It felt odd but good to sit at our kitchen table right in the middle of a sermon. The “Breakfast With Jesus” theme kind of sent me on a sermonic detour. I do love the image of sitting with Jesus over grits and eggs (I know it was bread and fish, but go with me here) and share meaningful time with him at a real high leverage moment.

I think of all the things that Jesus could have said to them in that moment. “Still don’t get it do you? How many times am I going to have to come back to you? And Peter, I told you you would melt under pressure. We’ve been here before, haven’t we?” But he didn’t. He simply said, “Sit down boys; let’s talk?” I’m pretty sure that came after he asked djeetyet?

Funny thing today, that kind of Jesus makes me think of my mom. Even when she knows the worst, she thinks the best. Her deepest disappointment with her boys has always been seasoned with grace and an eye cast forward, not back. I am visiting her today in the rehab center she will be calling home for a while. As she told me many a time, you don’t have to like it, but you have to live with it. As we get ready for Sunday, we will live at the intersection of Mother’s Day and Jesus and Peter’s “Do you love me?” moment. Seems kind of fitting. So we will sit down again and unpack a two thousand year old conversation that we are all part of today. And like the best of mothers, we can trust that Jesus will see the best in us, despite evidence to the contrary. And he will call on us to return it to him, and everybody else in his name.