The genuis of Jesus is that he was able to illustrate what the kingdom is, what it looks like and what it feels like with examples from the ordinary. Ofcourse, for the rural people that Jesus was talking to, this meant rural images.

Each year, at Northern Community, we have a week allocated to focus especially on our spiritual discipline of hospitality. During this week we use a movie to illustrate the importance of hospitality and opening our lives to each other. In the past few years we have used ‘Pay it forward’ and ‘Patch Adams’. This year we used we looked at the movie Babette’s Feast.

What an incredibly powerful movie this is.

It is a story of a small group of pious Christians who live on the desolate coast of Denmark at the end of the last century. Their life is marked by simplicity, pietistic attitudes, poverty and a certain amount of bickering. Babette joins this community after escaping from danger in France, and she becomes the two sisters, leaders of the tiny Christian community, cook and maid. She cooks and cleans for them for many years.

Each year, a supporter of Babette purchased a ticket in the lottery. One day, a letter for Babette arrives announcing that she has won the lottery! She has won in her hand a check for a huge amount of money! The sister’s immediately think that she will return to France.

When Babette lived in France, she was one of the most renowned chefs in Paris. She decides she will spend the money to prepare a gourmet French feast for these simple people who saved her life. These plain and simple folks who live on a diet of boiled codfish and bread ale soup will be granted an unbelivable gourmet meal.

During the meal something interesting happens. While the group have decided that they will not mention the food as they are concerned that something evil is going on here and are very suspicious of earthly pleasures - the food and wine starts to warm them. Past tensions, bickerings and fights start to wane and they begin to warm to each other as the food and wine warms them.

I found this decription on a net site somewhere and I cant find the reference unfortunately but I think it aptly describes the theme of this movie:

The kingdom of heaven is like a poor, refugee woman who wins the lottery and spends it all on the giving a joyful feast of her finest cooking to her pious friends.

If you haven’t seen this movie I would recommend it.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2003 at 11:06 am by phil and is filed under books and dvd's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.