Grits and the Gospel - May 10, 2026

Hello friends and welcome to this week's episode of grits on the gospel. My name is Reverend Katie Griffiths It's really good to be with you this Sunday It is May 10th and also Mother's Day and it is my hope that you are Celebrating all of the women in your lives And I always want to wish a happy Mother's Day to all who celebrate But we also want to make sure that every woman that hears this message feels seen It's important to acknowledge the work that mothers do for families But there are many women who contribute greatly to their communities without being traditional mothers There's stepmothers that learn how to navigate family in the midst of all kinds of loss There are aunts, cousins, and neighbors who are a safe place for those who don't have that luxury There are strong teachers, coaches, and business leaders who are examples to children in their communities There are camp counselors and piano teachers who enrich the lives of children in their communities There are foster mothers who love children if only temporarily until their homes can be secured There are tribes of women who are such great friends that everyone's family just kind of blend together in a woven family tree All of these women are powerful forces in the world that look to impart love and kindness on generations to come Mother's Day can also be a time of grief It can be a difficult day for those who have lost their mothers Those whose bodies would not let them be mothers or those who have lost their children Hallmark tried its best to make today full of joy in buying cards But here at this church and in this space we decided from the start to take Mother's Day back To celebrate all women To find a space for love and kindness and wisdom And even some grief Because the women in our lives are more complex than any one of these things The women in our lives are beautiful and complicated and loving with grateful hearts And with grateful hearts we celebrate them all today 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 the Acts of the Apostles In the 17th chapter verses 22 through 31 And here we hear the author go from speaking about the unknown God To one who is very known and seen to each one of us Hear now the word of the Lord Then Paul stood in front of the Aragapagus and said Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship I found among them an altar with the inscription to an unknown God What therefore you worship as unknown this I proclaim to you The God who made the world and everything in it He who is Lord of heaven and earth does not live in shrines made by human hands Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything Since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things From one ancestor he made all people to inhabit the whole earth And he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live So that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him Though indeed he is not far from each one of us For in him we live and move and have our being As even some of our own poets have said For we too are his offspring Since we are God's offspring we ought not to think That the deity is like gold or silver or stone An image formed by the art and imagination of mortals While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance Now he commands all people everywhere to repent Because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged and righteousness By a man whom he has appointed And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead The word of God, for us the people of God, thanks be to God Let us now come together in this time and remind ourselves of the things that we believe Friends, what do we believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth And 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 thence 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 So thankful, so in all of things seen and unseen For the beauty of the earth and the spirit that resides within our hearts We are grateful Thank you for making us your beacons of light that all can see you reflected in us Hear us now as we pray those words that your son, our Savior, 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 And give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen Today's Gospel lesson is from the Gospel according to John From the 14th chapter verses 15 through 21 Hear now the word of the Lord If you love me, you will keep my commandments And I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate To be with you forever This is the spirit of truth Whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him You know him because he abides within you and he will be in you I will not leave you orphaned I am coming to you In a little while the world will no longer see me but you will see me Because I live, you will also live On that day you will know that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me And those who love me will be loved by my Father And I will love them and reveal myself to them The word of God, for us the people of God Thanks be to God Would you pray with me? Dear Lord we come to you today just humbled that you love us enough To have sent your Holy Spirit to remain with us Throughout our days Thank you for your spirit, thank you for your son And thank you for you For the one that created us all Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer Amen One of my favorite letters from Letters of Note is one written by Helen Keller To Dr. John Finley, President of the New York Association for the Blind in 1932 Helen had been asked to visit the newly constructed Empire State Building Which I love that she just calls the Empire Building And upon seeing her picture atop the structure, he wrote and asked her What did you think of the site when you were on top of the Empire Building? Here's a little bit of what she told him It was a thrilling experience to be whizzed in a lift a quarter of a mile heavenward And to see New York spread out like a marvelous tapestry beneath us There was the Hudson, more like a flash of a sword, blade than a noble river The little island of Manhattan set like a jewel in its nest of rainbow waters Stared up into my face and the solar system circled about my head Why, I thought, the sun and the stars are suburbs of New York And I never knew it I had a sort of wild desire to invest in a bit of real estate on one of the planets All sense of depression and hard times vanished I felt like being frivolous with the stars What a beautiful description of the unseen beauty of the heavens By a blind and deaf child of God Jesus tells the disciples something that at first seems like a contradiction that cannot be true He says in a little while the world will no longer see me But you will see me because I live, you also will live How can you be seen if you are no longer seen? I think it's the same way that Helen Keller could see so clearly And so much better than most because she could not physically see The divine nature of Jesus and God remains there for all of us to clearly see In those around us through the Holy Spirit In nature and in our fellow human beings But sometimes our humanity gets in the way of really seeing God It takes doing something radical like closing our human eyes to really see the things that God is showing us It takes removing our ability to see with vision so that we can see with our hearts Sometimes it is our eyes that get in the way of seeing the truth Keller said it so well in her letter She said I will concede that my guides saw a thousand things that escaped me from the top of the empire building But I'm not envious For imagination creates distances and horizons that reach to the end of the world It is as easy for the mind to think in stars as in cobblestones Sightless Milton dreamed visions no one else could see Radiant with an inward light he sends forth rays by which mankind beholds the realms of paradise I love that God can see his radiant light beyond the realms of paradise for all of us to see But sometimes to fully see that God created light in people we need to close our eyes We should all strive not just to see but to search out that kind of radiant light It is what makes us part of the kingdom of God but it also makes us unique and beautiful Because each one of us radiates that light in a different way with different gifts Sometimes though that light is dimmed from our own human shortcomings God is the only thing that can be fully trusted and on occasion we can fall short in our own faith and need a little polish We often see things through our own faulty minds eye with our own failings and lenses God's perspective is the only truth that we should seek not man's I was reminded of that very thing this week My eyes deceived me not too long ago and it took someone else's lens of faith to remind me that we fall short as humans It reminded me that I need to do in a better way what I have been calling on other pastors to do in some of my more passionate sermons I needed to do what I often call on us all to do I needed not just to see scripture with fresh eyes but with curious eyes as well You see a couple weeks ago I was wrong about one of the scripture passages When I read the very familiar passage of the road to Emmaus and preparing my sermon on Luke 24, 13-25 I failed to do just that I read the familiar passage and got some of my inspiration wrong In verse 18 it names Cleopas C-L-E-O-P-A-S As the man on the road It means renowned father and was probably referring to Alphaeus, the father of James and John In my head because I knew the story and skimmed over that verse because I was focusing on the breaking bread part of the scripture My brain said that it was Cephas Who is later referenced in verse 34 as Simon Who is also known as Simon Peter or sometimes just Peter Why can't these fellows just be happy with one name and stick to it? My human eyes and lenses failed me I was called out ever so gently about it and I'm glad that I was It is important for me to remember It is important for all of you to remember that God is the only unfailing being in this universe And while the verse is very correct that he is in each of us even though we can't see him We are still a human vessel in which the Holy Spirit resides Our human view of things can sometimes color how we see the world Our human hearts can fail to love fully even though God is in us and loves us completely Sometimes even when they have a master of divinity and continue to study a word through scripture Your pastor can get things wrong It is not done maliciously or carelessly but humanly Humanity and faith are a beautiful thing But they are not perfect and neither am I It was a reminder and a lesson that I needed Because I trust that because of my imperfection I am still loved by God and this congregation If it were not for the imperfections in my person and my soul The light of God would not be able to shine through so brightly That's why the letter from Keller is so refreshing and humanly honest The world says she was broken and unable to see And yet she views the earth and the natural world very clearly She has no human lens to obscure her view Even though she cannot see She still sees things very clearly It's like taking off one of your human lenses so you can see more clearly the heart of God Her view of things is so powerful and life giving Maybe if we think about how to see as God sees And not how just the eyes of man see We can find more beauty than we ever dreamed of She concludes her letter this way What did I see and hear from the empire tower? As I stood there, tweaked earth and sky I saw a romantic structure wrought by human brains and hands That is to the burning eye of the sun a rival luminary I saw it stand erect and serene in the midst of storm and the tumult of element commotion I heard the hammer of Thor ring when the shaft began to rise upward I saw the unconquerable steel, the flash of testing flames, the sword-like rivets I heard the steam drills and pandemonium I saw the countless skilled workers welding together that mighty symmetry I looked upon the marvel of frail yet indomitable hands That lifted the tower to its dominating height Ultimately, it is God's hands from within our hearts that lift us to the heights If we are willing to see him clearly, even though he is invisible, others will see him in us As we go throughout this week, let us always remember That humans are not perfect Only God is, but God's perfection is in every human Because in life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us We are not alone Thanks be to God Amen