Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 31], rcl yr c, 2022
Stewardship Programme Sermon 3
HABAKKUK 1:1-4, 2:1-4; PS. 119:137-144; 2 THESS. 1:1-4, 11-12; LK 19:1-10
the venture of love and the risk of service, part II
“… the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us …”
These words come from a short story called “Babette’s Feast,” a story about grace—the many ways we try to make grace small and the ways that we reject grace—and a story also about the futility of any attempt to make grace small, or to reject grace, because the grace of God is not only infinite, it is persistent.
In “Babette’s Feast” the main character, Babette, was once one of the top Parisian chefs, but had to flee Paris some twelve years earlier, in 1870 as a political refugee, only to find herself in a place quite the opposite of Paris: she found herself in a small Danish village of dour Puritans. This particular sect of Christians, after the death of their beloved pastor, had fallen into resentment and hostility towards one another, they don’t really like one another anymore, and they are largely joyless because for them, this life isn’t a thing to be enjoyed—joy is for the life to come, not this life. Babette though wins a lottery, ten thousand francs, and with her winnings she decides to spend it all on a dinner for her severe and unsmiling neighbours.
The neighbours agree to the feast, but they know don’t know quite what they are getting into; in the movie version (which is lovely if you haven’t seen it) there’s a scene where one of the villager’s eyes get larger and larger as he looks over a cart full of live ingredients, not only quail in cages, but also a huge tortoise for soup. And so the villagers make a plan: they will come to the dinner, but they will not enjoy it, they will take no delight in it at all.
There is only one person who comes to the feast that knows what is really happening, a General that knows that it could only be by grace that he would land at such a lavish meal in such a Danish village. In the short story he gives a lengthier toast, giving voice to what he was experiencing: “… the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. . . . [The grace] which we have chosen is given us, and [the grace] which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us … that [grace] we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly.”
And this is what happens. The grace that the dour and restrained, unloving and acrimonious villagers refuse, this grace is poured out abundantly. During the dinner, the bearers of grudges find themselves forgiving one another, during the love-feast, despite their best efforts, the villagers experience joy. In the short story, reconciled neighbours play together in the snow; in the film, a gang of elderly enemies now hold hands and dance around a well singing the songs of their youth. The villagers experience joy. And they experience this joy not because they accepted or earned this grace, but rather because grace is infinite, and because grace is persistent, breaking through any attempt to thwart it.
Two weeks ago, at our first Stewardship Sunday of the year, I spoke of our gifts of time and talent to St. John’s in terms of creation—that we are built and made as human persons to desire and love God, and that we are built and made for the sake of service to others; and that by this love and service God sanctifies us—sure, we will probably love the wrong thing, but it is through this loving that God will purify our loves; and we will act for others for the wrong reasons, but that it is through this service that God will purify our motivations. That’s to say, contributing to the common life of the church is one way to grow in God.
But last week, James helpfully placed this love and service in the context of baptism—that contributing to our common life at St. John’s is about the baptismal ministry to which we are called. What James did was very important, because it grounded our continuing reflections on the stewardship of time and talent—whether that be through preparing for coffee hour, being a server, or tending the flowers in the garden (among many other things!)—it grounded our contributions to our shared life of ministry and service in Christ.
If we stopped at creation, and only spoke of the way are made for love and service, and that God sanctifies us through our love and service— we would be at real risk of imagining grace as something that only comes after we love and serve. But this would be to make grace far smaller than it is—it would make God’s grace in Christ less than infinite.
God’s grace doesn’t only come after, say, a life of self-denial (as it does in the imaginations of Babette’s dour neighbours), God’s grace comes before anything we do, in that Christ is already crucified; and God’s grace comes after, in that in Christ’s resurrection we see the promise of our own resurrected life; and God’s grace comes now, just as it does during Babette’s feast: in the eucharist, and at table with others. God’s grace in Christ is given before, after, and during this life we share, because God’s grace is infinite.
And so there is more to say than simply that we are created for a life of love and service that sanctifies, we also speak of our love and service in terms of our baptism into Christ’s body—because we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into the one whose life is already perfect love and the fullness of self-offering. That is, because we are baptized into Christ, we are living members of Christ’s living body, the church—and so you, as a baptized Christian, aren’t living out your own loving service, as a baptized Christian you are living out Christ’s own venture of love, Christ’s own self-giving service.
What I’m hoping you hear today is that before you even look at your sheet and reflect on how you might contribute to our shared life as a church, you understand that you do so in a world in which God’s grace is already given; a world in which God’s grace is being given as you approach and eat and drink at this table; and a world in which God’s grace will still be given after this life of struggle and joy is over and done with. And that as you make your venture of love and take your risk os self-offering—whether that’s in your family, in the world, and as part of our shared life at St. John’s—that you do so as someone who knows and understands that you make your venture of love and risk yourself in self-offering as the baptized, as someone already crucified and resurrected in Christ, and therefore as a living member of Christ’s own body, making your own love and service but to share in Christ’s own perfect love and service.
And if we come to this table imperfectly, as we all really do—hoping our love will win us more love, and that our service will win us favour, be sure that this is ok. Those dour and lifeless neighbours of Babette’s did their best to resist grace too, but Babette’s feast won them over despite themselves—the feast of grace turned their sorrows and hatreds into love and joy—because grace isn’t only infinite in Christ, it is relentless, too.