Expectation, Hope, Love

Advent is the season of expectation, the prelude to the manifestation of hope. It is a very sweet time. It is when we carry love in our hearts—love for the people we are sending cards to, love for the people we are buying gifts for, love for the guests we are or will be cooking for—and all of that love spills over in smiles for the grocery cashier, the fish monger, the cheesemonger, the guys who tie your Christmas tree to the top of your car, and so forth. It is in all of this the perfect example of the way of love. Love at the center of your existence builds up as it radiates outward. Love builds up as radiating beams of love from everyone overlap.

In the US it begins with Thanksgiving, the annual holiday of remembrance combined with a harvest celebration merged with a ritual meal, the purpose of all of which is to build up—you guessed it—love. We carry love in our hearts when we buy the turkey, we radiate love when we donate a turkey, our love overlaps as we share the day itself but even more as we move out into the realm of the approach of Christmas.

In the church Advent is one of the loveliest seasons, we tamp down the ritual excitement and revel instead in expectation and hope. We pray to be freed from “works of darkness” and to be protected by “armor of light.” We remember the prophecies of the coming of Christ, who will teach us to embrace “justice and righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:15). We are reminded by the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) that joy and thanksgiving give rise to the prayer that God will help us to “increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” In Luke’s Gospel (21:25-36) Jesus talks about signs in the skies and in the earth and in the sea and among nations. He tells the parable of the fig tree: “as soon as they sprout leaves you can see … and know” that summer is coming, thus do these signs reveal to us that the kingdom of love is near. Jesus specifically says (34) to “be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down.”

The reality of the prophecy is that the time Jesus foretells, just like the fig tree leafing out each spring, is all around us all of the time. The celestial heavens show us that we are constantly a part of the immensity of creation linked in to and by all things. The seas and waves roar, people faint, and there is always distress among nations. Therefore, the kingdom of love is always near. The moment is not at some uncertain point in the future, for, remember, there is no such thing as linear time, all time has already happened. The kingdom of love already is here.

The question is, can we enter into the dimension where it rules creation with justice and righteousness? Can we find the way of love? Of course we can. All we have to do is extend the love we feel, the expectation and hope, the radiant beams of love.

LGBTQ people live in the moment Jesus foretells in perpetuity. We always live in an environment born of oppression, brined in the experience of minority, on the border between the works of darkness and the armor of light. We are the heirs of the kingdom of love designated in our creation in God’s own image as people who love. We are called to carry love in our hearts, to let that love spill over and radiate all around us, to overlap the love we have been given, to build up with love that fabulous armor of light.

Amy Schneider—a trans woman is still champion on Jeopardy a week later. Pete Buttigieg—a gay man—is US. Secretary of Transportation. My husband is still eating leftover turkey.

Be hopeful, be expectant, and love.

1 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Trans Glory

Often I wonder how it is we will know when we have entered the dimension of love, when we have gained God’s kingdom. How will we know we have arrived in a dimension of justice and righteousness governed by the love that powers all of creation?

Jesus famously and often reminded his listeners that although they were good at deciphering the signs of the changing seasons through reading fig trees or stars or winds and so forth, they were no good at all at looking for the signs of righteousness and justice that point to the pathway into the dimension of love.

This week I think I saw a sign, a beautiful sign, a surprising sign. My husband and I are addicted to Jeopardy. Like many people, we watch it partially out of habit and partially out of curiosity. But like many people of our generation we also use it as a tool to check daily our sharpness. I often also learn trivia watching—like the time I learned that “vulpine” means “relating to foxes” and then I understood how a colleague had chosen the name for her new firm. But this week was different.

This week a high-rolling winning champion was unseated by a surprisingly fierce demur woman. Amy Schneider is her name and it turns out she is a trans woman. As we arrived at the weekend she had won three championships with a brilliant mind and a dazzling smile. That smile, by the way, is our sign, that Amy is showing us the pathway into the dimension of love where justice reigns and all of God’s created children, including especially we who are LGBTQ are thriving. God’s love does, indeed, restore all things.

Not only are Amy’s wins phenomenal all by themselves, but they lent a special meaning occurring as they did in Trans Awareness Week. If you haven’t seen Amy or her wonderful smile here are a couple of links:

(You will have to Google “Amy Schneider Jeopardy” look for first one from Uproxx “Transgender Woman Amy Schneider Becomes New ‘Jeopardy!’ Champion During Trans Awareness Week” and then “the second one” is from Newsweek “Transgender Woman Amy Schneider Becomes New ‘Jeopardy!’ Champ During Trans Awareness Week.” WordPress isn’t having any links today for some reason. I apologize.)

If you want to risk tears of joy have a look at the second link and scroll down to the smiles of the two men applauding her first win. If that isn’t a sign I don’t know what is. It is a beautiful example of the description (2 Samuel 23:4) of “ruling in the fear of God” as “like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.” Hallelujah! Rejoice and sing (Pslam 132:9).

Today in the church is the feast of Christ the King. It is  (according to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Religion) “celebration of the all-embracing authority of Christ, which shall lead [humankind] to seek the ‘peace of Christ’ in the ‘Kingdom of Christ.’” It is a sign in many ways. It is a sign that Advent is coming, that time when we turn inward and seek to align ourselves with the manifestation of Emmanuel “God with us.” Christ the King is a sign that we must always remember to love, because it is in the love we build up that we find the paving stones of the path into the dimension of the authority of God’s love. It is, as the Revelation tells us (1:8) a sign to look always through our love to find grace and peace from the one who is “the Alpha and the Omega,” who is and was and is to come.

The reading from the passion in John’s Gospel (18:33-37) is the revelation of the blindness of many to the dimension of love, even when it stands in their midst. The signs are all around them and yet they cannot see. The truth is given to them and yet they cannot hear it. “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

The signs are all around us, the truth is being told to us eternally. Can we listen, can we hear, can we find the path into the dimension of love? Can we learn that glory is to be found in the brilliant smiles of people all around us? Check out the manifestation of trans glory and follow Amy’s brilliant smile.

Christ the King Year B 2021 RCL (Proper 29): 2 Samuel 23:1-7; Psalm 132:1-13(14-19); Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37 ©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Inwardly Digest Love

I had one of those lovely unitive moments this morning. I was sitting in “my” chair, reading the Sunday paper and listening to “With Heart and Voice” (church music https://www.wxxiclassical.org/show/with-heart-and-voice ) on the radio. A famous hymn came on and I was immediately transported back to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin near Times Square in New York and the sound of that particular glorious hymn at the offertory on the occasion of my first service at the altar as subdeacon, probably in 1995 or 1996. I could feel the vibration of the music and sense the air thick with incense as the altar party (celebrant, deacon, subdeacon) cense the high altar. It is a very dramatic moment in the Mass, although not the climactic moment of consecration. Rather, it is a prelude to the eucharistic canon. Well, you see the effect just thinking of it has had on me. As I heard the hymn begin I put my paper down and looked out at the Douglas firs surrounding our home. I could have sworn they were swaying gently to the music. They looked almost as though they, too, were engaged in the act of censing the high altar.

And, of course, they were and are, as nature is always engaged in the act of praising God by bringing God’s love always to the fore. The trees protect us and nurture us and are very much a part of the social fabric in this part of Oregon where we live very close to nature at all times. It was a reminder to me that living in creation and walking in love are very much the same thing. We are meant, indeed we are called, to live in harmony by walking in love as part of our inward spiritual sense, second-nature I guess is another way of putting it.  Well, we have been having a series of atmospheric river events (lots of rain) and have had a couple of dry days as a break so the reminders of nature are foremost at the moment.

Indeed so is the constant challenge of relearning how to walk in love in a pandemic now getting near the end of its second year. Remember, in the beginning, when we thought it would last a few weeks? Then, remember when we didn’t believe it could last two years? But here we are. My circle of friends has been discussing lately how to move forward, just how much to “resume” from the before times, how exactly to decide what is appropriate and what is safe and what is life-giving, all of which are parts of knowing what is loving.

The song of Hannah is the feature of our scripture this week. The story is found in 1 Samuel 1:4-20 and the song itself is in 1 Samuel 2:1-10. The song is the expression of Hannah’s joy on learning she has become pregnant after a life of infertility. Her son is Samuel, who will be the great prophet. Samuel is God’s gift in response to Hannah’s prayers. The song sums up the joy, indeed the love, in Hannah’s heart as she sings “My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God.”

The traditional story tells of Hannah’s oppression by her peers “year by year” because of her infertility. In desperation Hannah prays excitedly to God in the temple, silently, her lips moving, and the priest taunts her for being drunk. Hannah replies that she has “been pouring out” her soul and the priest replies that God will grant her prayer. Hannah bears a son, names him Samuel, because “I have asked him of the Lord.”

A twentieth century setting of the song is found in the women’s music hymnal Voices Found: Women in the Church’s Song (New York: Church Publishing, 2003). That hymnal was one product of the project called “Women’s Sacred Music Project” (http://womenssacredmusicproject.org/lady-chapel-singers/ ). My husband was very active in that project and I was connected to them as well through our common life at St. Mark’s Church in Philadelphia. The Lady Chapel Singers were participants in my ordination, and sang the Song of Hannah “I have Borrowed Him” at the offertory on that occasion (149 words and music by Linda Wilberger Egan). A full circle of love lifting up the Holy Spirit in my life.

What I see now in the story of Hannah is how long her vexation and anxiety was before she poured out her soul to God. What I see now is that once she shifted dimensions from anxiety and vexation to loving God her life turned around. Indeed, not only Hannah’s life but the continuing revelation of God’s work in the world came from the pivot when Hannah shifted dimensionally into the love of God. It is not just that Hannah loved and then received. It is that Hannah’s dimensional shift into a position of inward loving, loving as second nature, had impact way beyond her own life. Her love negated and ended her oppression, her love shocked and educated the mansplaining temple priest. Her love brought forth a prophet whose own love wrote the history of the revelation of God’s action in creation. Hannah’s love points the way for us.

In this week’s passage from Mark’s Gospel (13:1-8) Jesus speaks of an “end still to come,” telling his followers to look past earthquakes and famines and wars because they are “but the beginning of the birthpangs” of the coming of the kingdom of love. This is the “already but not yet” eschatology theologians write about.

What we miss in this passage is the idea that we are being told that outward signs are not the pivotal points in creation. What we need to understand is that these moments are in our hearts, as indeed it was in Hannah’s. We need to see that walking in love must be not only second nature but the very path to how we dwell in creation—including in society. We must (as the collect says) “inwardly digest … embrace … and hold fast” the power of love incarnate.

Indeed the signs always have been all around us. Indeed the trees dance with praise to God. Indeed we need to reengineer life daily. The power we all have been given in Christ is the knowledge that love is always the answer.

Proper 28 Year B 2021 RCL (1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Hebrews 10: 11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13:1-8)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Giving Completely

My husband’s closet is full of wrapped Christmas presents. I know it isn’t supposed to be a competition, but when I wandered in there to grab the laundry and saw them I had a moment of panic. Now, to be fair (to myself), my dresser is crammed up with unwrapped presents—it’s not like I haven’t been working at it. Still, I’m nowhere as organized about it as he is.

My heart is in the right place. I love giving the right gifts. The problem is figuring out what gift is “right.” I also have the experience developed early in life of getting massively into the Christmas spirit the week or so before Christmas, and not until then. So for decades I merrily hit the stores in the days leading up to Christmas (remember stores?) shopping for just the right thing, in the right size and the right color. In those days I would madly be wrapping in the afternoon on Christmas Eve; after I was ordained I had other priorities that day so I’ve learned to get to it sooner! There was one year (1986 I think) when we had just moved into our home in Philadelphia a week before Christmas and I actually spent the afternoon writing my Christmas cards (remember Christmas cards?).

Oh well, the point is, giving has to be complete. A couple of weeks ago we decided (thanks to the cold rain … hallelujah) we needed a humidifying pot to sit on the gas stove. Shopping online I noticed several that were indeed charming enough to make great Christmas presents. But we needed the humidity now, not in three months, so we went ahead. The gift here was the health benefit and immediacy was a critical part of it.

We are heirs of eternal life if we can be givers of love. Love is our hope and our inheritance. We purify ourselves by loving—by giving—without exception. Giving must be complete, made completely of love. The fullness of our inheritance as heirs of God’s creation comes from having innately within us the love that is God in a glass half full not half empty. The dimension of love is complete. We can enter that dimension when we can give completely.

In Mark’s Gospel (12:38-44) we have the story of the “widow’s mite”—the story in which Jesus is observing rich people making temple donations when a “poor widow came and put in two small copper coins.” Jesus tells his disciples that hers is the greatest gift, because she “has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” It is a sign of her faith, that she gives completely.

It reminds me of when my husband and I were legally married—on our 30^th anniversary of life together, now 13 years ago. We had a small gathering of close friends join us at City Hall in Toronto for what turned out to be an amazing, ontologically-shifting experience. The connection is this—when we returned home and began telling our friends we had gotten married most replied by saying “is that any good?” We sent a card to everyone on our Christmas card list just to let them know. And suddenly gifts started arriving in the mail. One by one relatives responded with hand-written notes and lovely gifts, including not a few family heirlooms. When I told my husband I was puzzled he just grinned and said “no, this is what you do when someone gets married.” Our families sealed our joining by welcoming us with gifts. Their giving was complete.

We’ve had two readings from the book of Ruth: last week we learned how Ruth and Naomi re-engineered their family after the passing of all of the menfolk and in so doing sealed their love. This week we see how they continue to build what might be thought of as a logical family—the kind LGBTQ people build—as a means of nourishment, of restoration, of the building up of love. The sealing of the joining of family by giving which is complete. (See for example: https://rpsplus.wordpress.com/2020/07/26/the-majesty-of-love/ ; https://rpsplus.wordpress.com/2021/08/29/love-sustained-in-beauty/; https://rpsplus.wordpress.com/2021/07/18/building-a-house-of-love/ ).

God is love and love is the basis of creation. The widow gave love, all that she had, so as to seal the family of creation by building up more love. Ruth and Naomi gave love, all that they had, to seal the family of creation by building up more love. We all are called to give love completely to seal the joining of the family of creation by the building up of love.

Proper 27 Year B RCL 2021 (Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17; Psalm 127 Nisi Dominus; Hebrews 9 24-28; Mark 12:38-44)

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