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32nd Sunday B November 10, 2024
Diane DeDominics • November 13, 2024
32nd Sunday B
November 10, 2024
Years ago when I worked at the YMCA day camp, we decided to make stone soup. At the start of the day, I made a fire, took a pot and filled it with water. When it came time for the thought of the day, I told the story of Stone Soup. I placed in the pot a good size round stone to cook in the hot water. One by one each of the counselors brought something to add to the pot, stew beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, barley. Throughout the morning campers took turns stirring the soup, when it was time for lunch, all 60 campers and staff had a bowl of what I remember as the tastiest soup I ever had. (I still have the soup stone somewhere in a box of my many possessions.)
The story of the women in today’s reading reminded me of the Stone Soup at Willow Brook Day Camp. Stone Soup is about those who have little giving what they have and making it greater. In the original telling of the Stone Soup story the villagers see some hungry soldiers coming down the road and they hide all their food planning to ask the men to go to the next village to eat. When they tell them they wanted to make stone soup the villagers are intrigued and one by one add ingredients to make the soup “better.” The soup begins with a stone, but concludes with generosity. The willingness to share a little is multiplied and becomes greater.
I think this is how our God works; God takes the little we have and makes it greater. A generous spirit builds a greater spirit. The widow in the first reading gives of what little she has and is rewarded with a year’s worth of abundance. The widow gives her last two coins and finds her example still used as an object lesson today.
Life is more than the stuff we accumulate. The most important things we have are memories and our relationships. How often do we find that an object with little monetary value is worth piles of Gold because of what it evokes in us for the memories it entails?I love to collect old books and when I find flowers or leaves pressed between the pages I wonder what day or memory this leaf evoked for the one who saved it.
My soup stone is just a stone for most who will see it, but for me it evokes a memory of the best soup I ever ate.
In this month of November, we began with all saints day. In the history of the church we often collect items or body parts of holy persons, we call them relics. These relics are not valuable on their own, but for the man or woman they belonged to and what his/her life said to us about our relationship with our God.
What relics do you keep of friends and family members? What memories or lessons do they invoke? Why are they valuable to you?
In this month of November, we give thanks for the men and women God has placed in our lives. We give thanks for the lessons and memories which help us grow closer to our God.
We pray we may be generous like the women in today’s readings.
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