Soul Soup

​The Venerable Joan Clark

John 2:13-22

We all know the importance of maintaining a healthy body, mind, and spirit. We hear all the time that we need to pay attention to the food we eat, to exercising enough, to lowering our stress levels, to keeping ourselves fit and well, so that we extend our age span and live a happier, more fulfilling life.

We know that listening to our bodies is an important part of caring for ourselves. We need to pay attention when we are tired and when we feel off. We need to pay attention to our body’s natural rhythms and energy level. We need to make sure we are nourishing ourselves in ways that make us feel calm and whole.

We also know that we need to care for ourselves emotionally. We need to be aware of stressors that tax us and experiences that drain us. We need to engage in activities that feed us emotionally, relationally, and that keep us engaged and healthy.

But what about spirit care? How do you care for your spiritual health? The health of our spirits too can affect our bodies and minds, our physical and emotional well-being. When we feel spiritually empty or depleted, our physical and emotional state can suffer too. We are holistic beings, and we need to treat ourselves as whole human beings.

Some of you are familiar with the popular book series, “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” authored by Jack Canfield. These simple books of stories were written to “nourish” the spirit. While we may eat chicken soup (the age-old recipe for a sick body) when we feel physically ill, we also need a recipe to help us nourish and nudge our souls into health when we feel down or spiritually dejected or depleted. Stories, witnesses, tales of God’s real presence in our lives, help us to remember that we are not alone and that Jesus our healer is there to strengthen us and revive us.

While our emotional health may require us to stand in our inner truth, our spiritual health reminds us to stand in God’s Truth. The tools that help us to do that, whether stories, songs, relationships, or rituals, are essentially our “soul’s soup.”

In Africa, a traditional recipe for well-being and whole health is called “Soul Soup.” It is a healthy, thick soup made up of vegetables and spices and thickened with peanut butter and chickpeas. It is a well-rounded, healthy meal meant to restore health and energy, well-being and good spirits. A similar soup was born in Ireland, except the Irish vegetable soul soup includes chunks of chicken. But each “soul soup” is meant as a restorative and healthy food for body, mind, and spirit. Each has a “secret” ingredient that makes the soup especially effective.

We know too as Christians that we can do all kinds of things to help boost our spirits and soothe our souls, but the only thing that can truly heal a broken spirit or a depleted spirit is the presence of the Holy Spirit. For us, Jesus is the essential “secret” ingredient in our Soul Soup.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthian church spoke of the body as a “temple” for the Holy Spirit. We are to nurture the Spirit within us so that we become a living and holy vehicle for God’s grace and love within the world.

When we allow our souls to take in negativity, to fester in doubt or despair, to become eclipsed by anger, or to suffer debilitating loneliness, we crowd out the Holy Spirit’s residence and our entire being suffers the consequences.

In order for our bodies, minds, spirits to truly be a temple for God’s glory, we need to make time and make space for Jesus in our lives, in prayer, in worship, in meditation, and in time spent with the Lord in a quiet, personal place.

In our scriptures for today, Jesus teaches his disciples what it means to be a “temple” for God’s glory. He deliberately and metaphorically compares the literal Jewish Temple in Jerusalem with the “temple” of his own body. While his disciples at first take him literally as though he is speaking about the physical brick and mortar building that they call the Temple, they soon realize, he is speaking about the state of our very mortal souls.

Just as Jesus drove out the commerce, the distractions, the focus on money, and rituals, and sacrifices, and sales, from the physical Jerusalem Temple, the statement he was making however was about what we allow to be the focus of our inner spirits, the temple of our bodies, the place where God must dwell in order for us to be the kinds of people God intended us to be.

Jesus spoke of his own resurrected Spirit, that will be destroyed in crucifixion but will be restored and resurrected in three days!  He remembered that the Lord promised to build David a “house,” that the Lord would nourish and take residence in, a spiritual house, a generational house. He knew that God’s plan was coming to fruition. He knew that, as demonstrated in his transfiguration just weeks before, He would be the cornerstone of that spiritual Temple upon which all other souls would be built.

Jesus would be the living Temple. And He will be the Temple of every other living soul who would take up a cross and follow Him.

Jesus is the Balm of Gilead, who would soothe any sin-sick soul. And the foundation upon which every soul must find its footing.

Today, we as disciples must continue to allow Jesus to nourish our souls with His healing and powerful presence. To do this, we must create our own “soul soup” –we must find the things that help nourish our spirits and keep them faithful and hopeful. Whether stories and witnesses to God’s love, beautiful songs that speak to us in personal and real ways, books or movies that move us and help our faith, rituals that help us to feel God’s presence around us, every one of us knows the ways that help us to boost our faith.

What helps you restore your faith?
Do you take a walk on the beach?
Listen to soothing music?
Remember times in your lives when God was there with you?
Pray and feel God’s presence?
Partake in Holy Communion?
Sing?

Whatever the ingredients you require for your own soul soup, make sure to keep them close by. But whatever you do, don’t forget that essential “secret” ingredient, the one that transforms your soul soup into a Temple-Building, spirit-boosting, life-transfiguring powerhouse!  The Holy Spirit of Jesus.

For Christians, Jesus is always your secret ingredient to health, wellness, life, and hope.

For He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

This Lenten season make each day a soup day. Stir up a new space in your soup for your own Soul Soup.