Simmerin' Soup

Blessings from the Michigan Area School for Pastoral Ministry.  If you’re a regular reader of my musings, you’ll know what that means, and if not, I can simply say I am away at school with 130 of my colleagues who are also pastors.  And what a morning it has been.  As I write we have just came out of our first morning sessions on the first day of school and have broken for lunch.  I could tell you about the motorcycle club that became the church to others in need, or reflect on some of the diverse images I have already seen on the large screens in front of me. 

Instead, I want to share soup with you.  Yes. Soup. Bishop Woodie White preached this morning during worship and he shared many illustrations, stories, and memories.  He was a young pastor in the Detroit area many, many years ago.  As a bishop in the United Methodist Church he’s a lifer.  Once called to be a bishop, always a bishop… even after retirement.  So Bishop White’s experiences are wide and deep.  He shared the story of a young seminarian in the south in the 60s who went to stand in solidarity with those who were being prevented from having a vote, even though they were Americans.  While standing in a crowd praying, he was shot by a police officer who was called to come “deal with the disturbance.”  It was not this young man’s fight, yet because it was his neighbor’s, he stood, and he died, in solidarity.  Bishop White also shared that this year was the first General Conference (worldwide meeting of UM churches) he had not attended since 1962.  I was born in 63.  I can only imagine all the issues he has seen the church deal with over those years. 

Yet I still come back to soup.  Bishop White shared that every Monday as a child his mother would make vegetable soup.  Only later in life did he realize why.  His mother cleaned the fridge each Monday and took all leftovers and created the soup.  He said there would be white potatoes and red tomatoes, yellow squash and even green okra.  His mother let it simmer together all day every Monday.  At dinner time everyone would join around the table and the pot of soup would be placed there in the middle of everyone… and the aroma would begin to waft by each of their noses.  Mom would then begin to ladle out scoop by scoop into their bowls. 

Bishop White, just a young boy then, would notice each time that the white potatoes were still white potatoes even though they had mingled with the other vegetables throughout the day.  And the red tomatoes would remain red tomatoes and the yellow squash would remain yellow squash, as well.  The okra, as Bishop told the story, sadly remained okra.  But something happened.  When he picked up his spoon and began to eat the soup, he would realize week in and week out that something had happened.  Something extraordinary had happened.  Although the potatoes remained potatoes and held all their integrity as potatoes, they were not the same potatoes for the tomatoes and the squash and even the okra had affected the potatoes… and made them even better.  And the tomatoes, though still tomatoes, were changed for the better as well.  And down the line this little boy would realize just how much being thrown in the same pot and spending time with each other throughout the day had made something spectacular happen.  He called it common ground.  A harmony of common ground had occurred; a ground where each could stand with integrity, but was transformed into something even more.  He admitted that even the okra had gotten better, yet of course, it was still okra. 

I hope you spend some time in a pot this week.  Simmer with those a little different than you.  I can’t wait to return home and inhale deeply.  The aroma will be stunning, I am sure.