Feasting on Grace: Babette’s Feast

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

– John 1:17

Danish author Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke, who wrote under the pen names of Karen Blixen and Isak Dinesen, gifted the world with a story that never fails to bring tears of conviction and joy, as it echoes the lavish love of Jesus.

Babette’s Feast is a short story that, despite its brevity, is packed to overflowing with gracious glimpses of the goodness of God.

Set in an isolated Danish village in the Jutland during the late 1880s, Dinesen’s tale is centered around a small, austere Protestant sect.  We are first introduced to the elderly spinster sisters Martine and Phillipa as they are preparing for an upcoming annual gathering to honor their late father, a pastor who had ruled with compassionate severity and was both admired and feared by the people of the village.

Since his death, the daughters and a handful of the “faithful” have tried to continue to follow him and his teachings, upholding tradition with good works and self-denial, which carries over into every aspect of their lives – from denying true love by remaining single, to even the smallest details of the everyday, such as only eating plain food.

When they were young, the sisters had been courted by French gentlemen. A young soldier of noble background, Lorens is captivated by Martine’s godly beauty but does not feel that he is worthy of her. Achille Papin, the director of the Paris Opera, falls in love with Phillipa, whose character is as lovely as her singing voice. Her father does not approve, however, and Phillipa follows his wishes.

Now years later, the elderly sisters have one element of their home that seems incongruent with their unadorned lives – a French servant and cook, Babette.

We learn that 14 years earlier, the young widow Babette had fled the terrors of wartime Paris. Achille Papin is a friend of hers, and it was he who sent her to the sisters, having remembered the goodness of Phillipa.

Babette is virtually penniless, and even after a decade and a half, no one in the little village – including Martine and Phillipa – knows about her life before she came to serve them.

Things take a surprise turn when Babette wins 10,000 francs in the French lottery. 

The sisters assume that she will leave them now, but Babette has a different idea.

She is aware that the sisters and others of their small sect are planning a dinner to honor their late father’s birthday, and that in keeping with their aesthetic form of self-denial, it will likely be simple and without food, or only plain, traditional fare, so Babette asks for their permission to pay for and prepare an authentic French meal for the commemoration.

Unused to grace as they are, the sisters still cannot find it in them to turn down Babette’s request when they see how excited she has become in proposing the idea to them.

Soon Babette is returning from France where she has traveled to obtain ingredients and preparations, and locals in the Danish village are bringing box after box ashore from the beach to the small kitchen of the sisters’ home. 

You can imagine the shock of Martine when she sees a live tortoise emerge from one of the boxes!

Suspiciously viewing pleasure as a distraction from serving God, and used to only eating bland foods accordingly, Martine and Phillipa began to “prepare” the fellow sect members and villagers for the dinner, even as Babette is preparing the feast. 

The sisters feel guilty about allowing such a “worldly” indulgence, so they decide that they will attend the meal so as to not hurt Babette’s feelings, but that they will not speak about the food or show emotion about what is being served.

Meanwhile the soldier Lorens has now returned these many decades later as a successful French general and is to attend the dinner party with his aunt.

Babette has been cooking for days, and the meal is now served.  True to their vow, the sisters and others are at first completely stoic as they taste dish after lavish dish of Babette’s feast.  As one writer so beautifully puts it,

“Watching the uptight elders slowly relax away from their arguments and disapprovals into the beauty and conviviality of a meal made with love is pure pleasure. The feast Babette prepares is practically an act of worship — made by someone the group still considers beyond their bonds of acceptability, but who has patiently worked to show them love…”

So subtle is the working of grace, that the villagers do not recognize what is happening, even as loving glances are exchanged between Martine and Lorens after so many years apart, and Phillipa sings as she used to when she was a young lady. 

Grace cannot be other than transforming!

True grace is also true sacrifice, and we later learn that Babette, who had been a famous chef in Paris, has spent all of her money on the dinner feast.

Followers of Jesus will find poignant joy in how Babette’s loving heart reflects true self-sacrifice versus austere self-denial, as the apostle Paul states in Acts 20:24,

“But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”

We are not only reminded of the woman who poured out her entire dowry in one fragrant and lavish act of love upon the feet of Jesus (Luke 7:37-38), but of Jesus Himself, whose lavish love and joy caused Him to be frequently misunderstood by the religious of His day (vv. 31-35).

For those who follow rules to reach God, and forgo relationships, grace is often feared as displacing righteousness and truth.

In his recognition of what he has truly just feasted upon with Babette’s lavish offering, one of the characters of the book shares wisdom from the prophet Isaiah we would do well to take to heart, when General Lorens exclaims with joy and wonder,

Mercy and truth, my friends, have met together,’ said the General. ‘Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another.