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.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 