Grits and the Gospel - March 22, 2026

Good morning. It's morning here Hello, let's start with that. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of grits in the gospel My name is Reverend Katie Griffiths. It is so good to be with you today. I have a very eager Maggie with me this morning and so you may hear her. I hope not but you may hear her Trying to get my attention But I love that all God's creatures four-legged and two-legged get to be a part of this ministry that I Have been called to Welcome to the fifth Sunday of Lent. I'm so glad that you were here with me today. This is a special special sermon And I'm just thrilled That you are all my friends and you will see why shortly I Am hoping that your Lenten journey is fruitful. I'm hoping that it is meaningful I'm hoping that it is peaceful and lovely So we move our way through a time of sacrifice to a time of Easter So let us come together now in a time of worship the Lord be with you and also with you Today's epistle lesson is from Romans the eighth chapter verses 6 through 11 Hear now the word of the Lord To set the mind on the flesh is death but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace For this reason the mind that is set to the flesh is hostile to God It does not submit to God's law indeed. It cannot and those who are in the flesh cannot please God But you who are not in the flesh you who are in the spirit since the spirit of God dwells in you Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him But if Christ is in you Then the body is dead because of sin the spirit is life because of righteousness If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies Also through his spirit that dwells in you the word of God for us the people of God Thanks be to God Let us come together now and especially during when it is the Apostles Creed Reminds us of all those things that we hold dear in our faith Let us remind ourselves of those of the life death and resurrection of Christ Friends, what do we believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and In Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit Born of the Virgin Mary Suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried the third day He rose from the dead he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty From this he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit The Holy Catholic Church The communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting Amen Let us pray dear lord. We come to you today. We're just so thankful for this linten season where we get to reflect and sit And find peace in the wilderness We are thankful for our time together today. We are thankful for all of our four-legged friends And we are thankful for the beauty of the earth and the glory of the skies Be with us as we continue through this linten journey to easter Hear us now as we pray those words that your son taught us to pray our father Who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us Let us not into temptation But deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen Today's lectionary gospel text is a long one. So i'm doing the first part John 11 verses 1 through 45. I will only be doing verses 1 through 15 today I really do encourage you to go read the entire passage It is a beautiful passage of redemption and friendship and life But for now, let us read john 11 verses 1 through 15. Hear now the word of the lord Now a certain man was ill Lazarus of bethany the village of mary and his sister martha Mary was the one who anointed the lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair her brother Lazarus was ill So the sisters sent a message To jesus lord he whom you love is ill But when jesus heard it, he said this illness does not lead to death rather it is for god's glory So that the son of god may be glorified through it accordingly, though Jesus loved martha and her sister and lazarus After hearing that lazarus was ill He was he stayed two days longer in the place where he was Then after this he said to the disciples let us go to judaea again The disciple said to him rabbi the jews were just now trying to stone you And you are going there again And jesus answered there are not 12 hours of daylight Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them After saying this he told them our friend lazarus has fallen asleep, but i'm going there to awaken him The disciple said to him lord if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right And jesus answered how jesus however Had been speaking about his death, but they thought he was referring merely to sleep Then jesus told them plainly lazarus is dead For your sake. I'm glad I was not there so that you may believe But let us go to him The word of god for us the people of god. Thanks be to god Would you pray with me Dear lord as we come together today, let this message be uplifting and Encouraging to all those who hear it just like it was to me to receive it Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight. Oh lord My strength and my redeemer amen One of my very favorite children's books is the boy the mole the fox and the horse By charlie mccasey It's a story about a boy who is trying to get home and the friends he meets along the way to help him get there Each of his new friends teaches him a different life lesson This book is full of wisdom and advice, but at its heart It is a story of friendship Friendship found in a time of need The boy gets all kinds of wonderful advice some funny Do you have a favorite saying ask the boy? Yes said the mole. What is it? If at first you don't succeed have some cake I see Does it work? every time Some of the advice is serious Do you have any advice ask the boy? Don't measure how valuable you are by the way you were treated said the horse always remember You matter You're important and you are loved and you bring to this world things. No one else can We all need a mole a fox and a horse in our lives We all need friends to tell us exactly what we need to hear or just to sit quietly Beside us like the fox does for most of the book Even jesus needed friends The divine jesus needed nothing the human jesus needed people that he could trust He needed people to teach and mission with He needed a support system. He needed friends The life he was living was not easy While on one hand he was revered and worshiped and got to heal and feed people on the other hand He was belittled and ridiculed and questioned and hurt and ultimately killed He experienced loss and betrayal and death And jesus being fully human meant that he needed people around him to show him love just like we do Letting his friend lazarus die had to be hard Even though his divinity meant that he had to know what was coming Scripture tells us in verse 5 that jesus loved martha and her sister and lazarus. He loved them scripture often overlooks the humanity of jesus to show us his divinity but The things that the thing that helps me trust him the most Is that he's been through everything we have He has done the hard things He's had to rely on a circle of friends to give him advice They laughed together ate meals together. They traveled together and they mourned together As many days and nights of laughter that i've spent with my inner circle of friends It's the times of hardship that have brought us the closest Whether it's the trauma of working together in corporate america the loss of high school classmates loss of relationships Loss of family members the people I know That I can count on the most are the ones who have been there in the worst times of my life We are able to laugh so uproariously together Because we trust each other from the fires that we have been through In the book the boy is talking to his new friends What do we do when our heart hurt our hearts hurt asked the boy We wrap them with friendship Shared tears and time till they wake hopeful and happy again In his own way. This is exactly what jesus was showing his disciples and mary and martha and even lazarus Although i'm sure lazarus would have preferred not to be the example in this lesson Jesus was showing us and living out himself the example of how to navigate the hard stuff in life Wrap yourself with friendship He was preparing them for the tragedy and the horror that was to come in the following weeks His death would be brutal and hard and traumatic for them to experience He was showing them how to survive hard things Wrap yourself in friendship There are a lot of hard things and hard and traumatic things going on in the world right now Unfortunately until jesus comes back and saves us all there will always be hard things happening in the world Right now things seem especially bleak The middle east is a mess the country is a mess the cost of living is more than a lot of people can afford And as horrible as all of that is there is always hope there is always friendship there is the hope of laughter There is hope in the beauty of the world around us in the redemption of the empty tomb for mary and martha They thought all hope was lost They were angry and frustrated with jesus He said he was their friend and yet jesus let their brother die He did it on purpose he didn't just swoop in and fix everything he let the world happen to his friends Jesus knew that this would be hard But in the end because of the miracle he was able to perform because he let the hard things happen Mary and martha and many others believed jesus is the messiah Jesus didn't kill his friend Jesus doesn't cause bad things to happen in the world He didn't stop his own suffering and death But god uses all things for his glory And in this passage god shows us the best way to survive it all He wrapped himself and mary and martha in friendship What a gift and example that is It's hard to reconcile that god can let bad things happen I still struggle with it myself sometimes When people close to me get cancer When many of the sweet boys and I went to high school with keep dying of over overdoses When my friends get pulled over by small town south georgia cops because they have brown skin and an accent It's easy to think that god was absent in all of those things But really That's when god is there for us the most Bad things happen evil is real But the thing that god tries his best to remind us of is that god is real too Jesus was real and needed his friends around him God is in those friendships God is in the love and the laughter so we can find him and the trauma and the tears Where do you find life-giving friendships? Is it the lifelong friends that have been there since the beginning and know your whole story Is it the people you have met along the way? The ones you welcome to be a part of your circle like jesus did with the disciples Is it people sitting right here in this room who came into your life because this place is the one place Where you can be yourself and be loved no matter what? No matter what All of those friendships were important in jesus's life and ministry And they're just as important to each of us as we live out our callings together The world likes to skip over holy week and go straight to easter And heaven help me. I love a cadbury egg more than I should But one thing I always appreciate about leaning into the liturgical calendar Is the chance it gives us to sit with the hard stuff of the story of christ A friend of mine that goes to a non-denominational church asked her pastor if they were going to celebrate advent and lint We don't believe in that he said And while that makes me scratch my head a little I'm, so thankful that we do believe in that Think of all the blessings we have gotten just from our daily prayer time God used this time for big things I've said it over and over but it still amazes me and is more true now than the first week Our mission chair my mission chair and I had no idea Just how aligned our lint and prayer weeks would be with all of what this church has experienced Only god could have made the schedule work so perfectly We had no idea That isaac from uganda would be here this sunday we scheduled for us to start praying for our uganda brothers and sisters It did not even dawn on us that the week we prayed for the hungry in our community would start the day when We broke bread around the communion table God takes everything we do god takes everything in the world good and bad and uses it for his glory And to help us get through it all To help us get home when we are lost To help us navigate the hard things in life god gives us friends We all need a reason to keep going said the horse was yours You three said the fox Getting home said the boy Cake Said the mole I couldn't have said it better myself May this please continue to foster amazing friendships Friendships that will be so important for the hard times and for the laughter And may there always be cake Amen As you go throughout your week, may you look for the friends in your life May you find new ones and renew old ones Because in life In death and life beyond death god is with us. We are not alone Thanks be to god Amen