Brad, my husband, and I have been together for something like 34 years and a bit. We lose track of the exact number sometimes, because like most couples we’ve had moments when we were less together than others, and because after three decades memories are less precise. Still, it has been a blessing. I remember walking with him on the beach in Galveston shortly after we met, but when we were both clear that something momentous was working in us. He said he thought we would last a long time because we had a similar world view. I guess he was right.
The past two weeks have been a bit of a trial. He had pneumonia, the critical kind, and wound up in intensive care. I wound up at his bedside, listening to each breath, watching every tick or eye movement, wishing I could just take him home and give him something to eat. He is fully recovered now and will come home later today, by the way, or I probably wouldn’t be writing about it.
I think one thing that kept coming to me all during the ordeal was how the two of us have become everything for each other, real family. I know this has been palpable for both of us since our marriage in Toronto, on our 30th anniversary. 
We thought we were making a political statement, and we thought we were making a wise decision, but we both were stunned to discover how different it felt to be married. We are family.
So instead of looking at the displaced propers for All Saints that most Episcopalians are using today, I wanted to stick with the propers for this Sunday, the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, not in the least because the opening lesson is the story of Ruth and Naomi, and the trials that made them a family unto themselves, and the beautiful song that Ruth sings to Naomi: “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” It should be read at every same-sex wedding, heck, it should be read at every wedding.
There also is a reading from Hebrews that rather gruesomely compares the theology of sacrifice made by Christ for sin—disconnectedness from God—for all humanity, with the sacrifice of goats and calves and bulls and heifers. Let’s just be clear, in Christ we are all connected with God forever through our humanity which we share with Jesus. Mark’s Gospel story for today is the story of Jesus giving the greatest commandments, to love God and to love one another. At the end of the story Jesus tells a scribe, who has understood that to love God is to love one another and to love one another is to love God, that he is not far from the kingdom of God. We need to understand that in the love we share for each other we can see and touch the palpable presence of God, who is always within us as love.
Several priests came to visit us and to pray with us during this. One friend said she could see Brad change as the prayers were said over him. As the process went on I became more insistent in my own prayers, and gave up the formulas I’ve memorized over the years for more precise demands. “Jesus do this now!” (Fill in your own blanks there.) What do you know? It worked. It works. Our salvation is that we already are with Christ. Our knowledge of Christ who is God is palpable in the love we share.
*Proper 26 Year B (Ruth 1:1-18; Psalm 146 Lauda, anima mea; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 