A Tsunami of Mercy and Justice and Love

I have been having an IKEA moment. After moving to our new home it seemed we had been spending money like (as my dad used to say) it was going out of style, so when my husband pointed out that I was tripping over the armoire that I had lovingly selected in Philadelphia two decades ago I decided to replace it with a simple chest of drawers. IKEA won my bidding war because it had a piece the right size and shape and color and it was not only inexpensive but also on sale. So much for the easy way out though. Actually I enjoyed the first couple of hours of assembly, which went swimmingly and was even sort of fun. It reminded me of the 1980s when all of our furniture came from IKEA and had to be assembled, usually on Saturday night for some reason. Anyway, as I approached the final step of putting the top on, the entire structure crashed to the floor, and even worse, of course the particle board splintered where joiners had been secured. Woe was me, and more to the point I had a mess on my hands. I gave up, but then worried about it all night. First thing the next day I tried to put it back together, but it became clear the splintering was so bad it would never be stable without intervention.

Now, while I had been worrying through the night I had kept thinking that I knew what to do—I had to drill new holes and insert long heavy-duty screws to hold the frame together. But, like most people facing a problem, I tried every which way to get out of it. I called the famous help-line at IKEA. The first guy I spoke with said they would gladly replace the two wooden pieces that were messed up, then transferred me to someone who would ship them, but that call hung up on me. I called back three times, but IKEA’s phone system had my number (so to speak) and kept hanging up on me. I cruised through want ads online sure I had seen one some place recently for someone who would fix IKEA assembly problems, but no luck. Finally, facing a sprawling mess on the floor and the prospect that I had just thrown that money down the drain, I did what I should have done in the first place. I got my drill and my toolbox full of screws and some wood glue to boot, and in no time I had the piece assembled, standing up, sturdy and with its top in place. I kept thinking there was a lesson in there somewhere.

How often do we read the stories in the scripture literally, trying to imagine ourselves in the story, rather than comprehending them metaphorically? In Luke 16 Jesus tells a story about a corrupt “manager” (I’m pretty sure older translations called this person a “steward” but who would know what that meant today?) What do we know about corrupt managers? All I could think of was the episode of I Love Lucy where Ricky so wants to become the nightclub manager that he puts Lucy on a horrific schedule. Hilarity ensues, the schedule gets shredded and at the end everyone congratulates Ricky on becoming “Mr. Manager.”

But I digress. The key to this parable is the part, of course, where the manager forgives a large portion of everyone’s debt. It is, on the face of it, an act of love, and it works, not only presumably are the debtors happy but the boss is pleased because the manager, at last, has done the right thing—the thing he knew was right in the first place.

There is more. The act is more complex than we imagined, because the portion of the debt that was cancelled was the manager’s commission. Not only has he given back, but he has given back his portion. But what he has given is multiplied, isn’t it, in the hearts of those who have received not only mercy but justice. The manager, by doing not only what was right, but what he had known all along was right, has changed the situation by creating space for love to fill.

This is what Jesus means by “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” The promise is that the eternity of living in love is guaranteed by the building up of love not in just one heart but in everyone’s hearts spreading through creation as the simple act of doing the right thing creates love through mercy and justice.

And that reminded me of marriage equality. Back in the days of my youth my gay coupled friends all said they didn’t need marriage, that that was something heterosexual people had created for themselves that gay people didn’t need. And straight society was just as firm in its conviction that marriage was not meant for us. Never mind the historical reality that marriage in its earliest times was not gender-oriented. Never mind that even the Old Testament has examples of same sex love. Never mind that everyone knew what was right all along, but ran all around proverbial barns trying to ignore it. But what did we learn when marriage equality became a cascading force? We learned that doing the right thing created space for mercy and justice. We learned that mercy and justice created space for love. We who are gay married people learned that marriage really does change everything because it binds two people and their families together in love. And binding love spreads through an ever more loving creation.

There you have it—from IKEA to the crafty manager to I Love Lucy to marriage equality. What have we learned? That doing the right thing is always the right thing to do; that being faithful in a very little is as powerful as being faithful in much; that giving a little bit of love can cascade into a tsunami of mercy and justice and love.

 

Proper 20 (Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13)

©2019 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Joy

We’ve been working like proverbial maniacs on our home. We are doing the kinds of little things that make you crazy until they’re done, but on the other hand, are too small to hire anybody to help with. We did just have a friend visit for a week, and he worked pretty hard inside and outside, to get roses planted, weeds cleared, shrubs pruned etc., etc., before the traditional rain started. We just made it, the rain started yesterday. If I remember correctly from college days, it will now rain more or less constantly until April. Or May even. That’s why, of course, the Portland area is so lusciously green.

Inside we were doing a combination of adapting our new house into our home and fixing things the movers broke. We were pretty exhausted. The other day it was hot and sunny so we ran outside to spray paint some metal furniture and both overdid it. I woke up in the night with warm feet, and when I got up I could see my feet were striped (!) from the sun on my sandals.

We even worked late nights several days in a row to rebuild the benchwork for one of my train layouts (the O-gauge toy train layout … the HO-gauge model train layout will have to wait for now).

And then our friend’s visit was over and I drove him to the airport. As we left the house the morning grey began to lift, and after I dropped him off I had a stunning drive back through the trees as the sun intensified. Combined with the magical music on the radio I was brought nearly to tears with the joy not only of being back in a place that I love, but also with the radiance of creation that is so close in this environment. In the house I could see that we had restored a sense of “home,” so important for anybody but very near for folks who have just moved. For both the joy of my sense of the beauty of this environment and the comfort of home I gave thanks, in prayer, out loud even …. To top it all off, my new license plates came in the mail; as one friend put it, now we’re really citizens of Oregon!

We forget how important it is to experience joy. So often we are so busy being busy that we forget to think about simple things, the old “forest for the trees” metaphor. We work and work and work and drive and drive and drive and make lists and make new lists and plan and plan and … whew! we forget to look up at the skyline and give thanks for being, and for being here. We forget that love is that feeling of joy in our souls we experience when we walk into a place that feels like home. When we forget to experience joy we cut ourselves off from love. And when we are cut off from love we are cut off from God.

This is the very essence of “sin”—cutting ourselves off from God. Often we do it by cutting ourselves off from each other. Just as often we simply cut ourselves off altogether.

In 1 Timothy Paul writes that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” But he goes on to say that Christ “might display the utmost patience.” It’s a good thing! But what it means is that God became incarnate in Christ to remind us to pay attention—to pay attention to our inner selves, to pay attention to our place in creation, to pay attention to each other. In these ways we restore our connection to God. Christ’s patience, God’s patience, is visible in those stunning moments when we realize we are right with creation and we give thanks.

Is there a message for lgbt people here? Of course, it is the message of my last few posts—that belonging is nurturing, that being free of the strain of defensive living opens gates of joy, that living fully into our role as created lgbt beings is as close as we can get to unity with God. It is in this perfect unity that love and life can flourish. It is this reunion, this return, this reconnection that Jesus means when says in Luke 15:10 “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.”

 

Proper 19 (Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28); Psalm 14 Dixit insipiens; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

©2019 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Evolutionary ecological cycles

It has been fun experiencing the shifting seasons in Oregon. A few days ago it was summer and very hot; all of a sudden yesterday it got cool and started raining. The light has shifted with the temperature. The cool damp, of course, is critical for the ecological cycle that makes this a place full of trees and green everywhere. The cycle evolves, things change, and because of the cycle of change, life grows and is abundant. Change, this evolutionary cycle, it seems, is critical in all parts of creation.

It also has been comforting to feel more at home than I have in quite awhile. The difference between knowing that you belong and feeling like an outsider can be subtle. For lgbtq people the difference often falls somewhere between knowing you are just being “tolerated” (put up with) to feeling loved and accepted. Somewhere along that line lie the points in between where you know you are not really equal.

Once early in our time in Wisconsin I had to get a simple medical procedure taken care of; Brad was along mostly for moral support but he got bored and went out to find food. When it was all over I asked whether the nurse knew where my husband had gone and she pointedly replied that my “friend” was out in the seating area. I don’t remember the entire conversation any longer (mercifully) but I do remember the third time she said “friend” I said something along the lines of “we’re married, he’s my husband, it’s the law, you had better get used to it.” Oh well. It’s never nice to be snarky, but then again, it’s never nice to have to be snarky to demand equality that ought to already be yours by nature.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the nice lady at DMV who took good care of our little family. This week I took my house guest to the gym with me, and instead of asking me a zillion questions about why I had him along they smiled and gave him a guest pass. Someone asked me how I perceived life in Oregon to be more amenable and I said it boils down to all of these little things. Even just things like Brad and me buying groceries together, which seemed often to discomfit cashiers in Wisconsin.

When the simple things go well you have more energy for giving love as you go.

Of course there is always hope because there is always the process of growth and change, evolution even. Here is where I like the image of the potter at the wheel in Jeremiah 18. Sure you can make a pot and feel like you are done with it. But Jeremiah uses the metaphor to prophesy about how God always is recasting us in the same way a malformed pot can be returned to clay and recast in a better shape. It works both ways too—it isn’t just the “other” who is being constantly recast, it is us too, you and me, changing and growing as we experience life, especially growing in love as we experience equality—the power of the evolutionary cycle.

Love evolves and we grow.

There is a clear parallel between this metaphor of the potter and the “radical self denial”* that Jesus demands of his followers in Luke 14. To live fully in God’s kingdom requires setting aside of self to the point where love can emerge. When love can emerge the shift is radical, the kingdom appears, equality becomes a matter of knowing in your soul that you are loved and accepted because you know in your soul that you love and accept too.

 

*The term “radical self denial” comes from: Joseph Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke. The Anchor Bible. (New York: Doubleday 1985), p. 1062.

Proper 18 (Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; Philemon 1-21: Luke 14:25-33)

©2019 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Embrace the holiness of life’s banquets

Labor Day weekend in the United States—it seems almost like Christmas or Thanksgiving these days—lots of cooking of traditional foods, freedom from obligations in the real world which mostly is closed for business (thanks be to God), time to spend relaxing with family and friends. It is a nice break for us after almost two months of uproar from our move across the country and near total change in our way of life. Contrast is always a good thing. Busy-ness breaks for calm, there is time after all to enjoy that which we have been trying to build—a home.

The real world eh? Well, out there in the real world there is a trade war, a looming recession, an enormous hurricane, a continuing crisis in the American presidency, a new mosquito-borne infection … plenty of reality, almost more than we can bear at times. In our own corner of reality we are in a constant state of uproar between recalcitrant contractors and balancing priorities about the house. What are we to do?

Why, we need to embrace the holiday, of course. We need to take time out of busy lives to reflect, to appreciate, to realize the value of the love we share with friends and family, the love with which we interact with community and even with nature. These are the real gifts of our lives and they are created—even curated—when we give love, which we only are able to do if we can step aside from our self-induced regular mad dash to get things done.

Embrace the holiday as a way of preparation as well. Bask in the shared love of family and friends, nurture each other with love and good food, Store up the love given and received. Appreciate the power of that love.

I had one of those “wake up and smell the coffee” moments the other day. The place where we live has recently banished all plastic bags, which is a good thing for the environment. But it has discombobulated the grocery experience because every approach to the check-out presents a crisis of one sort or another. Either you forgot your bags in the car and now have to pay for paper bags or stuff all of the groceries in your cargo pockets, or, you brought your bags but there is no place to put them, and because they’re floppy cloth bags they won’t stay open while you madly try to shove everything in them to get out of the way of the person behind you in line. Whew! In all of this one of the nice things about the culture here—the pleasant cashiers—got displaced. They try to talk pleasantly with you but if you’re like me, you’re too busy jamming things in bags and pockets. Well, the other day for no apparent reason I totally forgot myself, and at the end I looked the cashier in the eye and said “thank you.” (I never do such things, despite my constant preaching about it, I’m way too introverted.) The entire situation shifted in a heartbeat. Calm descended, she smiled and said “you’re welcome” and we all relaxed a little bit.

We forget that scriptural guides like “do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” (Hebrews 13:1-8) mean just such moments, as indeed does “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 14:1, 7-14). The letter to the Hebrews talks of angels and Jesus in Luke’s Gospel makes examples of banquets, but we need to remember that everyday life is a banquet, that every encounter is an opportunity to show hospitality, that in every moment the opportunity to change reality by giving love is present. All we have to do is remember we are all in this together.

Reality is real enough, as we all know. All too soon we will crank up our busy-ness again. But for now, we need to embrace the holiness of life’s banquets by showing hospitality in every moment.

 

Proper 17 (Jeremiah 2:4-13; Psalm 81:1, 10-16 Exultate Deo; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14)

©2019 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.