On Thursday afternoon I found myself staring at an enormous and very strange painting. At one level it was very much of its Renaissance times – richly costumed and with the fantastic architectural setting of a wide terrace with columns and stair cases and distant vistas. In the fore ground were a cat chewing a bone and a large rather elegant dog staring at the cat. Servants are bringing on platters of meat and jugs of wine; a steward is deep in conversation with a richly dressed man in a red bonnet, while someone leaves the terrace with a nose bleed and a bloody handkerchief; two dwarves are waiting to entertain the company; two German soldiers with halberds are getting drunk; at the dinner table on the terrace a guest is elegantly picking his teeth with a silver fork. At a rough count there are forty nine people present. What makes the picture so curious is its title: ‘The Feast in the house of Levi.’ And now of course you realise that the central figure at the table is Jesus with Peter on his right and John on his left.
In 1573 the painter Veronese was put on trial before the inquisition because of this work. It had been commissioned to hang in the refectory of a monastery and its original title was ‘The Last Supper’. The Inquisition of course objected to the cat, the dog, the nose bleed, the dwarves, the German soldiers and the rather excessive number of people besides Jesus and the twelve disciples. Veronese must quickly have sensed something was up, because when asked what the picture represented he replied, ‘The last supper taken by Jesus with his apostles in the house of Simon’. It is a rather Pythonesque answer – well of course it’s not the Last Supper. Veronese claimed he had a big canvas to fill so there had to be more people in it. ‘We Painters,’ he said,’ allow ourselves the same liberties as do poets and madmen.’ The problem is of course that the painter has gone poetically even madly too far.
In all religions, traditions of representation develop in order to safeguard the information they pass on from one generation to another. The symbolic representations of religious truth are formalised. The last supper has to be represented in certain ways. These symbols may be used creatively and imaginatively by individual interpreters but if the mismatch between tradition and creative interpretation becomes too great, as in Veronese’s case, religious authority has to step in to safe guard the meaning of the symbol, as here with the Last supper.
We are not, however, fooled. This picture continues to remind us of the Last Supper because all meals in the gospels look forward to that last meal. Eating and drinking in the gospel is an important symbol of the new community which shares table fellowship with Jesus; it’s a fellowship which also anticipates the feast of the redeemed in the kingdom of heaven. It is also a fellowship which is symbolised in every Eucharist – looking back to the Last Supper and forward to the Kingdom. Every Eucharist might therefore also be a subject for inquisitorial scanning. Does this Eucharist perform the right symbolic function? That is just as important a question as the one which asks, ‘Does this painting rightly present the Last Supper?’ And here of course right presentation does not have much to do with historical accuracy. The painting doesn’t have to present people in first century Palestinian dress in order to work; just as a Eucharist can have more than twelve guests and we don’t all have to sit round a table.
But what then does count as symbolic rightness? What makes a Eucharist authentic? At a simple level there has to be bread and wine and a table to put them on and people have to receive bread and wine and somewhere in the service they have to be reminded of the words which Jesus said at the actual Last Supper. Where modern liturgical debate has taken wing it has concerned the finer details of the interaction between the one who says Jesus’ words and the people who listen, and respond and receive. What is symbolically important about the relationships we try to create in the Eucharist?
In the past I’ve started confirmation classes by getting the candidates to design their ideal church. Almost always the churches are more or less round. The idea has sunk in very deeply that we should all be facing one another as it were around a table. That it seems is the only contemporary way for the symbolism of the Eucharist to work. It is a natural idea; after all Jesus faced his disciples at the last supper; in the early church we know celebrants faced their congregations over the altar. Only later did the idea grow up that the priest should celebrate with his back to the congregation in an oblong and often cruciform church. And that is the way most of our churches are designed; it is the way of celebrating the Eucharist with which some of us grew up. It is the way I started as a curate to celebrate the Eucharist. Here then is quite a powerful liturgical symbol which has changed – so what was the change from east to west facing celebrations meant to symbolise?
Back then we were taught that congregations were too individualistic – they were focussed on a vertical relationship with God ignoring their neighbours. They were not equipped either to act as communities or to realise together the mission of the church. If priest and people faced each other over the altar they would become more united, more equal in their responsibilities. The church would become a more welcoming and hospitable place. And to some extent that is what has happened. Of course it wasn’t true that all old fashioned east facing churches were unfriendly – certainly not the church I grew up in. But we do now all seem to make much more effort to be hospitable – we all like to see much more clearly what happens at the altar – we all like to see the priest’s face at the altar.
So does all this mean that the symbolism in our Eucharists of the last thirty years has made a change to church life and made it more authentic? Is such communal life the hall mark of authenticity? At the time of the change in the priest’s position two warnings were sounded. Would such change make the church more introverted – with everyone as it were facing inwards rather than facing up and beyond? And second, would an element of mystery and transcendence be lost as a result of this emphasis on God in one another rather than the God beyond us all?
These are old questions to do with liturgical battles fought long ago but it may be that we should return to them from time to time in the light of different gospel passages about meals, such as we have before us today which presents such difficulties for those who like to give dinner parties for their friends. It’s clear at least from the film Amazing Grace, that William Wilberforce took this passage literally. He often had an assortment of people in need at his table. And that was perhaps because he had first learnt the lesson of humility, which this passage also teaches, providing us with a further mark of liturgical authenticity. To what extent does our liturgy free us from a preoccupation with ourselves, our concerns and interests? To what extent does our liturgy open us to the possibility of relating to those who are in all sorts of ways different and challenging in their need, as Wilberforce was open to the needs of slaves? Is this a community sufficiently challenged by the otherness and difference of God so that our worship can deliver us from ourselves and make us humble enough to enter into and appreciate the otherness of the stranger? And if not, what do we need now to focus on to help such new marks of authenticity to develop? I’m not suggesting that I turn to face the other way at the altar – though it would be interesting after all these years to see what effect that had. I am suggesting that we need other things to focus on than the celebrant’s face and voice – as though he or she were the central performer – a contrivance that puts tremendous strain on the celebrant. We need to make more perhaps of intervals of relaxed stillness, of concentration on the altar and what it holds for us. As Augustine puts it, ‘It is the mystery of yourselves that is laid on the Lord’s table, it is the mystery of yourselves that you receive. To that which you are you answer, Amen.’ By which he means that in the Eucharist we offer ourselves to become more than ourselves in the body of Christ.
At first sight the problem with Veronese’s painting seems to be that most of the figures are unrelated to the central figure of Jesus. Yet knowing the story as we do, we know that in a moment everything will change as Jesus picks up the bread on the table in front of him. If we know the story then we may catch our breath because we sense how everything is about to change for this extraordinary mix of people in the picture. And that perhaps is where God is most present in the Eucharist; the moments at which we pause and are given a sense that something is about to change for us, because God is here for us and with us and in us. Amen.