A Taste of Heaven
(Gen.14:18-20; 1Cor.11:23-26; Lk.9:11b-17)
Cooking shows have long been popular, but their focus tends to be much too narrow. They usually emphasise things like taste, presentation, ingredients and technique.
The dynamics of eating, however, are far more complex than that. Where you eat, with whom you eat and who prepares and serves the food are often just as important as what we consume, if not more so.
We can see this in the Bible. It’s full of meals, from Eve’s Forbidden Fruit in Genesis, through to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb in the Book of Revelation. And in between are the manna in the desert, Elijah’s hearth cake, Jesus’ eating with tax collectors and sinners, his feeding of the multitudes, and of course the Last Supper.
Each of these says something very important about God and ourselves.
‘The Son of Man has come eating and drinking,’ Jesus says, and his critics are outraged. But Jesus knows what he is doing. He knows that a shared meal can heal wounds, nourish hope, build trust and foster connection.
And he knows that food preparation is itself an act of love, for as St Teresa of Avila liked to say, ‘God is in the pots and pans.’
We can see this in Gabriel Axel’s 1987 movie, Babette’s Feast, which is based on a short story by Karen Blixen. It tells the story of two elderly sisters who live together in a remote coastal village in Denmark in the 1800s.
Their father, a Protestant pastor, had established a strict and joyless religious community there many years before. And after his death, his daughters take responsibility for them.
One stormy evening, a stranger arrives at their door. It’s Babette, carrying a letter from someone they know, asking them to take her in as a housekeeper. ‘She can cook,’ the letter says.
Babette is traumatised. She has just fled Paris, where her husband and son had just been killed in the French Revolution.
The two sisters don’t need a housekeeper, and they can’t afford one. However, they let Babette stay and she humbly serves them without pay for the next fourteen years. The sisters show her how to cook bread and fish the way they like it – dry and bland.
But what they don’t know is that Babette is an outstanding chef. She had been the head chef at one of Paris’ most famous cafés.
One day, Babette surprisingly wins 10,000 francs in a lottery. The whole village expects her to return to Paris, but she doesn’t. Instead, she offers to organise a ‘real French dinner’ for the sisters to celebrate what would have been their father’s 100th birthday.
At first they refuse this offer because they only eat bland food. But Babette persuades them to accept, and she sends her nephew off to Paris to buy lots of expensive ingredients including turtle and quail. The villagers are shocked by this and the sisters fear this meal might be sinful. But they really can’t refuse, so they decide to eat the food without talking about it.
As Babette’s feast begins there are twelve guests, mirroring the Last Supper. One is a visiting general who has often dined in Paris. As Babette’s dishes arrive, he is astonished by their taste and quality, and he savours every bite. He knows this meal is outstanding.
One specific dish reminds him of the chef at the Café Anglais in Paris. Here, he is like the disciple on the road to Emmaus who recognises Jesus in the breaking of the bread (Lk.24:35). But that dish, cailles en sarcophagi (‘quail in a coffin’), also evokes the burial of her husband and son – and of Jesus Christ.
And when the general asks for some more wine, Babette gives him a whole bottle, reflecting Jesus’ extraordinary generosity at the Wedding at Cana.
Babette’s Feast is the story of a meal that is deeply Eucharistic. It involves real food and real wine, and it conveys an invisible grace that changes each person.
They begin to giggle and smile. Wounds heal, bitterness and fear disappear, and joy takes hold. Silently, mysteriously, the meal transforms their hearts.
Babette is like Jesus. She is misunderstood, but still freely sacrifices all she has for these villagers, so that they might come together in love. And she asks for nothing in return.
Like so many of us at Mass, Babette’s guests don’t really understand what’s happening. At first they eat suspiciously, but then something inside them changes.
They used to think that pleasure and holiness cannot mix, but now they know that grace is never stingy. It’s always extravagant and joy-filled.
Sometimes, when we sit at the table of grace, we find ourselves receiving something far more than a meal:
A taste of heaven.