Get your salt on*

People are mean. Really mean.

Last night (I usually write these posts on Saturday after dinner and then hold them until I’m ready to post them on Sunday, after pondering what I’ve written) I wrote a long rant about the unpleasant womanin the supermarket, older than me (if you can believe anyone could be older than me), who pushed me and my cart three times and almost knocked me over because she couldn’t be bothered to WALK AROUND ME a foot or so while I was picking up a dozen eggs and checking that they weren’t broken. And I included the two unpleasant women talking on cell phones WHILE TAILING ME IN SUVs 20 MPH OVER THE SPEED LIMIT in a SNOWSTORM. And then I wrote: still, this is Milwaukee–imagine, in Philadelphia, it would have come to gunfire long before anybody got to write about it.

So we pray this Sunday and this week that God will set us free from the bondage of our sins. Do you understand what that means? I didn’t think so.

Sin, of course, is whatever you do that separates you from total union with God. Most sin has nothing to do with sex or chocolate. Most sin has to do with being selfish, with setting yourself up as God of your own universe (like the *#*#*#* who needed me not to be in her supermarket …. etc., etc.). That is sin. It is not a thing that you do, it is what is in your heart that let’s you do it.

Sex and chocolate are both good. Not to worry.

And both have salt in them. Jesus said what good is being salty if your salt has lost its flavor?  Well, I didn’t make that up, look at Matthew 5:13. The idea is, of course, that you must be true completely to who you are, to the person God created in you. If you are glbt and closeted you have lost your saltiness. At least until you come out, and regain the light of the world that God gave you the salt to be. Well, that’s a pretty mixed metaphor, but try to understand. God created you to be who you are, and God created you gay to be gay in God’s image, and to be gay in God’s image to light the world. No hiding, no compromising.

So those mean people I experience everywhere, it really is kind of tough to be around them. My sin is becoming angry when I encounter them. I know, Jesus never said “be a doormat” and that’s not the point of the Gospels, but the point is what is in my heart. And the real point is that I have to work at changing my own sin-ful-ness. When that anger rears itself in my heart I have to change. It’s tough, I know, that old lady really pushed all of my buttons ….

Well, that’s a simple Christian message.; best I can do today.

It’s a mixed week in the news. In Nigeria, the good news is, instead of executing gays, they’ve taken to beating them with whips (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/world/africa/nigeria-uses-law-and-whip-to-sanitize-gays.html?_r=0). This is to “sanitize” themselves. Sounds like genocide to me. Sounds like danger to me. Don’t think you can ignore what is going on on the other side of the world.

In Russia, thousands of heterosexuals have pretended Russia did not pass laws against homosexuality, and are attending the so-called winter olympic games and spending billions to prop up the homophobic regime.The so-called olympic games are a sham, because the olympic movement is all about ending genocide and repression. Genocide is genocide, even when the victims are gay.

On the other hand, millions of married gay Americans now have double-trouble, happily, figuring out how to file taxes as married people. And the Attorney General has just announced new rules enforcing federal marriage law to be applied to same-sex couples, despite whether they live in backward states (like Wisconsin).

As I said, it is a mixed week. Ask God again to set us free from the bondage of sin, meaning help us overcome our fear of who we really are.

Get your salt on boys and girls, Jesus said so!

*Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 112:1-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Matthew 5:13-20)

©2014 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Go for it already!*

I have just last week been licensed as a priest in the Diocese of Milwaukee. For this we sing Alleluia. I do not yet have a parochial placement, but that will come. Let us all sing Alleluia. It was a joy two Sundays ago to be at Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia and to celebrate the high mass. It was a profound honor to communicate and lay hands on folks at the communion rail. It was only my second mass since I left Philadelphia in May. I look forward to being back “in the saddle,” as they say, working out the gift God has given me to do.

Curiously today is Candlemas, or the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. It is the feast of a child presented as an heir of God’s kingdom and the forerunner of salvation. It is a reminder to us, that when Jesus became our brother we became his siblings and through him heirs of God’s kingdom. It is a little celebrated feast of the church, and I dare say most Episcopalians never heard of it, even Romans rarely celebrate it unless, as this week, it falls on a Sunday. After all, you all know today is “Super Bowl Sunday”—right? One of the hallmarks of Candlemas is the canticle (song) Nunc Dimittis (The song of  Simeon): “My eyes have seen your salvation … a light for the revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of God’s people Israel.” Anglicans say this daily at the offices, and it always is a moment of inspiration—breathing God in—before a moment of expiration—Alleluia.

In the story from Luke 2 we also see something like a gay orphans Christmas dinner (read it carefully friends, with your gay eyes!). Simeon is the righteous devout (and single) man praying in the Temple who holds the baby and sings first the song of revelation. Standing nearby is the prophet, a woman, Anna, 84 years old and a widow but a woman whose work is prayer and fasting night and day … and she too sees the revelation of redemption in the baby. It sounds like a family of God to me, a family brought together through simple loving action. We—you and I—are the gay and lesbian children of God. God has made us in God’s own image. When we are born, our parents pray over us, which is this moment of  “presentation.” And it is us, we, who are the light of revelation and the glory of God, as are all children of God.

How is it then, that you, gay lesbian bisexual transgendered child of God, how is it that you are the light of revelation? Well, it is up to you, isn’t it? We share Christ’s flesh and blood, and in the sharing the light of our lives enlightens the world.

Well, there I go again, with the magical preaching stuff.

Yesterday I was at Whole Foods. There were too many people and it was crowded. A nice gay man (in a WF apron) just sort of wandered in, smiling, and started rearranging apples. I noticed at once how his smile and his commanding presence calmed everyone in the space.

See? My friends? It is up to us. God has given us this great opportunity.

We are the revelation of God’s glory.

Go for it already!

 

* The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 84; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40)

©2014 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.