reading the book of judith in the daily office this past week has made me think of the importance of feasts, banquets and suppers in scripture. the judith story brings up images of other meals which figure into the story of the holy one's saving us from our own rebellious and gluttonous ways: esther, of course; but also in a rather inverse way, john the baptist and salome; belshazzar's feast and the last supper; the feeding stories in the gospels and the fish grill on the lake shore that ends john's gospel.
one of the most insightful books about sacramental theology i have ever read is alexander schmemann's for the life of the world, which begins with the phrase, "we are what we eat." "what we eat." not "what i eat." for christians eating, like all of our lives, is a communal activity. even if we seem to be alone, we are eating with all the people and plants and animals and rain and wind and sun along the food chain leading all the way back to creation.
i haven't begun to puzzle out all i hope to learn from this circle of thought, but i found it interesting enough to point it out. maybe you can help me understand it better.
2 comments:
i would love to help you understand it better as soon as you explain the violent image you posted along with your hopeful thoughts. I wasn't imagining people with knives through their throat in a discussion of banquets.
let me guess: you haven't read the book of judith, have you? it's one of those olde testamente bookies we usually think of as illustrating heroic acts. or in this case, heroinic acts. but of course all of the old testament stuffs fail in their objectives, or we wouldn't need to have the new testament.
for many of our banquets, the violence that lies behind them is nicely hidden. i don't see how the kids who pick my coffee beans live as i sit and sip at la vie en rose. i think la vie en rose is something i can buy.
but of course the banquet of the kingdom is the meal in which the holy one feeds us with his own flesh and his own blood.
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