Grace

"Grace is Christianity's best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate." – Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace

We sing the hymn “Amazing Grace” in church, and while the words are beautiful, what does it mean, really?  What does it look like? The Bible talks about it, but how does grace apply to us?  The Danish author Karen Blixen tells a story that highlights quite well what grace looks like in Babette’s Feast.

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In a small Norwegian fishing village, a white-bearded Dean led a group of worshipers in an austere (and strict) Lutheran sect.  What few worldly pleasures could tempt a peasant in the village, this sect renounced.  All wore black.  Their diet consisted of boiled cod and a gruel made from boiling bread in water fortified with a splash of ale.  On the Sabbath, the group met together and sang songs about "Jerusalem, my happy home, name ever dear to me."  They had fixed their compasses on New Jerusalem, with life on earth tolerated as a way to get there.

The old Dean, a widower, had two teenage daughters: Martine, named for Martin Luther, and Phillipa, named for Luther's disciple Philip Melanchthon.  Villagers used to attend the church just to feast their eyes on these two, whose radiant beauty could not be suppressed despite the sisters' best efforts.

Martine caught the eye of a dashing young cavalry officer.  When she successfully resisted his advances--after all, who would care for her aging father?--he rode away to marry instead a lady-in-waiting of Queen Sophia.

Phillipa possessed not only beauty but also the voice of a nightingale.  When she sang about Jerusalem, shimmering visions of the heavenly city seemed to appear.  And so it happened that Phillipa made the acquaintance of the most famous operatic singer of the day, the Frenchman Achille Papin, who was spending some time on the coast for his health.  As he walked the dirt paths of a backwater town, Papin hear to his astonishment a voice worthy of the Grand Opera of Paris.

'Allow me to teach you to sing properly,' he urged Phillipa, 'and all of France will fall at your feet.  Royalty will line up to meet you, and you will ride in a horse-drawn carriage to dine at the magnificent Cafe Anglais.'  Flattered, Phillipa consented to a few lessons,, but only a few.  Singing about love made her nervous, the flutterings she felt inside troubled her further, and when an area from Don Giovanni ended with her being held in Papin's embrace, his lips brushing hers, she knew beyond doubt that these new pleasures must be renounced.  Her father wrote a note declining all future lessons, and Achille Papin returned to Paris, as disconsolate as if he'd misplaced a winning lottery ticket.

Fifteen years passed, and much changed in the village.  The two sisters, now middle-aged spinsters, had attempted to carry on the mission of their deceased father, but without his stern leadership the sect splintered badly.  One Brother bore a grudge against another concerning some business matter.  Rumors spread about a thirty-year-old sexual affair involving two of the members.  A pair of old ladies had not spoken to each other for a decade.  Although the sect met on the Sabbath and sang old hymns, only a handful bothered to attend, and the music lost its luster.  Despite all these problems, the Dean's two daughters remained faithful, organizing the services and boiling bread for the toothless elders of the village.

One night, a night too rainy for anyone to venture on the muddy streets, the sisters heard a heavy thump at the door.  When they opened it, a woman collapsed with a swoon.  They revived her only to find that she spoke no Norwegian.  She handed them a letter from Achille Papin.  At the sight of his name Phillipa's face flushed, and her hand trembled as she read the letter of introduction.  The woman's name was Babette, and she had lost her husband and son during the civil war in France.  Her life in danger, she had fled, and Papin had found her passage on a ship in hopes that this village might show her mercy.  "Babette can cook," the letter read.

The sisters had no money to pay Babette and felt dubious about employing a maid in the first place.  They distrusted her cooking--didn't the French eat horses and frogs?  But through gestures and pleading,  Babette softened their hearts.  She would do any chores in exchange for room and board.

For the next twelve years Babette worked for the sisters.  The first time Martine showed her how to split a cod and cook the gruel, Babette's eyebrows shot upward and her nose wrinkled a little, but she never once questioned her assignments.  She fed the poor people of the town and took over all the housekeeping chores.  She even helped with Sabbath services.  Everyone had to agree that Babette brought new life to the stagnant community.

Since Babette never referred to her past life in France, it came as a great surprise to Martine and Philipa when one day, after twelve years, she received her very first letter.  Babette read it, looked up to see the sisters staring at her, and announced matter-of-factly that a wonderful thing had happened to her.  Each year a friend in Paris had renewed Babette's number in the French lottery.  This year, her ticket had won.  Ten thousand francs!

The sisters pressed Babette's hands in congratulations, but inwardly their hearts sank.  They knew that soon Babette would be leaving.

As it happened, Babette's winning the lottery coincided with the very time the sisters were discussing a celebration to honor the hundredth anniversary of their father's birth.  Babette came to them with a request.  'In twelve years I have asked nothing of you,' she began.  They nodded.  'But now I have a request: I would like to prepare the meal for the anniversary service.  I would like to cook you a real French dinner.'

Although the sisters had grave misgivings about the plan, Babette was certainly right that she had asked no favors in twelve years.  What choice had they but to agree?

When the money arrived from France, Babette went away briefly to make arrangements for the dinner.  Over the next few weeks after her return, the residents of the village were treated to one amazing sight after another as boats docked to unload provisions for Babette's kitchen.  Workmen pushed wheelbarrows loaded with crates of small birds.  Cases of champagne--champagne!--and wine soon followed.  The entire head of a cow, fresh vegetables, truffles, pheasants, ham, strange creatures that lived in the sea, a huge tortoise still alive and moving his snakelike head from side to side--all these ended up in the sisters' kitchen now firmly ruled by Babette.

Martine and Philipa, alarmed over this apparent witch's brew, explained their predicament to the members of the sect, now old and gray and only eleven in number.  Everyone clucked in sympathy.  After some discussion they agreed to eat the French meal, withholding comment about it lest Babette get the wrong idea.  Tongues were meant for praise and thanksgiving, not for indulging in exotic tastes.

It snowed on December 15, the day of the dinner, brightening the dull village with a gloss of white.  The sisters were pleased to learn that an unexpected guest would join them: ninety-year-old Miss Loewenhielm would be escorted by her nephew, the cavalry officer who had courted Martine long ago, now a general serving in the royal palace.

Babette had somehow scrounged enough china and crystal, and had decorated the room with candles and evergreens.  Her table looked lovely.  When the meal began all the villagers remembered their agreement and sat mute, like turtles around a pond.  Only the general remarked on the food and drink.  'Amontillado!' he exclaimed when he raised the first glass.  'And the finest Amontillado I have ever tasted.'  When he sipped the first spoonful of soup, the general could have sworn it was turtle soup, but how could such a thing be found on the coast of Norway?

'Incredible!' said the general when he tasted the next course.  'It is Blinis Demidoff!'  All the other guests, their faces puckered with deep wrinkles, were eating the same rare delicacy without expression or comment.  When the general rhapsodized about the champagne, a Veuve Cliquot 1860, Babette ordered her kitchen boy to keep the general's glass filled at all times.  He alone seemed to appreciate what was set before him.

Although no one else spoke of the food or drink, gradually the banquet worked a magical effect on the churlish villagers.  Their blood warmed.  Their tongues loosened.  They spoke of the old days when the Dean was alive and of Christmas the year the bay froze.  The Brother who had cheated another on a business deal finally confessed, and the two women who had feuded found themselves conversing.  A woman burped, and the Brother next to her said without thinking. 'Hallelujah!'

The general, though, could speak of nothing but the meal.  When the kitchen boy brought out the coup de grace, baby quail prepared en Sacrophage, the general exclaimed that he had eaten such a dish in only one place in Europe, the famous Cafe Anglais in Paris, the restaurant once renowned for its woman chef.

Heady with wine, his senses sated, unable to contain himself, the general rose to make a speech.

Mercy and truth, my friends, have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another. 

We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and shortsightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite...But 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.

Although the Brothers and Sisters of the sect did not fully comprehend the general's speech, at that moment "the vain illusions of this earth had dissolved before their eyes like smoke, and they had seen the universe as it really is."  The little company broke up and went outside into a town coated with glistening snow under a sky ablaze with stars.

In the wreck of a kitchen piled high with unwashed dishes, greasy pots, shells, carapaces, gristly bones, broken crates, vegetable trimmings, and empty bottles, Babette sits amid the mess looking as wasted as the night she arrived twelve years before.  Suddenly the sisters realize that, in accordance with their vow, no one has spoken to Babette of the dinner.

"It was a nice dinner, Babette," Martine says tentatively.  Babette seems far away.  After a time she says to them, "I was once the cook at the Cafe Anglais."

"We will remember this evening when you have gone back to Paris, Babette," Martine adds, as if not hearing her.

Babette tells them that she will not be going back to Paris.  All her friends and relatives there have been killed or imprisoned.  And, of course, it would be expensive to return to Paris.  "But what of the ten thousand francs?" the sisters ask.

Then Babette drops the bombshell.  She has spent her winnings, every last franc of the ten thousand she won, on the feast they have just devoured.  'Don't be shocked,' she tells them.  'That is what a proper dinner for twelve costs at the Cafe Anglais.'

Twelve years before Babette had landed among the graceless ones.  Followers of Luther, they heard sermons on grace nearly every Sabbath and the rest of the week tried to earn God's favor with their pieties and renunciations.  Grace came to them in the form of a feast, Babette's feast, a meal of a lifetime lavished on those who had in no way earned it, who barely possessed the faculties to receive it.  Grace came to the village as it always comes: free of charge, no strings attached, on the house.

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” – Eph. 2:8-10

This year, remember to show grace to others, even when they don’t deserve it….because we don’t either yet God has shown us grace anyway.