Once upon a time in late winter—let’s say February, when the weather was cold and the last harvest was months ago—a man walked into a village carrying a pot. He set it down in the village square. He built a fire. He put the pot on the fire and filled it with water. Then he added a large stone.
The villagers were tucked in their separate houses but watching out their windows. They were curious. Who was this stranger? What was he doing? A few of them ventured out of their houses into the cold square.
“I’m making stone soup,” said the man when they asked. “It will be very good. You’re welcome to have some when it’s ready. It’s a very simple recipe—just water and a stone.”
One woman said, “Water and a stone?! It might taste better with a few potatoes. I’ll be right back.”
“That sounds delicious!” said the man. And in a short time the woman returned with potatoes all washed and chopped. She plopped them into the soup.
By now a few more people were standing around the fire, warming their hands and watching the pot. One said, “I have some [celery, onions, sausage, tomatoes, carrots, peas, beans, corn, zucchini, salt, smoked paprika….]
Soon the pot was very full. The man stirred it, and steam rose from the surface. It began to smell very good indeed. Everyone went and fetched bowls and spoons and a big ladle. And on that cold winter day when people had been isolated and alone in their homes worried about not having enough to eat, everyone ate this wonderful soup. They did it together, as a community. No one went to bed hungry that night.
Jesus says, “[D]o not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? . . . But strive first for the kin-dom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” [Matthew 6:25, 33] God knows you need things to eat and drink, something to wear. But don’t make that your top priority. Make God and God’s realm your primary goal, and everything else will fall into place around that.
How do we strive for God’s realm on earth? We seek relationship with God through prayer, meditation, through paying attention to being a beloved child of God living in God’s creation. We seek God’s righteousness by caring for each other, by working for justice, by sharing what we have.
As you heard during announcements, Amanda Aikman is teaching a “This I Believe” class. She has found wonderful essays for us to read, including one by a woman in West Virginia named Eve. And Eve’s story makes the point that Jesus is making in today’s reading. After 25 years of striving for the American dream—the mortgage, cable TV, success—it all fell apart, and Eve found herself homeless and alone with her truck and $56. She found a shack 4 miles up a dirt road in rural West Virginia. She had to pry plywood off a window in order to get inside. There was broken glass on the floor. She rented the place for $50 a month and gradually fixed it up.
She writes, “The locals knew nothing about me. But slowly, they started teaching me the art of being a neighbor. They dropped off blankets, candles, tools and canned deer meat, and they began sticking around to chat. They’d ask if I wanted to meet cousin Albie or go fishing, maybe get drunk some night. They started to teach me a belief in a different American dream — not the one of individual achievement but one of neighborliness.” [Eve Birch, “The Art of Being a Neighbor,” https://www.npr.org/2009/04/12/102961694/the-art-of-being-a-neighbor.]
Four years later, when Eve was back on her feet, she moved back into town and rented a house big enough so that she could take in others who were struggling. Just as people had been neighbors to her when she was broke and alone, she learned to pay it forward. She says of her housemates, “We’d all be in shelters if we hadn’t banded together. The American dream I believe in now is a shared one. It’s not so much about what I can get for myself; it’s about how we can all get by together.” [Ibid.] More stone soup.
Another story. Six people are huddled around a fire that is burning low on a very cold night. Each has a stick that could be added to the fire to keep it going and make them all warm. One thinks, “I’m not going to add my stick to the fire, because it would warm that person, who didn’t vote the same way I did.” Another thinks, “I’m not adding my stick, because it would warm that person who is a different religion.” Another refused because it would warm someone of another race. And so on. All of them held back the fuel that would have warmed them. And together they all froze to death, more from their frozen hearts than from anything else.
Our current government seems to be operating more like these people around the fire—very much a me first and me only attitude. It is trying to shut down the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, which works around the world distributing polio vaccines, AIDS medicines, food to places experiencing famine, and so much more. Caring for our neighbors around the planet is seen as inefficient, a waste of time and money. The thinking is apparently, “Who cares about those people? Let them die. They are not our problem.” This from a government that wants to prioritize the Christian faith. From a president who once had peaceful protesters cleared from a square so that he could have a photo op in front of a church he has never attended, holding up (upside down) a Bible that he never reads.
Thousands of government employees are receiving layoff notices. In the name of “efficiency,” life-saving programs are being dismantled at breathtaking speed. Apparently we don’t need to support farmers, or trans people, or immigrants and refugees. “America First” is the new motto, which seems to mean rich white cis-gendered America. And I guess everyone else can just fend for themselves.
“But strive first for the kin-dom of God and God’s righteousness,” Jesus says, “and all these things will be given to you as well.” The food, the drink, the clothes. Don’t worry about the stuff—the fancy car, the latest fashions. Just be a good neighbor—to your next-door neighbors, to the woman fixing up a shack out in the woods because she’s fallen on hard times, to the starving and sick neighbors all around the world. This is how we build God’s realm. This is how we create Pax Christi, the peace of Christ. Not by pulling funding and giving orders and laying people off, but by being good neighbors all over the world, by providing food and healthcare to those most in need.
“Do not worry,” says Jesus. Don’t worry?! Worry and fear hold us back, burn us out. So Jesus directs our attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, reminding us to take the long view, to stay connected to God and creation, to experience joy.
And we remember to practice gratitude. Like Mary Oliver, we listen for the bluebird singing with its whole body to celebrate a pink sunrise. We stare out the window and marvel at how the world is transformed into amazing beauty by a layer of snow. We watch the crocuses poke their purple and yellow flowers out of the slushy ground.
God is still here. God is still singing a joyful song. Seek God first. Listen for that song greeting the day and filling your soul with joy. And then be a good neighbor. Amen.