[Wisdom calls out:] "Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed" (Proverbs 9:5).

I have a hard time understanding why church, faith, spirituality, and wisdom have become such heavy, sober, solemn concepts in our world today.  I mean, I get it that we (church people, people of faith, people who prioritize spirituality and wisdom) have made it to be this way -- and thus, it makes perfect sense that the rest of the world would develop this association -- but why have we allowed it to become this way?  I worry that we've come to take ourselves (and the rest of the world) too seriously, and we've developed a brand of religion that comes up far short of God's original intent for our relation to Him.

Take wisdom, for instance.  My automatic mental image of wisdom is an old man with a very long beard, sitting perfectly still and answering any question with a cryptic saying or question of his own.  Either that, or I think of it as something that is acquired in a disciplined, figurative lecture-hall setting -- something that comes as the result of diligent study, hours and hours of homework, and careful clinical application.  That is to say:  I do not typically think of the process of growing wiser as being something that happens in the context of a party or feast.  Yet this is exactly how the process of acquiring wisdom is described in Proverbs 9:5 (and elsewhere within the Proverbs as well).  Wisdom has prepared a lavish meal -- meats and cheeses, breads and sacues, fruits and vegetables -- and has put out bottles and bottles of fine mixed wine, just for the occasion.  And we've all been invited to sit at the table and enjoy ourselves.  This is what wisdom is like.  It's not dry, academic, cerebral training; it's feasting and partying in the company of charming, delightful, wise, and fun dinner guests.  Isn't this scenario so much more appealing than the lecture-hall scenario?!?!  So why do we tend to latch onto the solemn stuff instead of the serious stuff?

Ironically, the idea of a party or feast is a much more common metaphor for church, faith, spirituality, and wisdom than anything else.  Jesus routinely refers to the Kingdom of God as being like a feast or a banquet.  The annual observances and high holy days prescribed by Jewish laws were actually intended to be huge, extended-family festivals and feasts.  Even things like weddings and worship gatherings and taking communion together were meant to be occasions for feasting and celebrating (just read through the book of Acts for yourself, if you don't believe me).  All of these "religious" events were originally accompanied by lots of food and drink, toasts and dining-table traditions.  Thus, to think that we've turned them all into solemn ceremonies is scandalous!

I think we all need to teach ourselves to feast again.  We need to celebrate the Lord's Supper; not "observe communion."  We need to party from house to house, sharing our food with each other and getting everyone in on the fun; not "go to church."  We need to sit down to read the Bible as if we were sitting down at an elaborate feast, prepared by Wisdom Herself; not "do our devotions."  We need to learn to feast again.