Easter 4  May 7, 2006

I want to tell you a story this morning, one of my favorite stories as a child, in fact, the story of Stone Soup. Perhaps you remember it.  In a small kingdom far away, it had been a hard year.  There wasn’t enough rain, and the harvest was poor.  Winter was long and cold, and the people of the kingdom were very afraid of running out of food before the next summer’s crop. One cold late winter evening, the army which had been out protecting the peace, marched into a village in this kingdom.  The army had been away from its post for a number of days and was completely out of food.  The soldiers were cold and hungry.  When they entered the village they set up camp, and the cook sent soldiers around to ask the villagers if they had any food to spare. But the villagers saw the soldiers coming and knowing that the soldiers would be hungry, hurried to hide what food they had, afraid of going hungry themselves. So time and again when the soldiers  knocked on doors they were turned away empty handed, being told that there was nothing to share. When the soldiers returned to camp without even a scrap, the cook was good-natured about it.  He had a large kettle of water boiling and he instructed the soldiers to go out and collect some stones for he would make them stone soup.  The soldiers did what he asked, and he dumped them in the kettle and stirred as they simmered, promising the soldiers that they would not be disappointed.

The cook’s good humor in the face of hunger was infectious and the soldiers waited expectantly for their soup.  One of the villagers happened to pass by, and noticing the good mood of the soldiers, paused to ask them what they were cooking.  “Oh, it’s stone soup,” the cook replied, “and I know it will be good. But it would be so much better if we had even one carrot to go into it.”  “Why, I might have just one carrot, “ replied the villager, and she hurried home and came back with  not just one carrot, but a small bunch. Meanwhile another villager wandered by and asked about the soup.  “It’s stone soup with carrots.  It will be delicious, but it would be even better if we had even one potato to add, “ the cook replied.  “One potato?  I think I have potato”, and the villager hurried off, returning with a handful of potatoes.  More villagers noticed the comings and goings and ventured out to see what was cooking.  And after inquiring about the soup, each returned home to find a beet, or a turnip, or parsnip, or a handful of beans.  And soon the kettle was full of a thick vegetable soup, more than enough to feed all the soldiers and all the villagers, with some left over for the next day.  That night no one went to bed hungry.

What happened in this story seemed magical to me when I was a child, and in a way it still does.  What happened was that the villagers learned that by pooling their resources, instead of each family scarcely having enough to get by on, the whole village AND the army were well fed.  They learned that generosity trumped self-centeredness, and that as a community they could do far more together than they could acting as individuals.

The apostles in today’s reading from Acts seemed to have learned this lesson as well. In Acts, the only narrative account we have in the canonical scriptures that tells us what life was like for Jesus’ followers after his death and resurrection,  we see a community of faith—the apostles, and those who have come to believe in Jesus--striving to live out the gospel that Jesus taught during his earthly ministry as they also grapple with what his life and death meant. As a community they had come to depend on one another; they pooled their resources—whatever they had was put into a common purse, and distributed to take care of the needs of all. They lived generously because they felt loved generously, and because they felt the generous grace of the Holy Spirit among them. As a result, there were no poor or needy among them.  

Like the story of stone soup, I’ve always found this passage compelling—the notion that Christians might pool their resources, might redistribute goods so that no one had any need, that it might be possible to have a community in which no one was in need.  I admit to being drawn to the idea.  But the other thing I’ve found fascinating is the reaction I see whenever this passage is discussed.  People run from this passage.  They come up with all sorts of explanations and disclaimers to show why this idea is no longer applicable in our world. They recoil from the notion that perhaps the disciples were modeling for us the way we ‘ought’ to live. They are adamant that this is NOT what Christians are called today—it’s impossible, it’s irrelevant in the modern world, it reeks of socialism or communism. . I’m bemused by the vehemence of these responses, and I think that this vehemence speaks volumes about our fear and our need to be in control of our lives. What I’d like to suggest today is that we reconsider this passage and  that we think about two things: What it might mean for the world if we could do this even in a small way, if we could emulate this generosity of spirit in our own lives, and what is it that keeps us from doing so?

Scripture, both old and new testaments, in the writings of the prophets and in all the gospels, is full of injunctions about our obligations to care for the poor, and warnings about the dangers of building up wealth for ourselves.  Our other readings for today speak to this: the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd that we encounter in the gospel not only reassures us that we will be cared for by God, lovingly as a shepherd cares for his flock, but also holds up for us the model of the Good Shepherd to instruct us on how we should care for others. The prophet Ezekiel in our old testament reading reminds us what happens when shepherds care for themselves while leaving their flocks to go astray—they earn the wrath of God.

Yet we continue to struggle with how we should live this out.  It’s likely always been a struggle, but it’s especially difficult for us today, living in a culture that supports independence and self-reliance above all else, in a culture that makes looking out for oneself a primary virtue, and a culture in which one can never have enough.  Of course, independence, and self-reliance can be positive traits, and looking out for one’s self is necessary.  But the risk is that over-emphasis on these traits can draw us away from God.  And our cultural emphasis on these traits cause us to deemphasize other traits—interdependence, compassion, generosity—that bring us closer to God and what God is calling us to do and be.

Jesus, in fact, calls us to be counter-cultural—to resist the dominant values of our culture when they pull us away from God.  Jesus reassures us that God’s love for us is ever present AND he calls us to be that love manifest in the world, to set aside our narrow self-interest and look to the greater good. Just as a shepherd must sometimes risk his own safety to care for his flock, so too we are called to risk our own self-insured security to care for others. This is a scary thing for us.  We are loathe to give up feeling safe and we are reluctant to admit the extent of our self-centeredness. Perhaps it is part of our falleness as humans that we consistently put ourselves first and fail to see the needs of others on the same level as our own needs; perhaps it is part of our falleness that we are afraid—afraid to really reach out to others, afraid to loosen our tight control on our lives. Like the villagers in the Stone Soup story, we fear that by sharing too much we ourselves will not be taken care of.

Our falleness is not the end of the story, however.  Jesus, our Good Shepherd, has redeemed us, has freed us from that falleness. And in our best moments we live that out. We live it out when we are able to care for others as much as we care for ourselves.  We live it out as we respond with generosity in times of tragedy—witness the outpouring that has occurred since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans last fall.  Like the villagers, we get a glimpse of the Kingdom when we allow ourselves to let go and be fully part of the community. But how much more could we accomplish if we could let go of our fear, if we could widen our focus and consistently think of the good of the community before we think of ourselves?  If we could consistently put generosity ahead of self-interest? If we could, as the community in Jerusalem did, act together so that no one was in need.? What might the world be like if we could be good shepherds for each other as Jesus is our Good Shepherd? Can we imagine such a world?  Dare we?

AMEN