God, intimacy, sin*

I often tell people who take the time to talk with me that I sometimes despair of ever being able to explain the Gospel.

I see what the larger church has done—they have made it so simple an idiot can process it, but, of course, in so doing they also have taken away any humanity in the process. There is no list of sins. Some churches have lists, because it helps them oppress people. But God has no such list. Sex, chocolate—when used to create joy, are not inherently sinful. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise—they’re wrong.

So here we have the prophet Jeremiah, speaking to a people who have broken every law, and furthermore suffered the consequences. And through his voice God says “they shall all know me.” Do you get what that means? To “know” someone is to share intimacy. So God is saying, all of God’s people, who are truly faithful, will share intimacy with God. And then God says “I will remember their sin no more”—do you remember that sin means being disconnected from God? If one shares intimacy with God, then one cannot by definition, know sin.

Here is God saying that God is with us in every breath, every intimate moment—yes, go ahead and let your mind fill in that blank—and therefore, because we are one with God, we cannot be disconnected from God.

But, of course, the choice is ours. We can choose to share closeness with God, or we can turn our backs.

We who are gay know the intimacy of our God. After all, we are made gay in God’s image so that we can spread joy through all of humanity. Our job, is to embrace the intimacy God has given us with each other, so that in so doing we enhance the intimacy of all humanity with God. Just as God, through Jeremiah, told us to do.

5 Lent (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Manna, Justice, Amen*

The fourth Sunday in Lent and the theme in scripture and lectionary is “the true bread,” which, of course, is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, which feeds us. In fact, feeding is a major metaphor for Christianity … Jesus, as he departs this world, reminds his disciples to “feed my sheep.” Because, of course, without food, there cannot be life, and without life there cannot be a kingdom of God, because God’s spirit is manifest in that which lives, in those who live.

It has been a curious week I suppose, but a week in which gay people have seen God feed all of society with justice. From the Diocese of San Joaquin, where not so long ago women could not be ordained and gay people could not receive communion, comes news of the ordination of Carolyn Louise Woodall as Deacon. Carolyn is transgendered, and now is serving at the altar in the Episcopal Church of St. Anne’s in Stockton, California. Much more information can be found here: http://walkingwithintegrity.blogspot.com/2012/03/making-all-mean-all-in-diocese-of-san.html.

Then, Friday, I was surprised by my own reaction when Dharun Ravi was convicted. I was surprised, because I stood up alone at my desk and applauded. Thank God, I said out loud. It is about time someone, somewhere, understands the horrid bullying that gay people experience. I remember it because I still experience it, even at my advanced age. Although at my advanced age (I’m sorry, today’s my birthday so I’m feeling old), I am much more likely to punch back and not put up with any guff.

But if you are gay you know how this goes. The “straight” roommate, who is “gayfriendly” tells you he’s okay with your perversity as long as he doesn’t have to see it. But then, night and day, he’s there kissing and feeling up girls on the other bed in your dorm room. YOU HAVE TO WATCH him, but he calls YOU perverse. And, then, the moment you go down the hall, you hear him cackling to the other straight guys about his “FAG” roommate … he makes sure you hear it.

This is exactly the scenario the defense pictured for us. All of those nice boys, his straight friends, testifying for his excellent character, and that he even had gay friends! But not one of them admitting to the behind the scenes quiet harassment they all as a group engaged in. No wonder that lovely violinist jumped off the bridge.

Well, if you are a young gay person being oppressed in this way, I want to say several things to you. First, look at how closely I reflect the facts, and I wasn’t even there. This is how we all grew up decades ago. Things are better now, maybe you don’t have it quite so bad as we did in the 1970s. Second, please please please look into Dan Savage’s “It gets Better” campaign, because it does. And therein lies God’s redemption.

The Psalm this week says “they cried to the LORD in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress, he sent forth his word and healed them, he saved them from the grave.” What more do you need my brothers and sisters? You have God, who has created you in God’s own image.

And, you have God’s own food, which is the love of Christ. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

That’s you and me my friends. When it hurts, cry out, to God and to me, to my colleagues—tell somebody. And we will help you understand that it gets better.

And by the way, there is justice, flowing down like manna from heaven.

4 Lent (Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Foolish wisdom*

There is (for me) always a sort of tension between the enormity of God’s love and the enormity of humankind’s inability to cope with God’s love. This, of course, is the very definition of “sin,” which means being apart from God. Many faith traditions, assuming people are not bright enough to figure this out for themselves, promulgate lists of “sins” and tell people not to do those things. This is wrong, this is foolish wisdom; the only true sin is what you do that separates you from God.

Ponder that for a moment. What do you do that separates you from God? I know what I do. I get something like a fury in my soul in which I become self-righteous. I know that I am right and everyone around me is wrong. I long for retribution. This is sin. This is sin because I have put myself first among others; it is sin because I have made myself the judge; and it is sin because in doing these first two things I have completely forgotten about God. And I have forgotten about God by forgetting about those around me. Yet, how are we to put such a thing on a list? It is easier to say eating meat is a sin or having sex is a sin or making money is a sin and to be done with it. Of course, none of these is sinful in or of itself; it is only in the intentions of your heart and soul that sin, separateness from God, can take place.

GLBT people are weary of the whole notion of sin. We are accused of being sinful just by the very nature of our being. All of us at some time or another have run into self-righteous (there’s that word again) folk who quote at us from the Bible to convince us of our “sin.” And yet, there is nowhere in the Bible such a passage; rather there are pieces of texts that are taken out of context for the purpose of oppression. That is sin, regardless of the text, because oppression is sin.

In today’s Gospel Jesus flies into a just such a rage, excoriating the money changers with a handmade whip. It was just the kind of rage I described, the sort that only a human on the edge can have. And yet, because it was human Jesus, it was also the divine excoriation of evil from God’s own temple, both in the reality of the money-changers in the story and in the metaphor of Jesus’ own body as the temple of God. And in the midst of it all Jesus says to make an end of sin and in its place he will build the glory of God. That would be you and me, my friends, for in our lives as children of God we embody the very glory of God. Psalm 19 verse 1 says “1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.” And in 1 Corinthians Paul writes that God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, hence those lists of sin, and in its place God has equated faith with God’s own glory. For those who believe are saved.

God is merciful to those who keep trying, to those who purge sin and embrace belief. Love God and love one another my friends; that is what God who is merciful and full of compassion asks of us.

*3 Lent (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 Coeli enarrant; Romans 7:13-25; John 2:13-22)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Get behind me Chris Christie*

Lent is about coming home. I know all about coming home, because I travel all the time. Coming home has lots of layers of meaning. First, there is the journey. I know when I got up Friday morning in Milwaukee and headed for the airport all I really had in mind was being at home …. Then there is the actual journey, the flight in this case, the dealing with people en route, the intersection with creation (otherwise known as the weather), and then there is the shifting in the soul from there to here, from other to this.

This, exactly, is what God is asking of us. Always. And Lent is the season in which we celebrate this asking of God for us to think about coming home. God wants us to remember that wherever we have been, home is with God, and now is the time to focus on God. This is why we give something up for Lent, just as a daily reminder that we are trying to focus on God.

I have two impressions this week. One is that Maryland has made marriage legal. This is the ninth state to do so. New Jersey was the eighth, but of course the obstructionist homophobic governor has vetoed that legislation. The other impression is from a story in Philadelphia’s City Paper about a gay family that cannot continue to live in their own home due to harassment from a neighbor. I have to say, gay people need to come out in droves … I cannot even begin to remind you that as long as people think we are strange or weird they can get away with oppressing us. And as soon as they know we are the accountants signing their paychecks, they will get the right idea. Maryland has approved equality for marriage. Chris Christie, has shown his true colors as a hater of people. He should not have been elected in the first place, and his opinion should not trump the rights of humans.

In this week’s lessons we see God making Abram into Abraham, making his 90 year-old wife Sarah fertile, and from that issue showing us that God can do what God wants to do. Marriage equality is about sharing our humanity. It might be late in the day for me, but for our glbt friends in their teens and 20s and so forth it is an opportunity to begin to be families. It is an opportunity to begin to realize that God is making a new thing in each of us, always.

“Get behind me, Satan,” indeed. Get behind me Chris Christie. Go persecute weaklings who allow you to bully them. But you cannot dampen my spirit, and you cannot make me less than an equal human in either God’s creation or the United States of America.

*2 Lent (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.