On the day that Babette showed up on the front doorsteps of spinster sisters Philippa and Martine, she was looking worn and ragged, carrying only a letter of reference from her former employer in France, saying these three words: “Babette can cook.” Babette had lost her husband and son during the French Civil War and she had fled for her life to Denmark. The sisters had no money to pay her, and as members of a strict Danish Lutheran sect, they felt dubious about employing a maid in the first place. They distrusted her cooking, for one thing. “Didn’t the French eat horses and frogs?” they said to each other. But reluctantly, the sisters opened their homes to a bet and they hired her as their cook, instructing her to only prepare their usual meal of boiled cod and gruel.
So for the next 12 years, Babette cooked for the sisters. The first time that 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 in town and took over all of the housekeeping chores. Everyone had to agree that Babette had brought new life to this stagnant seaside community. Since Babette never referred to her previous life in France, it came as a great surprise to Martine and Philippa when one day, after 12 years, she received her very first letter in the post. Babette read it and looked up to the sisters staring at her, waiting to hear what was in the letter. And matter-of-factly, Babette announced that something wonderful 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 10,000 francs. The sisters congratulated Babette, but inwardly their hearts sank. They knew that soon she would be leaving them.
Well, as it happened, Babette’s winning of the French lottery coincided with the very time that the sisters were discussing the celebration of their father’s 100th anniversary, the 100th anniversary of his birth. Their father had passed away, but he had been the founding pastor of the Lutheran Church in this community. And so, Babette came to them with a request. She said, “In 12 years I’ve asked nothing from you.” And the sisters nodded in agreement. “And so now I have just one request. I would like to prepare the meal for the anniversary service. I would like to cook you a real French dinner.” And although the sisters had grave misgivings about this plan, the truth was that Babette had asked for nothing in 12 years. What choice had they but to agree?
And so when the money arrived from France, Babette went away briefly to make arrangements for the dinner, and over the next few weeks after she returned, the villagers were entertained with one amazing sight after another as provisions were unloaded into Babette’s kitchen. Workmen pushed entire wheelbarrows loaded with crates of small birds, truffles, pheasants, even a live turtle with its head wagging back and forth. Cases of champagne and wine soon followed. Martine and Philippa, alarmed over this apparent witch’s brew, explained their predicament to the members of their strict Lutheran sect, and after some discussion, they agreed reluctantly that they and they would eat the French meal, but they would withhold any comments, lest Babette get the wrong idea. Tongues were meant for praise and thanksgiving, not for indulging in exotic tastes.
And so finally, on the day of the dinner, Babette had somehow scrounged together enough china and crystal, and she had decorated the room with candles and evergreens. Her table looked beautiful. And although no one spoke of the food and drink at first, gradually the banquet began to work a magical effect on the guests. Their blood warmed, their tongues loosened, and eventually they could speak to each other of nothing but the meal. When the kitchen boy brought out the final dish, one of the guests, a general in the army, exclaimed that in his travels all across Europe, he had only seen such a dish in one place, the famous Café Anglais in Paris, the restaurant once renowned for its woman chef.
And so in the final scene of this 1987 Oscar-winning film, Babette’s Feast, it takes place in a wreck of a kitchen, piled high with unwashed dishes, greasy pots and pans, broken crates, vegetable trimmings, empty bottles, and Babette sits amidst the mess, looking as ragged as she did the night she arrived 12 years before. And suddenly the sisters realize that no one has spoken a wonderful word to Babette about the dinner. “It was quite a nice dinner, Babette,” Martine says tentatively. After a time, Babette says to them, “I was once the chef at the Café Anglais.” “We will all remember this evening whenever you’ve gone back to Paris,” Martine adds, and then Babette tells them that she’s not 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 about the 10,000 francs that she won in the lottery?” the sisters ask. And then Babette drops the bombshell. She has spent her winnings, every last franc of the 10,000 that she won on the fantastic feast that they have just devoured. “Don’t be shocked,” she tells them. “This is what a proper dinner for 12 costs at the Café Anglais.”
What I love about this film, Babette’s Feast, in addition to just the beautiful story with all the twists and turns, is how Martine and Philippa repeatedly throughout the film are just awestruck at Babette, the way that she thinks, the way that she talks, and most importantly, the way that she cooks. They’ve grown up in poverty, and they simply cannot imagine the feast that Babette prepares for them. And their religious upbringing has trained them to shun extravagant things and to not believe that a dinner like this would be possible. In other words, Martine and Philippa are so focused on the world the way that it is that they cannot see the world as it could be.
Well, I can’t help seeing many similarities between the story of Babette’s feast and the scripture reading of Jesus feeding the 5,000, not just in that both involve feeding food to a hungry crowd of people, but I think the similarities come earlier in the story when the people limit their imaginations and doubt that such an extravagant feast is even possible in the first place? Haven’t we all been guilty of doubting the extravagance that God is willing to give us? If we go just one chapter earlier in Mark chapter 5, we see that Jesus has performed miracle after miracle. He heals a man possessed by demons and he casts the demons into a herd of pigs, another one of those weird Bible stories, and the pigs go running down the hillside and they jump off a cliff into the sea. And right after performing this miracle, Jesus brings back to life the daughter of a religious leader named Jairus.
And throughout the gospel of Mark, over and over again, Jesus has performed signs and wonders demonstrating the power of God. But after performing all these miracles in chapter 5, we get to chapter 6, and Jesus is rejected in his own hometown of Nazareth. People say, “isn’t this the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary?” And they just cannot imagine someone performing miracles and teaching such wisdom who came from their hometown. And we’re told Jesus heals a few more of the sick in Nazareth, and yet he was amazed by their unbelief. Like, come on, guys, what do I have to do to help you to believe in the power of God?
So, then Jesus takes a different approach. Rather than performing miracles himself, he sends the disciples out to proclaim the gospel and to perform miracles on his behalf, and he instructs them to take nothing on their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money on their belts and to go from town to town preaching and performing miracles in Jesus’ name. And so, they’re supposed to trust in the hospitality of others like the angels in the story from Genesis that we heard this morning who trusted in the hospitality of Abram and Sarah. And they’re supposed to believe in God’s abundance, that they’re not going to take food and money on their journey, but God will provide through the hospitality of others. There is enough food for everyone to eat.
So, the disciples get back from their journey, and Jesus invites them to go away to a deserted place, and yet the crowds begin to follow them. As often happens with Jesus, he’s kind of trying to run away, and yet the people are seeking him out. And the Bible says that this was no small crowd. There were 5,000 men, and when the Bible names the number of men, it’s a placeholder for all of the families. So, perhaps 20,000 people or more had followed Jesus. And so, Jesus gets into this conversation with his disciples. The disciples want him to send the crowds away to go get some food in nearby towns, pick up some McDonald’s, some Chick-fil-A, you know, whatever they need to satisfy themselves. And they even get sarcastic with Jesus about the cost. “Are we to go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” Now, remember, Jesus just sent them out on a mission with no bread and no money. So, they’re definitely not carrying around the equivalent of $20,000 cash to feed this hungry crowd. And this is when, once again, Jesus believes in the disciples when they don’t believe in themselves, and he sends them out to perform another miracle. Instruct the crowds to sit down on the grass in groups of hundreds and fifties, and then Jesus takes the five loaves and the and the two fish, and we all know what happens next. The food is multiplied, and the Bible says that all ate and were filled, not just a snack, not just a nibble. They were filled with an abundant meal that God had provided for them.
You know, if I had been there at Babette’s feast, I would have been one of the doubters like Philippa and Martine. And if I was there with the disciples, I would have been sarcastic and skeptical just like them. “Do you really think we can feed all these people with five loaves and two fish.” And yes, I’m an ordained Methodist pastor, and so I have faith in what God can do, and I have seen God work powerfully in people’s lives. But I also serve as the executive director of a nonprofit, and we’re responsible for raising around $3.5 million every year to continue our mission to helping people in crisis, hardship, and poverty. And so, I’m a bit of a numbers person, and sometimes you have to admit that the math just ain’t mathin’. Five loaves, two fish, 20,000 people does not work.
But this past fall at North Hills Community Outreach, I got to bear witness firsthand to the miracle of multiplication. Whenever the federal government entered in a shutdown in October, it was announced that if the shutdown continued to November that funding would be cut off for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP or food stamps. Nonprofit organizations like NHCO and SHIM reacted immediately to begin preparing for this impending crisis. But we knew that there was no way that the food banks and the food pantries would be enough to replace what community members were about to lose in SNAP benefits.
Let me explain by sharing some numbers. The SNAP program nationwide provides $8.3 billion of food every month to 41 million Americans, or roughly one in every eight households. In Pennsylvania, it’s $366 million a month to over 2 million people. And right here in Allegheny County, it is $30 million every month to 160,000 people, including over 50,000 children who rely upon food for their nutrition and growth. And so in the middle of October, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank reported in the news media that it was simply impossible for nonprofits to replace the food that was going to be lost in SNAP funding. In fact, the SNAP program provides nine times as much food every month as what the food bank could provide through its entire network of partners across the region.
And the number that really hits home for me is the impact on individual families’ budgets. The SNAP food benefits for a single individual range from $34 a month up to $298 a month, depending on their income, up to $546 for an elderly couple, like the ones that benefit from NHCO’s programs, $994 a month for a family of four with children, or over $1,000 a month for families with five or more individuals. I was on an advocacy phone call with one of our federal representatives during the SNAP crisis, and I was so proud of one of our staff members who quoted from memory the monthly budget of one of her older adult clients she had enough met with that afternoon. And she added up all the numbers: $600 for rent, $150 for utilities, $250 for food; every penny that this woman receives each month in Social Security and in SNAP benefits was spoken for. If she lost nearly $300 in SNAP benefits, she would have to choose between paying her rent and utilities on the one hand or going hungry. It was that simple. There was no extra money to go around.
And this was a common story. I spent a lot of time in line with our clients that month as our food pantries had over a 50% increase in attendance. And every person I talked to was terrified at what would happen if SNAP benefits were cut. And that’s when I got to witness the miracle. Day after day, week after week, people from every corner of northern Allegheny County showed up with food donations. Some donated money online. Others ordered off of our Amazon wish list. One of my proudest moments since being the executive director of NHCO is that we had an entire Amazon truck full of food come just to deliver to us. Never had a whole truck come just to deliver to one stop.
Another story that warmed my heart is that at our North Boroughs location in Bellevue, a woman who is herself one of our clients came and she had gone to the dollar store and she had picked up seven $1 items and brought them to the food pantry and said, “here, someone else needs this more than me.” Our Free Rides for Seniors program offers a shuttle on the Route 28 corridor to take people to their doctor’s appointments and to the grocery store. And they’ve popped up a little free pantry in the shuttle itself. And so many of our older adults said, “I don’t need this. Somebody else needs it more than me.” And we said, “no, your benefits are getting cut off and you do need this. This is here for you.” And it made a big difference.
If you come to our Allison Park location to our main food pantry, you’ll see a sign on the pantry that says Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry because we get to witness the miracle every day of God accomplishing more than we ever thought was possible. But, you know, perhaps the real miracle, the biggest miracle, wasn’t just that God provided through the generosity of our community, but that God also managed to work through our broken, divided, polarized government. People of faith stepped up to lobby the federal government, including our United Methodist Board of Church and Society. And finally, after one week of the SNAP benefits being paused, funding was eventually resumed. And so, the largest impact of the crisis was averted, and yet people still felt that fear, that uncertainty, that anxiety for over six weeks about what was going to happen.
And, you know, seeing ultimately that people were able to be fed was just a reminder that we do have sufficient resources in our country. We’re the wealthiest nation in the world, perhaps the wealthiest nation in human history, and we do have enough. We just have to ensure that the resources are shared because our God is a God of abundance. And so, the story of Babette’s feast and Jesus feeding the 5,000 and my experience of the SNAP food crisis, I think all have one thing in common, and that is that people have a not a natural fear of scarcity and a natural fear of the unknown. But we believe in a God of abundance. Did you hear me? We believe in a God of abundance, not a God of scarcity.
And so, I am so grateful for all of the volunteers who serve, whether it’s at one of the ministries of North Hills Community Outreach, whether it’s at South Hills Interfaith Movement, whether it’s through the little free pantry that I saw in the parking lot as I was walking in today, whether you’re donating food or volunteering your time, you get to be a part of God’s mission in the world. And remember, Jesus could have fed the multitudes himself. He could have snapped his fingers and provided food for the hungry crowd, and yet, he wanted the disciples to be a part of the miracle. And I think he did it because he wanted to strengthen their faith. Because if they themselves were a part of the miracle, then they would believe in what God had done.
And I want you to know that Jesus wants you to be a part of the miracle. Whether you’re giving, whether you’re serving, whether you’re sharing a meal or a moment with somebody who’s lonely, Jesus wants you to be a part of God’s mission. So take whatever you have, a few boxes of food, some spare time, a couple extra dollars each month, and share it generously, abundantly, sacrificially with others. And just wait and see what God will do. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.
