Reverend Willie’s Sunday Soup Supper Sermon
    
    It was the first Sunday of Spring the morning of Reverend Willie’s Sunday Soup Supper Sermon. Outside the Free Will Baptist Church a sweet refrain of Faith of our Father’s flooded through clean panes of glass polished only the day before by Sister Hilda and her Sisters in Service Club crew. A joyful noise unto the Lord mingled with a fine mist of rain onto the lush green grass of the white clapboard structure, blessing the earth of the cozy rural Valley of Tennessee with the essence of hope and faith. Inside the welcoming walls of God’s house, Sister Beatrice sighed in relief as she finished up on the old oak pump organ with the final chords of an “Ahhhhhhh men” and Brother Diggs, official song leader, bid the congregation to be seated. 
    Reverend Willie Coot, with the light of his zeal radiating through his black shiny countenance like something from beyond the sunset, grabbed hold of the oak pulpit with his two strong God-fearing hands. The shocks of his white wiry hair somehow seemed to pick up the energy of the moment, and as he leaned forward, looking and smiling with his robust countenance, folks knew he was “on fire” for the Lord this morning, and the sermon would be a good one. 
Reverend Willie took a moment to glance away from the congregation and nodded an approving thank you toward Sister Beatrice at the organ bench and Brother Diggs as he took his place on a pew beside his wife, Ophelia.
    As their pastor, once more turned his gaze toward their direction, the congregation rustled and murmured among themselves as they settled in on wooden pews for a hot message. Outside the drizzle on the windows, thunder rolled from the heavens, and somehow it seemed ominous.
    Reverend Willie smiled broadly, and looked to his left toward the window, then looked up heavenward and grinned, “Thank you Lawd for the wake-up call!” Then looking back down with his piercing brown eyes too and fro among the congregation, like a good Shepard taking count of his sheep, stated boldy, “Folks! I say God got our attention this morning and wants us to hear th’ word! No sleeping durin’ th’ sermon. Do I hear some amens from y’all?”
A chorus of “amens” flowed across the room along with a few whimpers from Sister Grace’s latest addition, awakened from a peaceful slumber.
    “Well, discludin’ little Naomi who we just dedicated to God’s glory last week!” Reverend Willie smiled toward Sister Grace holding the bundled infant. 
    The congregation laughed, as sister Grace kissed the bundled babe on her forehead and put a bottle of milk in her mouth.
    “Well folks,” Reverend Willie boomed, “It is a good day, come rain or shine when you’se got your trust in God! And it’s a blest day too! Do I hear amen to dat!
Amens again filled the room.
    “Folks, there is somethin’ in the air, and that somethin’ sure smell good! That somethin’ be the good home made soup you all brought from home come waftin’ up from the fellowship hall in th’ basement of God’s house waitin’ on us to eat it after services. Praise God for Sunday Soup Supper days. Mmmmmmm….mmmmm…..I’s tempted to make the message short today just to get myself a bowl of some of dat soup sooner than later, and some of Sister Carrie’s home made buttermilk bread rolls, but, Devil get behind me, I’s gonna pass that thought up! Ain’t cuttin’ corners on God’s word just for a bowl of soup or bread, even if it is from some of the best cooks in God’s glorious valley here in Tennessee.”
    Hearing her pastor’s words, little Serena Samuels called out, “My mama made chicken noodle soup, and my daddy kilt the chicken and I gots to help cut the noodles.”
    Even more so than before, the congregation burst into laughter, and Reverend Willie himself, chuckled and glanced heavenward once more and said, “Lawd have mercy,” then glancing toward Serena stated, “And I bet yo’ mama’s soup is better than that fancy stuff folks sell in the red can at the grocery store too Serena,”
    “Sho’ is Pasta!” she beamed.
    The congregation burst into laughter again as folks shook their heads and smiled toward Serena, whose mama quickly shushed her after receiving a hard glance from her chicken killing husband. 
    Serena looked down, embarrassed and twisted her pink cotton handkerchief into knots.
    Reverend Willie cleared his throat. “Well folks! Actually, the good Lawd, praise his holy name, done inspired me Saturday mornin’ while my dear wife, Elvira, was preparin’ her delicious Beef Barley Soup for today’s Sunday Supper. Lawd can speak to us through all kinds of stuff if our heart be open to what he got to say, and dis time he used the soup.
I was takin’ my ease after breakfast at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper at the time. My boy Isaac come into the kitchen to finish up the rest of his orange juice left over from breakfast and began watchin’ his mama cook the soup for today’s Sunday Supper. He smiled and licked his chops as he saw her put a couple nice chunks of center cut beef shanks into a pot with some salt and pepper and water. Isaac is mighty fond of beef with his mother’s good taste for groceries, and said that looked mighty tasty.”
    Reverend Willie winked, and smiled at his wife.
    Coughing slightly and centering his stance in front of the pulpit, Reverend Willie went on; ‘bout that time, the dog got a whiff of the fixin’s and come into the kitchen too.” 
    The congregation tittered slightly.
    Reverend Willie cleared his throat and continued. 
    ”That’s when I suggested Isaac take the dog outside to play. Kitchen was getting’ crowded and dog was jumpin’ round, so he and Rags went outside fer a spell and when he come in he saw his mama was crying wit’ big tears comin’ down her cheeks. Isaac got all worried and axed her what was wrong, and she said she was makin’ the soup, and nothin’ was wrong. He said, “But Mama you crying bad like someone hurt your feelin’s or somethin’.” And his mama tell him that she was just cuttin’ up onions for the soup, and onion cuttin’ makes folks cry. Course Isaac pushed it and wondered why onions make folks cry, and Elvira say she doesn’t know but it just works that way on account of the what comes outa them into the air.” 
    Reverend Willie cleared his throat and glanced affectionately toward his wife Elvira sitting in the front pew, then said with some sentiment, “Well, Isaac told his mama he thought onions were nasty, and he reckoned that they make the soup taste nasty too. That’s when his mama told him that wasn’t true. The other stuff in the soup can taste better cause of the onions. That’s when God got my attention on the situation to listen cause there was a message here for all of us dis mornin’.” 
    A few of the women in the congregation whispered to each other then redirected their gaze toward Reverend Willie. He had their attention. 
    “By this time Elvira had got a jar of green leaves out of the cupboard. Now she really had Isaac’s interest cause his eyes got big as moon pies when he seen his mama throw a couple of them leaves into the big cookin’ pot. This time Isaac got kinda loud and tells his mama that Miss Talley, his teacher, say caterpillars and bugs eat leaves just like that, and we is folks, not bugs, gonna be eatin’ the soup. He axed his mama if she was crazy. That’s when I tell him to be respectful of his mama whether he thinks she crazy or not, and your Sister in Christ reprimanded her husband, yo’ pasta, and laughed and told our boy that the leaves was bay leaves for seasoning, and they going to make all the difference in the flavorin’. 
    The congregation looked toward Sister Elvira Coot and chuckled.
Reverend Willie cleared his throat once again, looked up heavenward for inspiration, then leaned on his pulpit and continued, “Isaac just settled in and watched his mama cook, real quiet like, as she chopped up carrots and celery, and then he say to his mama that’s the good stuff, speakin’ his approval. She reached up in the cupboard and grabbed another jar of what looked like dried grass and threw it in the pot too, and Isaac just looked up at me real sheepish and kept on watchin’ his mama not sayin’ a word wit’ his mouth but thinkin’ real loud.”
    The congregation laughed again.
    Reverend Willie went on, “Elvira just smiled, poured me another cup of coffee, bless her soul, and put the fixin’s into the beef broth and stirred it with a big wooden spoon. Then she axed Isaac to please fetch her the big white sack in the pantry with the word barley on it. Isaac did as he was told and put the bag on the counter top over by the soup pot.” 
As Sister Coot scooped up cups of barley into a big mixin’ bowl for washin’ to be puttin’ it in the soup, Isaac whispered to his mama, ‘those things look like little white rocks,’ Then he scooped up a handful and say, ‘they feel like rocks too’.”
    A few of the little girls in the church giggled and looked over toward Isaac Coot, sitting by his mama. Isaac blushed as his mother gave him a gentle reassuring hug. “It’s o.k. Baby,” she whispered. 
    Isaac looked up at his mama and smiled.
    “Well,” Reverend Willie continued, “that’s when your sister in Christ, my dear precious wife, said to our boy those profound words that they was hard, but with time cookin’ they gonna be soft and not hard no more and everything gonna taste wonderful, specially with Sister Carrie’s buttermilk bread rolls. That when Isaac grinned real big.”
Reverend Willie winked over in Sister Carrie’s direction and said, “Do I hear an amen folks. She been kneadin’ bread all night long so’s we have the best,”
    The congregation said, “Amen!” and smiled toward sister Carrie’s direction.
    “Brothers and Sisters, we all get discouraged now and then. Sometimes things happen and we ax God why and things don’t seem to fit in for what we want or what seems right, just like those leaves in that soup pot. Good book say we gotta fight the fight for faith. Do I hear an Amen?” Reverend Willie boomed.
    Amens resonated loudly off the walls of the room.
    “Well truth of the matter is Brothers and Sisters, that even when we’s uncomfortable or not happy with the way things be at the time, be it a person, place, thing or situation, we is where we is suppose to be at the time in God’s timin’. Soup is not done yet. Understand! Do I hear an amen?” Reverend Willie’s nostrils flared with passion. 
Amens came with applause.
    “Until I trust God’s plan for my molding as his child, I will not be able to get to the full flavor of the soup that is His specific recipe for my life. We likes the beef and the carrots and the celery cause we know what they’s about. They be the good things come along in life. But when the things we don’t understand get throwed in, like the leaves and grass and rocky stuff, into the soup pot of our lives, we say we don’t want them. Truth of the matter, with God’s time they gonna become part of the soup and all fit together for good, and we knows we good folks and God just always workin’ on makin’ us better and these gradients part of the picture. I’s heard those big city folks what make cook book contests, that Betty Crocker lady for example, on educational t.v., talkin’ about test kitchens where they make the food better cookin’ it different ways. We’s the soup in God’s test kitchen, and our test durin’ the cookin’ process is to trust him in his own kitchen with his own gradients, which is us, and know he’s flavornin’ us real good. Maybe the heat gets turned up a bit now and then, but he ain’t gonna burn us. Devil be cursed, he will given a chance, but we ain’t gonna let that happen is we!”
Reverend Willie pounded the top of his podium with a heavy fist.
    Amens and clapping were only superceded by rolls of thunder from the Tennessee skies.
Reverend Willie looked heavenward and said laughing, “Guess the Lawd is slamming around a few of them soup kettles up there in the heavens.”
    The congregation laughed.
    “Well folks! It’s time to sing our closin’ song and proceed downstairs to the Fellowship Hall for the fruits of our Sisters’ labor. Mmmm mmmm sure do smell good!
Remember to encourage one another. The good book says you are the salt of the earth when you do. Even the best soup can use a little salt.”
    Reverend Willie winked and smiled at his flock.
    Now Sister Bea, will you please play Blest Be the Tie that Binds for our closing song, and Brother Diggs, come direct us in a joyful noise unto the Lord and his provision. Praise be his name. Mmmmm…that soup do smell good!”
    Downstairs in the fellowship hall a Sunday Soup Supper of camaraderie, not to mention Sister Elsbeth’s apple cinnamon cobbler, awaited Reverend Willie and his flock, and when the day was done,“all would be joined in heart and hope to meet again” inside the welcoming walls of God’s house in the verdant green valley of Tennessee.

jennifer grant