Acts
13:44-52
Revelation
19:1,4-9
John
13:31-35
"It only takes a smile ..."
She sits up in her bed trying to make out her surroundings. She's 89 and her vision has been failing for several years now. She can't get up. Her hip is still healing from a bad break and she can't bear weight on that leg.
The room's small with two single beds crowded into it. She's just been wakened for the day - it's 6:30 a.m., and she's been in the nursing home long enough now to know that it will be an endless wait until the staff is able to accomplish the countless tasks involved in getting everyone ready for breakfast...
it's the longest two hours of the day... sitting, waiting, unable to walk, unable to dress herself, unable to do almost anything without assistance. Her roommate is agitated and starting to move everything around - EVERYTHING - whether it belongs to her or not.
It's a dreary April morning and the rain is still streaming down the windows so that she can't really make anything out. She can't see the calendar well enough to make out what day it is, and she can't reach to turn on the lamp so that she might see. The young woman who wakened her forgot to turn it on for her.
She's been there now for five... six days... she's not really sure. One day slips into another and they all blur together.
The worst nightmare of her life has come true. She's in a nursing home, helpless and worthless... of what earthly use can she be to anyone? Why has God allowed this once vibrant and active woman to come to such a state?
She was once a teacher adored by her pupils and respected by her colleagues. She was a mother, a wife, a bright and energetic woman who'd always tried hard to love others as Jesus loves us. She's always been full of wit and wisdom. Her nieces and nephews love her dearly.
And over the years, which haven't always been easy ones, she and her daughters have become closer - leaving behind old hurts and confusions. And now words like "I love you," slip off their tongues with ease and delight.
In recent years, she stayed home more often - seldom going out But she still found ways to share God's love... she'd clip an article out of the paper and send it to someone that she knew would enjoy it - a way to brighten a day, or bring a smile to someone's lips. She'd jot off a note to someone reminding them that they were thought of and cared about... that they hadn't been forgotten. And when her great-great nieces and nephews began to come along, she found ways to commemorate their arrival - ways that were uniquely hers, that were still filled with the old wit and wisdom that their grandparents had loved so much.
But now, she's tired. Her body hurts. She can hardly see much of the time. She's in a nursing home trying to recover from a broken hip, developing pneumonia and other complications. Isn't it time the Lord brought her home? What more can she possibly do for her beloved Jesus?
As she sits in the dining room later in the morning, she looks around at the faces of people who seem to have left and gone somewhere else... they've just forgotten their bodies and left them behind... bodies that look lifeless and vacant.
Is this her future? is this what's in store for her if the therapy for the hip is unsuccessful?
As she gazes at one of those vacant faces something stirs within her... And she smiles. She smiles and nods her head at that vacant face. There's no response of course, but she still smiles.
When she leaves the dining hall, she smiles again... and the next day she smiles... and the next and the next... and the next.... Something's coming alive within her. Something's stirring, just like the green things that are beginning to poke up in the gardens in town. She's still weak; she still can't walk; she still needs assistance for most everything and can hardly see... But she CAN smile. And so smile she does... she smiles at every vacant face that she encounters... whether on the way to physical therapy, or to an activity, or to the dining hall - she smiles and nods and murmurs "good morning," or "good evening."
And one day when she smiles at that first vacant face that she'd seen in the dining hall, she notices that the face is no longer vacant... in fact there's a smile on that face.
And as the days go by, the no longer vacant face smiles more and more brightly until one morning in the dining hall, she smiles and says softly, "I've decided that you must be a kind lady. I like you." The first words the woman with the once vacant face has spoken in a very long time.
How often do we think - "I'm tired. It's time to be done. I've done my part. There's nothing left for me to do."
How often do we wonder - "Of what possible use can I be to God? I've nothing left to offer."
But what Jesus said was, "Love one another as I have loved you."
He didn't say love one another until you retire, and then you can turn it over to the younger folks.
He didn't say love one another as long as your health is good, and you have energy and resources and talents to share with abundance.
He said "love one another as I have loved you."
There have probably been more books, poems, stories, articles, and songs written about love than anything else in the world. But we still seem to have a hard time figuring out what it means.
And yet Jesus shows us so clearly what it does mean.
Six weeks ago my mother fell and shattered her hip. Her world could easily have shattered as well. She could have given up and turned away from Jesus' call to love others as he's loved her. I doubt that anyone would have blamed her - I certainly wouldn't have.
But she didn't give up. Instead she listened to the Spirit stirring within her, and she responded to God's call to a ministry of smiling... a ministry that brings the light of God's love to some of God's most neglected children; a ministry that testifies that she is indeed a disciple of the Risen Christ.
Jesus calls each one of us to be his disciple...
How are you answering that call?AMEN.
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