Invitations to Abundance

I like to eat. Everything but kale. I don’t know what PR firm foisted the “kale is a superfood” hoax on an unsuspecting public, but they should be publicly flogged their sin.

I kid. About the PR firm. Not about kale. Kale will not be in heaven. That’s because heaven will be a place of feasting and not even those who love kale associate that leafy weed with feasting!

But here’s the thing: Though I like to eat, I don’t think I feast. I only come close to feasting at Thanksgiving. But ordinarily, I eat on the run. Scarfing down too many carbs in a diet that temporarily sustains while over time malnourishes. And eating can be a rather routine event for me, a sometimes solitary, sometimes communal ritual that marks the watches of the day. Breakfast, generally skipped, becomes a means to lunch, usually a working lunch, which leads to a later dinner in front of the TV. So, I eat. But I almost never feast.

Feasting requires abundance. Something sumptuous must be included. Feasting also requires leisure. One doesn’t feast in a hurry. One lounges. One lingers. One almost strolls through the meal, like tourists in Italy savoring the sights as much as the tasty bites. In this way, feasts become invitations to stop. To break the ruthless reign of routine. To saw through the monotony and the dullness that chain us in solitary confinement even when others are all around us. Feasting calls us out of the bleak into the beautiful and the abundance.

Is it any wonder, then, that God uses feasts to define our relationship with Him? Our God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills does not hesitate to prepare them in a banquet of blessing for His children. We all come to a Father who kills the fattened calf because we have found our way home. And there, at home, sitting with our Father around his table, feast spread, we taste and see that the Lord is good. We savor of His abundance. Our souls are nourished not with food but with God himself.

If you have never thought about the feasts of the Bible and the way they usher us into God’s presence and fellowship, then you are in for a treat! Alicia Akins gives us a guided tour of the Bible’s feasts—from the Passover in Exodus to the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation. She helps us do something that often escapes us as we read the Bible—enter and experience the stories themselves. Through her re-telling, we re-live the pilgrimages of ordinary Israelites and we long with hope as persecuted first-century Christians. As she guides us, we begin to understand the liturgical calendar of Israel and how to practice our own liturgies of feasting. We commemorate and re-present God’s saving work across history and our faith is built. We learn how the Bible fits together and our knowledge of God is expanded.

I have recommended many biblical theologies to the people I have pastored. I have read my share of them. While I enjoy biblical theology, I have rarely read one that makes the Bible come alive. Akins does that. She is at one point biblical theologian, at another novelist, and poet throughout. This is the work of someone who sings what she believes and believes what she sings. She commits both song and belief to writing in this volume.

So, find your best reading chair. Prepare your favorite beverage. Then feast on this work which will help you feast on God! You have been invited to abundance!
—Thabiti Anyabwile, Anacostia River Church, The Crete Collective