Welcome to the Feast
Welcome to the Feast
I confess that I am not often powerfully moved when visiting a museum. My favorite collection is often found in the café. But Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese grabbed my heart with The Wedding Feast at Cana.
My wife, Sharon, and I, along with our son Caleb, were in Paris for a few days of holiday and learning. We made the obligatory visit to the Louvre and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the largest art museum in the world. We made certain not to miss seeing the Mona Lisa—arguably the most famous painting on this planet.
I was incredulous when we walked into the room where it is displayed: Da Vinci’s masterpiece was celebrated like a rock star. A scrum of people surged as close as possible to the surprisingly small painting. So many pictures were being taken and videos shot, it was as if we were in a room full of paparazzi.
I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I was a little underwhelmed. The Mona Lisa is beautiful, but it looked small and distant on the large and otherwise empty wall.
Then I saw it.
On the opposite wall was the largest painting in the Louvre: The Wedding Feast at Cana. This is the painting the Mona Lisa looks at. There on a gargantuan canvas, with warm light emanating from His head, sat Jesus, the focal point of a great banquet. And he was looking right at me. Of the more than one hundred guests at this sumptuous feast, He was the only one looking at me.
I felt like He was inviting me in. Welcoming me.
Veronese seemed to feel this welcome when he created his astounding work of art. Part of what fascinates me is who he placed with Jesus at this wedding celebration. Mary and some of the apostles surround Jesus at the center of the table. But Veronese also included known historical figures, as well as some of his contemporaries, family, and close personal friends. And . . . he included himself. All of them are speechless and sated as they drink wine of eternal vintage in the presence of the Miracle Maker himself.
I was so moved as I stood before that stunning scene. I wanted to shout at the museum crowds, “You are focused on the wrong thing! Or at least the lesser thing! As beautiful as the Mona Lisa is, you should turn and look at what she looks at all day.” There, on the largest canvas in the largest museum in the world, was the greatest leader in the history of the world inviting us to a feast. And no one was paying attention.
To be fair, as I looked at the scene before me, I had some sense of what it represented. I had thought about it for years. I knew that Jesus had introduced himself to the world at this wedding celebration. That when He turned water into wine to gift a newly married couple and to satisfy and amaze all of their guests, it was the first indication of who He was and what He came to do. As John wrote in his gospel account of this feast, “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory.”
Furthermore, on that day in Paris, I had been in a season of thought and research concerning a new way of thinking about leadership. I was so discouraged with so much of the leadership I was seeing in the world around me. I knew I was not alone in this.
I believed—and I believe this now even more than I did then—that our world aches for a new kind of leader.
There in the Louvre, that leader sat looking right at me. Revealing to the world that a new kind of leader had, in fact arrived. A leader who would change everything and do it while inviting all of us in. Who would welcome us—in ways great and small—to follow Him. To Join Him in His mission.
At that moment I realized that Jesus was the prototype of the new kind of leader our world needs. A hospitable leader. Jesus is the ultimate hospitable leader.
“Jesus is the prototype of the kind of leader our world needs. A hospitable leader.”
The most successful leader in the history of the world led in a context of hospitality. Jesus often used—or created—hospitable environments to welcome people to himself and employ them in His mission.
One of the ways He described His kingdom was as a wedding feast that a king prepared for his son. A feast to which everyone is invited. How many kings would ever have described their kingdoms in this way? How many of us who lead could describe our leadership in terms of a feast?
Jesus fulfilled his mission in a framework of feasting, welcome, and invitation—hospitality. We can learn about hospitable leadership by extrapolating from the leadership story of Jesus. We can each learn to cultivate climates that feel like a feast.
Would you describe your leadership style as a feast? Why or why not? Drop a comment and tell us about it.
Adapted from The Hospitable Leader (Baker Publishing Group) by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.
By Paolo Veronese, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=160027
Learn more about The 5 Welcomes of Hospitality—based on the primary leadership methodology of Jesus—in this FREE download from my book The Hospitable Leader.