Canter Bridge

Bon appétit!, we say, and we tuck excitedly into the feast. Eyes bigger than stomach. So many dishes, so little time.

Where power is in play and self-restraint is absent, the banquet becomes a feast of death.

When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you have a big appetite. Do not desire the ruler’s delicacies, for they are deceptive food. (Proverbs 23:1–3 NRSV)

The Bible carves out a celebrated space for feasting. The biblical witness is no killjoy. It knows how to fast, when things come down to that, but it enjoys a good meal when they don’t.

Still, its clear-eyed view about power equations leads biblical wisdom to place before the wise-person-in-training a countervailing call to self-restraint.

It is the Proverbs’ knowing eye that moves its instruction in this direction. Probably, the proverb reserves comment on the motives of the ruler in question. Does he mean to corrupt? Or is he merely treating a subject to a fine evening, placing good food and wine above the ordinary bloke’s normal price point in appreciation for a hard-working man or woman who has earned a little treat and spends too little on himself anyway?

We cannot know. The ruler is neither elevated as righteous nor despised as corrupt. His fate is not in question.

It is rather the ordinary guest on his special evening who is summoned not to dive mindlessly into the feast. Too much is at stake for him or for her.

It is so easy to be bought off before one even realizes the possibility of it. Let gluttony flow at a king’s feast, and you become dependent on the king. You owe him. You’re now more deeply in his service than you ever intended, deeper than your ordinary dignity would allow you to stoop. The feast boggled the mind, and you forgot yourself.

Step back before it ever begins, the proverb counsels. Put a knife to your throat before you throw down the thick steak or toss back the Cabernet.

It would be a shame to forgo this table full of feasting. But you could live with that. Tomorrow would not be so different for having missed a sumptuous meal.

But you can’t live without your liberty of conscience. No feast is worth it.

A king’s feast—perhaps we are to understand that the power dynamics are like this no matter how innocent the king himself might be—is a bread of lies. It deceives. It means more than the untrained appetite can know. The ruler’s bounty has implications. It isn’t really free.

Don’t be bought, we are instructed. Don’t sell yourself.

Push yourself back from the table, let the metaphorical knife your hand holds press into your own throat long enough to wake yourself up from the enchanted, caloric moment.

Your stomach may grumble in the wee hours. But you’ll be free.