thanks that that infinite grace demands nothing from us in return

 

                              but that we await it with confidence,

 

                                        acknowledge it with gratitude,

 

                                                  and live in its light…”               

 

AMEN