Wine and wisdom play roles in this Sunday’s readings. The Book of Proverbs writes that “Wisdom has built her house,… mixed her wine,… spread her table;… she says, Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” Paul encourages listeners to “try to understand what is the will of God. And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” John’s Gospel has Jesus referring to bread and wine, drawn from Jesus’ many meals with people, especially his final meal, referred to as the Last Supper.
Wine, Wisdom, and the Last Supper have recently been in the news. It is due to a performance from the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. In it a mostly nude and mostly blue French singer is backed by a long table with a variety of performers, one of whom called it a “five-minute drag event with queer representation.” Olympic Games officials shared photos of the moment and referenced Dionysus, the Greek god of wine-making, fruitfulness, and ecstasy. As later explained by art historians and the event’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, the scene is not a recreation of Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper but of Jan van Bijlert’s “The Feast of the Gods.” It too is set at a long table with a variety of persons enjoying a meal. We would likely be foolish to think Olympic planners did not additionally recognize its connection to DaVinci’s Last Supper. We would also be foolish not to help people understand the difference between a self-absorbed inebriating and an other centered communion. Community tolerance is the claim of its performers. Its lead character is Dionysus, the “god of feasting, of wine, and the father of Sequana, the goddess of the River Seine,” upon which Paris is located. “The idea was to have a pagan celebration connected to the gods of Olympus. You will never find in me a desire to mock and denigrate anyone.” “We tried to celebrate community tolerance.” Thomas Jolly continues, “The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.” Nonviolence is a primary reason for the Olympic Games, gathering people of sometimes warring nations for peaceful competition. Self-titled Christians have been commenting on the event. Is there a lack of a lack of wisdom in their words? They include negative comments about “drag queens at the Last Supper.” U.S. House speaker Mike Johnson said, “Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting.” “The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds.” Why do self-titled Christians think a scene of drag queens and queers at the Last Supper is “shocking and insulting?” Jesus was judged ‘shocking and insulting’ for sharing meals with a variety of people judged sinners by the unwise of his era. The unwise show the same pattern of not welcoming persons who are different than them, persons who are vulnerable, persons who are trans or queer, and instead subjecting them to insult, exclusion, and waging war against them. It is the unwise who are shocking and insulting toward the Olympics and toward Jesus. At the same time the unwise devalue sexual lovers as sinners they value warrior killers as heroes. The war on faith and values that Mike Johnson references is the war he and his co-horts are waging against Jesus’ Loving Way.
”Wild nights – Wild nights! Were I with thee, Wild nights should be Our luxury! (Emily Dickenson)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, keep us wise and loving.
Question: Am I an artist who celebrates our human body or a judge more likely to denigrate our bodies as sinful?
August 18, 2024 John 6:51-58 Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time