Stone Soup

Stone Soup

Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to

             give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven                            good things to those who ask Him!”        Matthew 7:9-11

Many of you have read or heard the story about ‘Stone Soup’, but I have put it here to read again:

Some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travelers. Then the travelers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out, so that gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which has not reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, the stone (being inedible) is removed from the pot, and a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all. Although the travelers have thus tricked the villagers into sharing their food with them, they have successfully transformed it into a tasty and nutritious meal which they share with the donors.

Reading this again reminded me of a church when it began.  To start with, it was just a building; an empty building.  At first some people scoffed at the idea of building a church in a pine grove off a highway.  They said that no one would come there because it was in the country and also because the pastor and his wife were young and inexperienced.  However, people began to come.

They came from many different places; some totally un-churched.  They came from the city, from the country and from great distances.  Each one was different and in their differences brought different flavors and different ideas.  Some were already saved and those that weren’t soon accepted Jesus as their Savior.

I hope you get the picture; the building is the pot and it takes all different kinds of seasoning to make a delicious soup, or a great mixture of people to make a great church. The main ingredient that must be part of the flavor is a huge cup of love. Sometimes something is put into the pot that doesn’t taste good, so gradually it must be strained out of the pot and thrown away before it spoils all the soup. That is the stone. At times the soup gets cold and the Holy Spirit comes in and relights the fire until it flames up and heats up the soup again. You may get other stones in the church at times so don’t let it remain there too long so it will ruin the soup.

This is called a church!  It is gradually changing and if it doesn’t people get bored.  Ask yourself this, could you eat the same soup day after day for years?  Of course not!  People come and they go in most churches and that’s okay.  Maybe they need to go somewhere else that needs more flavoring.  But remember this; if you leave you take some of the seasoning with you, but maybe God wants you to stay so the soup tastes better.

Our job is to make our soup more favorable and we do that by asking friends and neighbors if they have something to add to the soup.  On the other hand, they may be hungry and just need to be encouraged to come and share our soup.   

This is how churches are built and in spite of what you may think, if the Word of God is shared in the building, whether from the pulpit, Bible studies or children’s church, it goes forth and will not return void. [Isaiah 55:11]  That is what you may call a successful church.

There is a great opportunity in these times to allow God to stir up the soup and add more flavor to it.  Just remember that it is not the Pastor’s job to add the seasoning.  It is our job, and I should not say job, but an opportunity to bring them in.

Again I turn to my old and tattered song book of my youth.  There is a song in there called, ‘Bring Them In’.  The second verse goes like this:

 “Who’ll go and help this Shepherd kind, Help Him the wandering ones to find?  Who’ll bring the lost ones to the fold, where they’ll be sheltered from the cold?”

Chorus:  “Bring them in, bring them in, bring them in from the fields of sin; bring them in, bring them in, bring the wandering ones to Jesus.”

Go out and bring the seasoning in for our Stone Soup.