Invitations to Abundance

Invitations to Abundance by Alicia J. Akins is a deep dive into the redemptive history of the Bible commemorated and understood through feasts. Feasts to remember, to mark the beginning and end of harvest season, to gain wisdom, and to celebrate understanding. Feasts of victory, hope, mercy, pardon, and restoration. Feasts for the hungry and excluded in dry, barren, wilderness spaces.

From the Jewish feasts such as Passover and Yom Kippur, to the parables of the New Testament, to the times Jesus sat and feasted with tax collectors and sinners, to the last supper and the institution of what we hunger and thirst for in our weekly eucharist—they all point to the final marriage supper of the lamb. 

While Akins clearly brings rich seminary training to the topic, what I most appreciated was her vulnerable storytelling and sincere desire for us to step into richness, comforting presence, and God’s initiating kindness as he spread a feast before us.

She ends her book asserting that those invited to the table become the inviters: “When we are secure in our acceptance of God, rather than slaving away after it, and can lay to rest all other such strivings, it invites others to do the same.” This is indeed the posture of her writing. As one who has tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord in her own wilderness spaces, she writes as one eager to share the grace she has found and generously gather the rest of us on that narrow path to abundant life.

As Akins says, “The feasts of the Gospels are brought to fruition here as well: the repentant are welcomed home and cloaked in robes of grace they could never have earned. The last, at last, are first, and the humble, exalted. Jesus once more eats the Passover meal, because its meaning is fulfilled in this kingdom: his union with his people is complete.”

In addition to her rich exposition, I highly value the kinds of questions Akins asks. After walking us through the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery, she asks, “Am I content to live as though the only power I have available to me is my own? If the chaos of the sea could be subdued to allow them safe passage, what couldn’t God do? Does the intimacy of God make less bleak the inhospitable barren wilderness?” And in her chapter on Wisdom’s feast—a favorite for both me and the author!—she asks, “Does wisdom captivate you? Are you enthralled by her beauty? Among all that can be gained, is she your prize? Would you forsake all else—pride, priorities, counterfeits—to make her yours?” 

Each chapter ends with a written liturgy: for remembrance, provision, God’s presence, victory, refreshment, wisdom, restoration, understanding, inclusion, prdon, the Lord’s Supper, and for unity. I intend to go back and read these during the feast days of Lent.

This book follows the grand redemptive narrative of Scripture from Old to New Testament offering us ways to “keep the feast” as we say each week in our Anglican liturgy after partaking of the bread and wine. We find ourselves in the already, but not yet. We taste scarcity and ruin, and yet we find repair, renewal, and the fattened calf. Or as Akins put it, “Ahead we see replenishment and satisfaction, and behind we see its purchase.”

Also highlighted throughout the book is the theme of God’s particular care for the vulnerable, the poor, the hungry, and the excluded. When we talk about feasts and consider who is invited to the table, we must remember kingdom reversals and counter-cultural generosity.

Consider this instruction in the Old Testament: “Festivities flowed from the recognition that what we have isn’t ours. Margin was to share, not to indulge.” And the example of Jesus at the great banquet in Luke 14: “Our Lord welcomed the uninvited and outcast as honored guests at his table. To truly understand his heart and ministry, we must go and do likewise.”

As I turned the last page of Akins’ book, I heard myself humming one of my favorite hymns. One that I look forward to singing in six weeks on Easter Sunday as we remember again what it cost to extend an invitation to the marriage supper of the lamb. 

“I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me shall not hunger;

he who believes in me shall not thirst.

No one can come to me

unless the Father draw him.

And I will raise him up,

and I will raise him up,

and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Purchase Alicia’s book here.