Soup and Prayer
"Dad, why were you talking about soup in church today?" That was Eshetu's question as we finished scraping the last of the winter ice from our driveway in the late afternoon on Sunday. I assumed, wrongly, that he was talking about my announcement about our Wednesday soup suppers followed by evening prayer (6p and 7p respectively, if you'd care to join us tomorrow!). "Not the soup suppers. You were praying for soup. Why were you doing that?" I can assure you that at no time during worship was I praying for soup. My sermon had not been about soup either. I began with a connection to our brothers and sisters hurt by the Haiti earthquake. I got in a jab on Pat Robertson and his January 13th suggestion that the plight of the Haitians was somehow connected to what he called a pact with the devil. I connected that stupidity with the stupidity of those who approach Jesus in Luke 13 with a question of cosmic justice. But at no time did I pray for soup. And the...