God’s feast: a eucharistic spin on an ancient story

I vividly remember the first time a cow was slaughtered in my honour.

To be fair, the cow was not slaughtered only for me: in the summer of 2011, some friends and I were travelling to the hills of Aileu in East Timor as part of an ‘immersion’ experience that also included a wedding celebration for some friends. On the way to the family hosting us for lunch one day, we were informed that they had slaughtered a cow for us, a fact that still makes me laugh—in gratitude and shame—when my own version of hospitality involves a frantic rush to Coles for cheese and crackers.

Some cultures, however, are simply experts at hospitality. It runs so deeply in the blood and tradition of the East Timorese, for example, that preparing a cow for a group of malae—the Tetun word for ‘foreigner’ or ‘white person’—is perfectly normal.

Ancient Hebrew culture placed a premium on excellent hospitality. This was not simply a matter of generosity but ... derived from a deep intuition that we might be ‘entertaining angels’ without knowing it.

There’s something disarming about extravagant displays of generosity, especially when they cost. When we know the value of what somebody has laid on the table, we cannot help but feel moved, or even to experience trepidation in sharing in it. As we see in the the character of Babette in Isak Dineson’s short story Babette’s Feast, who spends every penny she has in the world, and every ounce of energy, to throw an extravagant feast for the Puritan community who sheltered her, there is something not only cultural but artistic behind great hospitality. As the elders of the community sit before Babette in stunned silence, realising how much the act of generosity has cost her, Babette’s response is simply: ‘I am a great artist!’

Entertaining angels

Ancient Hebrew culture also placed a premium on excellent hospitality. This was not simply a matter of generosity but, as the epistle to the Hebrews says, derived from a deep intuition that we might be ‘entertaining angels’ without knowing it (Hebrews 13:2). Throughout the Old Testament, God appeared to his people in strange guises—as angels or strangers, or both. No cost was too high to welcome him.

This might also explain why, when Moses ascends Mount Sinai in the Book of Exodus, he receives, among other things, an elaborate vision detailing the construction of the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant and the priestly vestments: no art is too beautiful to house the presence of God.

Anyone who has prepared a feast for a guest of great importance—or endured the structured chaos of a restaurant kitchen—knows the personal cost of great hospitality.

But if that’s the case, how are we to make sense of Jesus’ response to Martha in the Gospel of Luke.

While on the road, Jesus stops at the house of Mary and Martha, and they welcome him as only they know how, offering food and rest from the journey. Yet, when Martha complains that Mary is not helping her with the preparation, choosing instead to sit at the feet of her teacher, Jesus’ response is both strange and beautiful.

‘Martha, Martha,’ he says, ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her’ (Luke 10:41–42).

What makes this response strange is that Martha’s point was not unreasonable. Isak Dineson describes the feast Babette threw as leaving her as haggard as when she arrived at the community, a refugee from the French Revolution. Anyone who has prepared a feast for a guest of great importance—or endured the structured chaos of a restaurant kitchen—knows the personal cost of great hospitality.

When the Lord comes into their midst, the most appropriate response is to give him hospitality, to prepare a feast and offer him rest.

More to the point, both sisters clearly intuited who Jesus was: Mary sat at his feet, assuming the posture of a disciple, because she recognised that he was no ordinary teacher. And all Martha was doing was what any Hebrew woman would have done to welcome the Divine.

We see a perfect illustration of this in the story in Genesis (18:1–8) where Abraham and Sarah welcome three strangers (a story that the Church helpfully pairs with the Mary and Martha story on the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C).

Regardless of who these strangers are—angels, or an early revelation of God as Trinity—Abraham clearly senses in them something out of the ordinary, much as Mary and Martha do when they open their door to Jesus. In fact, the story gives the game away with the opening line: ‘The Lord appeared to Abraham’ (18:1). Abraham treats the appearance of the strangers as a manifestation of the Lord.

What is Abraham’s response to this? He prepares a feast, offering to wash his guests’ feet and give them rest, and telling Sarah to get their best flour and bake bread; they even prepare a calf for the meal. This is hospitality, yes, but it is also the ancient Hebrew response to the presence of the Divine. When the Lord comes into their midst, the most appropriate response is to give him hospitality, to prepare a feast and offer him rest.

What Jesus does in affirming Mary’s place at his feet, perhaps, is point Martha to the bigger picture that he has come to reveal: that in him, God has already brought the feast. He is the feast.

It is also a basic religious impulse, one that governs the Church’s approach to architecture and art, to prayer and fasting, to music and liturgy: we give ourselves away in generosity because it is a fitting way to honour and welcome the presence of God.

When he spoke to Martha, then, Jesus can’t have been criticising her generosity and hospitality. Elsewhere in the gospels, after Lazarus is raised from the dead, the sisters prepare another feast, and Martha serves everyone without criticism from Jesus. The art and festivities of a great feast clearly meet with God’s approval—especially if the wedding at Cana is anything to go by. Why did Jesus rebuke Martha, then?

God’s feast

If we keep this idea of the feast in mind, we might begin to understand something of what Jesus was doing, and even detect a eucharistic spin on this ancient story of hospitality.

Jesus’ teachings, after all, often broke the mould of Jewish expectations. Especially where his parables are concerned, he often draws on something familiar only to subvert the ending entirely or, at the very least, give an old idea a new spin.

When Jesus enters the home of Mary and Martha, Martha does what any Hebrew woman would have done. Like Sarah, she prepares a feast for the Lord who has come into their midst. What Jesus does in affirming Mary’s place at his feet, perhaps, is point Martha to the bigger picture that he has come to reveal: that in him, God has already brought the feast. He is the feast, and we, his guests, are invited to the feast to outdo all other feasts: the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6–9).

Just as the elders of the community in Babette’s Feast sit in silence while Babette reveals who she truly is—a great artist and renown French chef—Mary chooses the ‘better part’ by sitting and listening attentively as the Lord reveals himself. She recognises and stops to participate in a significant moment—a moment when Jesus reveals who he truly is: not just a guest, but host and feast. Caught up in all the activity, Martha is in danger of missing it.

There is a temptation, perhaps, to spend so much time telling God who he is, and being so invested in honouring him the ‘right way’, that we forget the lengths to which God goes to prepare a feast for us.

This is unfamiliar territory for a lot of people, and it was for Jesus’ listeners, too. The idea of welcoming God as a guest and in the stranger is a powerful current in the Catholic tradition, from the Benedictines to Dorothy Day. Harder to grasp, however, is that this guest is also the host; that in the Eucharist, Christ graciously extends the hospitality of God to us, offering a feast that has come at great personal cost—not only teaching us through his Word but feeding us with his own Body and Blood.

There is a temptation, perhaps, to spend so much time telling God who he is, and being so invested in honouring him the ‘right way’, that we forget the lengths to which God goes to prepare a feast for us. We forget that sometimes the best way to honour him is to simply be still and listen. We forget that the grandest gesture we could possibly make, as Pope Francis once said of the liturgy, is silence.