Sunday, May 14, 2023
/The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17: 22-31; Psalm 66: 7-18; 1 Peter 3: 13-22; John 14: 15-21
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty once said these words: “The most important person on the earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral – a dwelling for an immortal soul. What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother.” To all mothers, and to all born of a mother - Happy Mother’s Day.
In honor of today, I want to share – briefly –, but about my maternal grandmother. Like my mother, my maternal grandmother was named Jean, but we all called her “Bobo.” Bobo was married to the man I named for – James McKay Lykes, but we all called him “Buddy.”
Bobo loved to have her feet rubbed, and we would rub her stockinged feet as she lay on the couch, wearing dresses that she had created and hemmed herself. She was fiercely loving to her grandchildren, but she did have rules. One of the rules of her home was – I think – that no food was allowed on her living room Afghan rug. If you walked into her living room, carrying a plate of food she would visibly tense up, and watch you like a hawk to make sure nothing was spilled on this Afghan rug she so loved.
Today that same rug is in our house, and we do not retain any of the same rules Bobo did around this rug. We also have animals (two dogs) living in our home. Last week, after returning home Saturday afternoon, we noticed an unpleasant odor in our home. My wife followed the smell to its source, and discovered the our yellow lab had released diarrhea all over the rug. This event, had it occurred in Bobo’s house, would have sent her into cardiac arrest, I am certain!
But that’s why they make rug doctors, and after scrubbing the rug multiple times, I am pleased to say the rug is clean now, and no evidence of Parish’s activity upon it remains. What a great story for mother’s day, right? Here is why I share it.
I have recently become aware that I have been carrying heavy psychological baggage – and I have been carrying it for a long time, longer than I care to admit. This baggage takes the form of a resentment I have towards my stepmother. The details of it are insignificant – but what is important is that this resentment ultimately is unproductive, it blocks a deeper connection with God, it inhibits my spiritual growth. If I were to visualize it, the resentment looks exactly like what my dog put on the rug in our home. It’s not pretty, and its smell repels people away. That’s what all resentments do.
In spite of its ugliness, I have held onto this resentment so long it has become comfortable to me. I no longer notice it’s foul odor or mess. I’ve stepped into it many times, and tracked its residue all over my life. I don’t believe this is how God wishes us to live. There is a better way to live. How to be free of it? I do what others have taught me to do. I pray for this person by, name – daily – and I ask that God would pour his blessing upon her, that God would show her the same mercy, patience, grace, and love I believe God shares with me.
I cannot minimize the power and impact of praying this way. To pray God’s blessing upon those whom, for whatever reason, you feel have treated you unjustly, is liberating, and humbling. With God’s help, I am detaching myself from expectations of how things will be. I am choosing to allow God to be in charge. As a result, this ugly, foul resentment is going away, and in the place it once occupied, I am discovering a beautiful array of flowers. That is the power of God’s healing – a reminder that it is never too late to start living. Happy Mother’s Day. AMEN.