They Ate Sausages

“In Zurich they didn’t do revolts and rampages.  They ate sausages.  It was Lent of 1522, when twelve friends got together to hold a sausage-eating party.  Tradition had it that one was not supposed to eat meat during Lent.  These men wanted to defy human tradition.  Zwingli sat that one out: making gestures with sausages was not his way of reformation.  But he did publically defend his friends, for Lent, he argued, was just a human institution.  Christians are to worship only according to God’s command; to add human commands (about such things as what Christians can eat and when) was to add an unnecessary burden to people that Christ never asked his follwers to bear.”

Michael Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame, p.79-80