Brick Soup

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, NRSV

9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread through all of that district.

“Brick Soup”

I grew hearing an old folktale titled, “Stone Soup.” It tells the story of a traveler who comes to a town looking for food. However, the townsfolk are all rather poor and have already been forced to give away so much to passing soldiers that they can barely feed themselves. So the traveler simply said that he would make everyone a delicious pot of soup using only a stone. He set up a giant pot of boiling water in the town square and added a stone to the pot. As the “soup” cooked, he commented that it would be even better with some salt and pepper. Of course, that wasn’t too much to ask so one villager was able to bring some and add it to the pot. Then, the traveler remarked that it would be so much heartier with some carrots, cabbage, and potatoes. Different people came from the town to offer what vegetables they had. Eventually, some even had some leftover meat bones and barley they could add. In the end, this stone soup was not only delicious and filling but there was enough for the whole town to share in together.

One of the most difficult aspects of justice work is being able to focus on long-term goals in the midst of immediate suffering. We have a saying that if you give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day but if you teach a man to fish, you’ll feed him for a lifetime. However, this doesn’t negate the fact that it’s much easier to learn to fish when you’re not starving and if a person’s daily life is filled with simply fighting to stay fed, then they’ll never have the space to learn to fish, much less ask the question of who owns the pond and is stocking the fish. Oppressive systems of capitalism thrive by overwhelming citizens, by introducing so many concerns and immediate issues that it’s impossible to organize and fight for long-term justice. In the Stone Soup story, we see how communal poverty affects the charity of the townsfolk. What little they have, they’re forced to give to the soldiers to fund some war dictated by leaders who will likely never know violence nor hunger themselves. The townsfolk simply do not have the resources to feed another hunger mouth. We can’t survive one day and dismantle systems of poverty, injustice, and oppression the next.

I’m reminded of a poem by Vinay Krishnan that reads:

There’s laundry to do and a genocide to stop. I have to eat better and also avoid a plague. My rent went up $150. I’ll need to pick up more shifts. Twenty people died in Rafah this morning and every major news outlet is stretching the limits of passive voice to suggest whole families may have leaped up through the air at missiles that otherwise had the right of way. I just got a notification that my student loan payments are starting up again and my phone isn’t charged. My cousin got COVID for a fourth time and can no longer work or walk or even feed himself. The person across from me on the L train seems to fashion themself a punk rock revolutionary, but they’re not wearing a face mask, and that’s the kind of cognitive dissonance that makes me want to steal batteries. Fascists keep winning primaries for both parties, and I think I gained a few pounds. The CDC just announced there are no more speed limits on highways, and I think this Ativan is finally hitting. The NYPD farmer’s market only sells bad apples, have you heard that one? Listen, it’s warm today, too warm for March. But I don’t have time to think through the implications because there’s laundry to do and a genocide to stop.

We become stuck in this cycle of needing to keep going and all the while, there’s a genocide in Palestine and then our government is protecting a global system of human traffickers and then there are ICE agents terrorizing communities and then Trans people are facing laws to threaten their existence and then fishing boats are being bombed off the coast of Venezuela and then schools are being targeted in Iran while entire villages are being leveled in Lebanon. And now it is Pride month and every day, public threats are made against the queer community which might not be so scary if not for the fact that the threats are being made by those with the power to see them through. I want to fight against that because that’s my community and that’s my survival and those are my people being harmed and killed.

          So, when I’m fighting against my own government just to survive, tell me why Jesus is eating with tax collectors? Why is Jesus conversing with sinners? When my own children are dead or dying, why is he stopping to heal some other woman when I am suffering? Jesus tells us that those who are well have no need of a physician but we’re all struggling. We’re all in need of healing. Time and time again, Jesus proves to us that we don’t need to worry. It doesn’t matter if Lazarus or this young girl are dying or already dead, there is no such thing as “too late” for Christ and there is no such thing as unworthy. But we also recognize that we are not the messiah. We can’t reverse death and most of the time, we feel helpless to even stop more people from dying. So, we feed ourselves today and we tell ourselves that we’ll fight for someone else tomorrow.

We know that justice is not a pie, there is no limit to how much can be shared but there are still 24 hours in a day, and we feel the need to ration our devotion, our commitment. During June, we march with rainbows and we fight for the queer community. Then July is Disability Pride Month. February is Black History Month. March is Women’s History Month. November is Indigenous People’s Heritage Month. However, our military didn’t wait until November to target indigenous Arab people in Palestine and Lebanon and Iran. Our government didn’t wait until March to limit women’s access to healthcare. Naperville PD didn’t wait until February to ambush and arrest Black teens simply for jaywalking after publicly stating for a week that they would be out looking to arrest teens last Monday.

There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t see so many forms of injustice all happening at once and I feel angry and helpless at my inability to change that, at the lack of power I feel. I don’t know how to fish. I don’t know how to raise the dead or stop the bleeding. But, like my queer ancestors at Stonewall, I have a brick and we know the level of revolution that can start. It’s not enough to build a wall but might be enough to put a dent in one. One stone isn’t going to make a difference, and it definitely isn’t going to make a good soup. But if all this soup needs are carrots, then I have that. If other people also have some bricks to throw, then the wall could start to crumble. Symbolically, of course, for the sake of my ordination process. I can’t spare a full meal for someone, but I do have some cabbage. I can’t fix homophobia on my own but with my allies, I can. If I consider racism an issue for people of color rather than a sin of white culture, then racism will always be an issue. If we each stick to the issues that affect us, if we expect Jesus to prioritize our healing above someone else’s, then there will never be justice for all.

Any chef would recognize that “stone soup” is a bit of an ironic name for the dish served in this folktale. That would be like referring to French onion soup as “vinegar soup” or clam chowder as “flour stew.” The stone itself does not add to the flavor or the nutrients or even act as an ingredient at all. The stone is a catalyst to start the pot. The fire gets the water boiling and the stone tells the town that a soup is being made here. From there, the townsfolk saw that they could add something, that something was beginning and they could be a part of making it stronger. The first brick thrown at Stonewall didn’t break through the police barricade, but it was something new introduced to the environment.

In the 1960’s, gay bars tended to be owned by the mafia because it was illegal to serve alcohol to queer people and, well, what other business owner would stick their neck out for the queer community besides those who were already in the business of breaking the law. The mafia could provide protection in the midst of the regular police raids on gay bars, and they benefited from the exclusive cliental of a demographic that nobody else would risk serving. Even still, the police would routinely arrest gay crowds because they were an easy target. So why did the raid on Stonewall Inn end differently than all the others? Unlike many other gay bars, Stonewall didn’t cater only to white gay men. It was a place where homeless youth could find community and acceptance and shelter. It was a place where lesbians and bi women were welcomed. It was a place where drag queens and trans people were served. It was a place where Black and Latinx patrons could exist as full members of the community. And it was those people, the Black and Latinx drag queens and trans women and butch lesbians and homeless youth who had no other home, who threw the first bricks. The first brick is not cherished as some sort of holy relic but the revolution that it started lives on in perpetuity.

I’m reminded of the parable of the choir that points out how one singer can only hold a note for so long before losing their breath. However, when you have a full choir, one voice can start a note and others can join in and as the fermata continues, members can take breaths while the song continues because all the voices harmonize together. If Jesus walked past the tax collectors and sinners to only minister to his disciples, the church would have consisted entirely of 12 people. If Christ had walked past the woman bleeding to only heal the girl who he was asked to heal, then why would we expect Jesus to stop for us? If the travelers dined only on hot rock-flavored water, how far could they expect to travel? Stonewall went from being a gay bar to a riot and a revolution because the community stepped up, because it was an intersectional movement of people in need, caring for others wherever they were.

This theme is not merely part of queer history but an integral part to the Pride movement. Too often, we see Pride parades reduced to a rainbow-painted performance for allies at the expense of intersectional justice. Gay people are distancing themselves from the trans community because they think that’s how they can avoid the persecution that trans people that are currently facing. Parades will feature uniformed cops while ignoring the systemic police brutality that so many marginalized communities are still facing. Pride organizers will strive to make parades more family-friendly and less political, but they do so by toning down queer expression and erasing justice from the narrative. The measure of an ally, the measure of a Christian is not how much we can serve our family and friends and sponsors, not how much we can protect those we care about, but how much we can stand up for those for whom we can never relate, those who can never repay us, those who we have no connection to except for the fact that we are all children of God. Speaking up for those we love is easy. Defending the sanctity of life for those we don’t know, even those who might hate us as much as they are hated by others, is the path of Christ.

The truth is that Pride has always been a queer-led protest, intertwined with anti-racist efforts and radical defiance of gender norms and trans prominence. The moment queer voices are silenced in favor of the comfort of spectators, it is no longer Pride. The moment activists are told to stop mentioning the Black trans women being killed because it doesn’t fit the celebration aesthetic, it becomes more about entertainment than justice. The moment we are expected to stop speaking for Palestinian liberation because it upsets racist sponsors or hide mentions of HIV and AIDS under the rug because it invokes internalized ableism is the moment we lose sight of the mission.

Speaking out against racism and sexism and ableism and colonization and genocide is not a distraction from the queer justice movement of Pride anymore than the woman bleeding was a distraction from Jesus’s mission of healing. It’s the point. The stone started the soup, but it was the carrots and beef and potatoes and salt that gave it its flavor, that gave it its power. The brick started the riot, but it was the drag queens and trans people of color and those with HIV and AIDS who buried their friends in the morning, protested in the afternoon, and danced all night who have always given the movement its power.

We might think that we can make more of a difference if we put all we have into one pot, all our energy into one cause, but man cannot survive on rock water alone. Our power has always come from community, not simply the community’s power to be our allies but our power to give what we have to serve our neighbors. During Pride, I can witness those around me come out with rainbows and signs to fight for my liberation and I know that I can also come forward to fight for immigrant communities and Muslim communities and women’s reproductive health. My community has my back so I can have someone else’s back. This is what gives the soup its flavor. This is what gives Pride its power.

I would be remiss if I didn’t end with the poem written for the queer community based off this scripture passage and other scripture passages of the woman seeking healing. Written by Jay Hulme, it’s titled, “Jesus at the Gay Bar.”

He’s here in the midst of it –

right at the centre of the dance floor,

robes hitched up to His knees

to make it easy to spin.

At some point in the evening,

a boy will touch the hem of His robe

and beg to be healed, beg to be

anything other than this;

and He will reach His arms out,

sweat-damped, and weary from dance.

He’ll cup the boy’s face in His hand

and say,

“my beautiful child,

there is nothing in this heart of yours

that ever needs to be healed.”

“Christ the Light”, by Kelly Latimore, from Kelly Latimore Icons, https://kellylatimoreicons.com/ collections/downloadables/products/christ-the-light-digital-image, [retrieved April 30, 2026]