Additional thoughts on feasting, grace and faith communities...

Today is a scorcher in the Berkshires and Gershwin got it so right: summertime... and the living is easy. People are moving slowly, folks are heading home early (if they can) and fans and air conditioners are humming through these pretty hills.

Well I've had two inter-related summertime thoughts about my last post re: doing church in a new way. Maybe they make some sense and maybe I am just too damn hot...

+ First, the grace-based model - which some call generous orthodoxy while others speak about Christ's radically open table - begins with a feast. It doesn't not begin with a set of rules, expectations or conditions, simply an invitation: come. Come as you are, come broken or whole, come because you know you need something or come just because it feels like it might be right. In this, Kurt Cobain was more prophetic and holy - in spite of his wounds - than many within the Body of Christ. "Come... as you are... and KNOW that I DON'T have a gun" (or anything else that will hurt either!)

Curiously, it is often the most wounded and alienated from our churches - and most of straight, white middle class living, too - who understand the importance of living as in invitation to the feast. They may not be much of a witness - Cobian was about as fucked-up as a person could get - but at the same time he was an evangelist for God's grace, right? That's why the new/old paradigm of the feast makes so little sense to those shaped by other ecclesiologies: to paraphrase John Lennon, the feast is NOT instant karma (or fast food and anything cheap.) It is a huge, always maturing and every creative seven course banquet - and it takes time and presence to both savor the feast and be nourished by it, too. It isn't a coincidence that Jesus' first miracle takes place at a WEDDING FEAST in Cana of Galilee. Remember how does Isaiah put it?

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

+ Second, preparing the table as well as the banquet is just as important as the actual event. I know that at least HALF the fun of a party is decorating - and baking - and setting the table. I LOVE doing this in anticipation of a feast! And the same is true with our faith communities: we have to make certain that we offer signs and symbols of authentic hospitality and take the time - and spend the money - necessary to welcome our guests and friends.

For example, when we were candidating at our current church, we walked into the Narthex - a word NOBODY knows anymore - and it looked like a mausoleum: all marble panels honoring this or that dead former saint. It was scary, man, and this was the entry way to the church: OMG! (It still needs some serious reworking - which will happen this summer - but at least now we have some children's art work and a ton of colorful things to tell people about our mission, our worship, what to expect, etc. This summer, however, the RAINBOW BANNERS!)

And here's the challenge of "doing' church as a feast: it takes LOTS of time. It ain't McDonald's. It takes time to prepare, it takes time to set the table and cook, it takes time to welcome and greet and it takes time to feast. Eventually the meal is consumed and the guests are nurtured, but not quickly. And sometimes it takes a number of feasts before folks feel like they can trust that the other shoe is not going to fall.


Yesterday I spent most of the holiday preparing a feast for my honey: it was blistering hot and I shouldn't have ROASTED a chicken but... it was for Dianne. So I sauteed onions and carrots, basted that sweet little bird with butter over and over and poured red wine into the mix with abandon. And yes, it was damn hot by the time she got home and we sat down... but it was worth ALL the sweat, too. Preparing for the feast is part of the blessing, yes?



Oh yes, there is one other benefit to doing church as a feast: the other guests have a role to play. It isn't all about the host - or the pastor - or the elected leadership. Often guests find they have something in common with someone they never knew before and before you know it they are off having their own feasts because of the invitation. I LOVE when that happens, too.

To say that I am still learning about feasting in church is a given - but I love doing church this way even if it takes a long, long time. Bon appetit!