See what love the Father has given us?

What exciting scripture we have. One wonders why this is not the scripture for Easter day, for certainly it says a lot more about the interaction of the risen Jesus with the human condition than do those resurrection stories we hear on Easter morning. I love it. Peter says basically, you idiots, you did this to our Lord. And did you think nobody noticed? You killed the “author of life.” But, Peter says, God raised him from the dead despite you.  John says “see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God?”

My friends my entire priesthood is based on this line, that you my friends should learn through me of the love that God has given us, that all of us have become the children of God. No matter what sins we have committed, no matter what excoriation has come our way.

Have you been bullied? Have you just been afraid to be gay in public? Well, John is calling you to realize that God has given you the love you need to overcome any obstacle.

Then, in Luke’s gospel, the ghastly ghostly Jesus tells them to calm down, and even eats some of their broiled fish. And then he opens their minds to understand the scriptures.

My friends this is important. Because the scriptures call you and me, glb&t, to open our minds to understand the scriptures, where it says that we are created in God’s own image, and we must learn to see what love the Father has given us.”

What more can I say?

3 Easter (Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4;  1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48)

©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

“My little children”*

I guess the best part of this week is having Holy Week over with. I know I experienced a vast sense of relief once the Easter Vigil was done, and even more once Easter had come and gone. I’m not sure why such a beautiful time is so tense, but I suppose for a priest it has something to do with the combination of expectations and responsibilities.

The best part of this week is this wonderful reading from John’s first epistle. “My little children” he writes, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” What has he written? That he has seen Jesus. That he has seen Jesus risen. That “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” And that it is a conceit ever to think that you have not sinned, just by your very being. This, of course, is the nature of humanity. And it is why God had to become man in Jesus, so God could experience sin first-hand as a human, and so God could learn how to forgive the sins of humans, especially those of us who are willing to repent.

I know there is a dark side to our religion, where people are persecuted and “sin” is evil and people are supposed to feel bad about being who they are. But this is not God’s will, and this is not the content of Jesus’ Gospel, and we see this truth in our weekly re-enactment of Easter at the Eucharist. We give thanks to God, we apologize for our mis-steps, we take a deep breath and breathe in the breath of life that is God’s Holy Spirit, and then, connected once more we resolve to stay connected.

And then we go out into the world, and get unplugged. The extent to which we stay unplugged is the problem. John here is saying to us, “little children” even if you get unplugged don’t worry, God will plug you back in.

This is the truth Doubting Thomas could not believe until he saw it. But blessed are we if we believe even though we have not seen. But then, we have seen. We have seen resurrection in our own lives, each day, each week, each moment. And we know the presence of God in our hearts.

My gay and lesbian and transgendered and bisexual children, do not ever believe that your sexuality is a component of sin. God made you in God’s own image, as you are. Believe, and be blessed.

*2 Easter (Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Fear not*

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The hallmark of the Gospel appointed for the Easter Vigil is the moment the angel, sitting in the empty tomb and emanating a brilliant light, says “Do not be alarmed,” or, in other words “don’t be afraid.” It is such a stark thing in the moment that I pondered it all by itself. It got me to thinking about fear, which, after all, is a pretty common thing. Fear is a powerful emotion. All of us live with fear at some level. Some fears are silly and some are life-preserving and it just takes maturity and judgment, and self-confidence I guess, to know the difference.
 
In the story, Mary Magdalene and Mary and Salome enter the tomb only to find this angel, who says to them “Do not be alarmed.” In the revised standard version he says, rather sharply: “Stop being afraid!” The Greek actually says something like: “be not greatly astonished;” and In the Jerusalem Bible, he says, calmly: “there is no need to be so amazed.” In every instance he is telling them to push past their fear, which is preventing them from seeing God’s reality. Of course there is more, because next he tells them: Jesus “has been raised.” God’s action has taken place, and Jesus has been pushed through to God’s risen reality. And finally the angel tells them to: “go” … “tell” … “there you will see him.”

This is the prescription for faith. First, stop being afraid! And then, go. Take action. Go and tell, and keep going and keep telling the story of the power of resurrection in your own heart. In the going and the telling you will see the glory that is the risen Christ. And so, for we who are lgbt Christians, this is the call to resurrection life, that we must push past our fear of being who God has made us to be; we must push through to God’s real reality, in that place where all of God’s children are equal in their diversity. And once there, we must tell our stories, because it is in the telling of the story that we will see revealed God’s truth. It is in the telling of our stories that we will understand resurrection life, to which we all have been called by a loving God whose power and glory is … love.

Fear not, my friends. Christ is risen.

The Great Vigil of Easter (Romans 6:3-11; Psalm 114; Mark 16:1-8)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Walk and share*

Well, I suppose that isn’t the uplifting message you were looking for. I enjoyed very much the Presiding Bishop’s message about how, although in the US we associate Easter with spring and the coming of buds and flowers and green grass, we need to remember that in other parts of the world the climate is different at this time of year. She has that perspective, of course, because as our Primate she travels constantly around the world to be the visible face of our faith.

I wish we were doing a better job of saying to the world: a) we are the catholic church; b) we are the catholic church that has continued to receive wisdom; c) we are the catholic church in which the highest bishop—the vicar of Christ, the image of Christ—is a woman.

Well, it is Palm Sunday. Time to stop worrying about giving up treats; time to deal with resurrection. And, as the scripture reminds us, unless we walk in the way of the cross, we won’t find our own resurrection. Tough words.

Isaiah talks about his job conditions in this week’s lesson. He says he got beat up being a prophet of God, but he never turned back. He says he set his face like flint. And then he asks, “who will contend with me?” The psalmist is our physics expert—he says “my times are in your hand.” Meaning, God’s time is all time, and human time is irrelevant. And in the letter to the Philippians Paul says “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” who “emptied himself.” He means, God’s will, not our will.

It all adds up to walking in the way of the cross. Which we all do, every day. I think for gay people the question becomes how do we see ourselves in this role? Is being gay a kind of cross to bear? Well, it is, if we let it. But Isaiah would set his face like flint, the psalmist would say our time is in God’s hands, and Paul would say let your mind be emptied of human will, so God’s will can come in.

In the end, sexuality is irrelevant in the scheme of God’s kingdom, except as a characteristic of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

This day, this week, focus on Christ. Take up your cross, and follow him. For great is the reward in heaven. Amen.

*Palm Sunday (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1-15:47)

©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.