It’s been an ugly week in Catholic discourse, again.
I saw the clips of the opening of the Olympics, and I heard all the arguments. I heard people quivering with outrage because a crowned woman surrounded by drag queens was acting out a gross and deliberate mockery of the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci; and I heard others snottily correcting them and claiming the scene was obviously echoing a Bacchanal, probably specifically “The Feast of the Gods” by Jan Hermansz van Bijlert, which explains the tubby blue Dionysus lounging on a plate of fruit. Everybody knows that famous ban Bijlert painting, duh.
An Olympics spokesperson said,“Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance,” and many readers took this statement as a denial that there was any intentional reference to the Last Supper. But Barbara Butch, the crowned woman at the center of the scene, posted an Instagram story comparing the two images, with the caption: “OH YES! OH YES! THE NEW GAY TESTAMENT!”
I’m pretty sure it was intended as both: A snarky little nod to the Last Supper, and an equally facile gesture in the direction of ancient Greek history. It’s the Olympics! Here’s a god! It’s a cultural moment! Here’s the DaVinky thing! Lights! Drag! Naughty bulges! Tee hee!
I think that’s all it was. Just the usual flashy mess that passes for artistic expression: A tossed salad of visual moments that read as significant because they’re vaguely familiar, and no one has to put in the effort of actually meaning anything or knowing what you’re suggesting (or even knowing what you’re parodying). Serve it dressed with plausible deniability so the Christians will freak out and make themselves look silly, and there it is. My main critique of the whole is that it’s so incredibly boring to talk about (and honestly, if I were a drag queen, I’d start to resent how often I get trotted out to buy some cheap headlines). The public seem to have an endless appetite for this particular flavor of controversy, though, so people keep serving it up.
So let’s take it at face value. What does it mean to see the Last Supper and a Bacchanal on the same stage? Even if you think the Last Supper imagery wasn’t intentionally there, they’re both there on the stage of public discourse now. So let’s talk about that.
We could say that the Last Supper represents sacrifice and redemptive suffering and everything Christianity stands for, whereas a drag bacchanal represents excess and broken boundaries and everything modern secular culture stands for. And if you’ve seen them both, you have to chose one or the other.
You could say that, but you’d have to wake me up before the end of the sentence, because you’re boring me to death.
What if, instead, we talk about who we are, and what we have to offer?
Last week, my family visited a city, which we rarely do. My kids are not used to tall buildings or traffic; and they’re not used to homeless encampments. So when we started walking down a block lined with scruffy, dirty men, I quietly told my youngest to move to the other side of me. I wanted to protect her, just in case.
It wasn’t the wrong thing to do. I don’t know these men, and it wasn’t unreasonable to worry that they might hurt or scare my kid. But as I passed by, one gentlemen, tall, shaggy, and very dirty, called out “You have a good day, ma’am.” He smiled toothlessly, and bowed his head as we passed.
I felt like absolute trash. I know I hurt his feelings by shielding my child from his presence. Again, it was only the prudent thing to do, but I think I will remember that man and his smile for the rest of my life. This man who had so little went out of his way to let me know he meant no harm, and to offer reassurance.
A moment ago, I was the wholesome, wealthy, sane one holding my child’s hand and striding purposefully toward my destination, and then suddenly, in his eyes, I was the beggar in need of consolation. It’s strange how quickly these things can shift. I went into the situation thinking the man was a threat, but he knew himself as someone with something to offer.
I thought of him again during the readings at Mass this morning: The multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Jesus comes with nothing, no apparent plan, no preparation, no way to feed the multitudes. But the people are drawn to him. They want to go over to his side, because it’s so clear he has something to offer. So he reassures them, and he feeds them. He does this because he knows who he is: Despite how empty-handed he appears, he is the one who has something to offer. He knows who he is. He is the one who feeds.
Several people argued that Christians have no call to be offended over anyone appropriating the imagery of Leonardo’s Last Supper. It’s not even really a Christian image anymore, because it has so thoroughly passed over into the public imagination, it’s bigger than Christianity now. It’s just a picture of people eating together, being together, having a moment together around a charismatic figure. The image may have been scriptural once, but it really isn’t, anymore; and the Christians who are stamping their feet and calling it blasphemy are now actually the intruders, the uninvited guests at the feast. They’re the ones who don’t belong, and are dirtying up the sidewalk and posing a threat.
I kind of agree.
The whole point of our faith is that we live in a place of generosity. Jesus is the generous one, the depthless fountain, the vine that never stops fruiting, the lamb who was slain once and now feeds us with his flesh forever and ever, without suffering, without loss, without depletion. The one who feeds. That is who we are with, at whose table we sit.
We can, in other words, afford . . . this. Whatever it is, whatever was intended. We can afford to give our imagery away. We can afford to give everything away, because are so incredibly, unspeakably wealthy, because we sit at a table with the Lord. We’re not going to run out. And if we feel like we are, if we are afraid of what will become of our faith, it’s because we’ve allowed our faith to become an empty image, and we think it can be harmed.
The real faith is inexhaustible. We may ourselves be tired, but our faith is not; and Jesus is not. Cannot be exhausted.
I understand the cultural moment we’re at. I try to be prudent, and so I am fearful, and I want to shield myself and my children from the dirty and threatening things that line the path we have to walk together. Just yesterday, my same youngest child wanted to buy a pretty piece of rose quartz at a children’s fair, and the woman selling it had plastered her cash register with pentagrams and slogans cheering for abortion. How do we walk this path? Some days I am in despair, because I haven’t shielded my children well enough, and I know it. I wish I had done a better job of putting myself in between them and potential harms.
But I also see is how poor the world is. Poor in imagination, poor in theology. Starving to death amid plenty, writhing around on a giant platter of fruit, but all of it artificial, painted and empty. They are so needy, they can’t even think come up with their own party, but they must borrow from all those fake gods, that Dionysus, that Jesus. Instead of joy, all they have is an eternal “tee hee.”
I also want to remember who I am, and where I stand.
I know that some people see me as the threat: I am, in so many people’s eyes, the intolerant conservative, the TERF, the oppressor, with my narrow mind and impure body of thought. Because of what I believe, I am potentially violent. Maybe I’m insane, maybe I have fleas, maybe I bite. At very least, I have my beggar’s hand out, needy, desperate with self-pity. I represent a church that, in their eyes, perpetually condones abuse and oppression, and a theology that says nothing but no, no, no. Sometimes I want to reassure the non-Christian I meet with a little smile: I will not hurt you. I’m just living my life. You have a good day, now.
But it’s not my theology that’s at fault. It’s not my faith; it’s me. I perpetually forget myself, who I am, where I sit. Here I am, stuffed to the gills with the goodness of God and all I can think to do is bitch and whine that somebody borrowed my painting without asking. Je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine.
So, which is it? Am I a beggar, or am I a rich woman who strides coldly by? Am I an oppressor, or am I on the side of lovelovelove? Am I mocked and persecuted, or am I thin-skinned and self-obsessed? Am I hungry and in need? Or have I been fed with the bread of life itself?
Both. Neither. All of the above. That’s what it means when the Last Supper and a Bacchanal are on the same stage in the year 2024. It means we live amid heaps of bounty empty of meaning, and also we are invited to sit down to a spare meal of bread and wine that will feed us forever. It means we have a bottomless budget for all the right ideas — love, tolerance, acceptance, peace, togetherness — without even wondering what lurks at the bottom of that well. And it means we have hours and hours to spend on Facebook posts and podcasts and Instagram stories, hotly defending our faith that knows the true meaning of love, and oops, the whole day went by and we didn’t feed anybody. It is wrong to mock the Last Supper without knowing or caring what it means. It is worse to defend the Last Supper by making it seem joyless and repellent.
If we sometimes feel like a beggar, and sometimes feel like heirs to unfathomable riches, it’s because it’s all true. That’s what it means to be a Christian, and to walk the narrow path. It’s weird, but it would be weirder if our the faith that gives our lives meaning could be compressed into a single image or soundbite or tableau.
I do have a message, though, and I think it’s better than “diversity and being together.” It is this:
Remember who you are. You are the one who has been fed. You are satiated. You can afford to share. Behave as if you know how rich you are, and then see if people will want to come to that heavy-laden table and eat.
