Loving our Way to Righteousness

Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany, and the last festal Sunday before Lent, the church often refers to this Sunday as The Feast of the Transfiguration. The focus is on the transfiguration of the Christ from Jesus the human as an act of the loving God. The Old Testament story (Exodus 34:29-35) tells how Moses was transformed whenever in the presence of God by the shining of the skin of his face. The shining of Moses’ face so frightened people that he would wear a veil in their presence, which he removed in the presence of God. The Psalm (99) is a hymn of praise that presents God’s victory as one of justice, equity and righteousness. The Gospel (Luke 9:28-43) is the story of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain top. Jesus has taken Peter and John and James with him to pray. There they all witness a dialogue among Moses, Elijah and Jesus, and Jesus’ appearance is transfigured “the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white,” which the disciples appropriately understand as the manifestation of glory. The New Testament reading is from 2 Corinthians (3:12-4:2) in which Paul’s midrash on transfiguration hits the nail right on the head when he says “a veil lies over their minds,” but in the presence of God the veil is removed, there is freedom, and that all of us perceive glory as though reflected in a mirror, transforming us by degree from one glory to another.

Paul means that all of these stories of transfiguration point directly to the active embrace of love. It is love, that is God, that transfigures all of us, if only we can accept it by turning to it. It reminds me of the old concept of a knight in shining armor. Whatever that might mean to readers of classical fiction, it has meant for me over the course of my life the joy in the faces of the men I have loved. I have seen every man I ever have come to love as my knight in shining armor, whose very presence transfigures me with his love. When I recount the men in my life and their love and what it has meant to me it always manifests for me in the presence of joy and literally in smiles that transfigure not only me but the world we occupy. It is this love, shared, that opens the door to the dimension of the kingdom of heaven, which is a place we all can occupy if only we will.

As we approach Carnaval (Shrove Tuesday) and Ash Wednesday and Lent, we are living in a very complicated reality. After more than two years of pandemic many people around the world are beginning to embrace hope of a return to a life that includes socializing, not just Zooms but actual hugs and of course the warm smiles of love. And yet on the very verge of victory over disease we find ourselves living in a world where inconceivable war nonetheless is taking place. How do we embrace love as a paradigm when we face constant fear?

Well, how do we dare do anything else? We must all embrace love, we must love with every ounce of our being, we must tear away the veil that hides us from the pathway to God’s kingdom. We must love our way to justice and equity and righteousness, because this is the glory that transforms by degree “from one glory to another” from one moment of love to another.

Last Sunday after Epiphany Year C RCL 2022 (Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Cor 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a])

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Love Triumphant

Context is everything they say. It’s winter again in Oregon, rainy and cold and apparently going to be colder. Bulbs are up and looking like they want to bloom soon, but freezing nights are coming this week so we’ll see how that goes. It seems like I’ll have to bring my Meyer lemon tree into the garage for a few days after all. We are about to have some construction begin so things are a bit in an upheaval, but it will pass. What matters is the love we share, the hugs, the smiles, the laughter, the knowledge of love, that love surrounds us and strengthens us and nurtures us. I have never known love greater than the love I am experiencing now. Love triumphs.

Luke’s Gospel (6:27-38) continues Jesus’ discourse addressed to his disciples, but also to the crowd that has gathered. It is a discourse about love and action. The discourse is punctuated with action words, commands really: love, do good, bless, pray, give. It is the measure of love as the outward manifestation of God’s presence in each of us. It is the pathway to inherit the kingdom: “you will be children of the Most High.”

Of course, the context makes the message tougher. Jesus says to love your enemies, bless those who curse you. He means that we must be on guard not to let love lapse within us, not to let the absence of love overwhelm us. We must keep the love lighted in our hearts like a beacon under any circumstance. It is a kind of tough love after all that we are enjoined to embrace.

But the essence is the ultimate clause (6:38) “the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” Love must be everything, always.

The other scripture appointed for today (the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany) provides yet more context. The story of Joseph’s triumphant discovery by his brothers (Genesis 45:3-11, 21-28) is the revelation of a common truth, that what is, is what was meant to be. It is an instruction yet again to embrace love , because love clears away the fog. Psalm 37 reminds us to be in love with love, to trust, to take delight, to commit and above all to be patient. 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50) is Paul’s discourse on resurrection. As usual the concluding clause has the key “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” because flesh and blood are perishable. But love is imperishable. It is love that is the key to inherit the kingdom. Paul, of course, is using midrash on Jesus’ discourse.

Well the world out there is an amazing place, sometimes confusing, sometimes implacably beautiful, always fascinating, always presenting the possibility of grace to those of us who can learn to walk in love.

Often it is difficult to find a nonobvious way to relate the scripture to LGBTQ spirituality. The key must be that word “nonobvious,” because if there is an LGBTQ perspective on the message today it is the very normality of the lives we lead as people who love, as people whose love is powerful, as people whose love is triumphant.

7 Epiphany Year C 2022 RCL (Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Psalm 37: 3-12, 41-42 Noli aemulari; 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50; Luke 6:27-38)

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Drag Queens, Owls and Turkeys

The weather is warm, it is mimicking spring (fortunately we will go back to the rain tomorrow, we need rain in winter in Oregon). I am recovering nicely from something odd and asthma-like. Having done an immense amount of writing during isolation and asthmaishness I now find myself liberated to work on my model railroads (yes, plural), my gardens, composing and making music, and my usual past-time of too much cooking. This is the magic of semi-“retirement.” You can do what you want, and there is more to do than there is time to do it.

Today is Superb Owl day (thanks to National Public Radio for that one! https://www.npr.org/2022/02/11/1080119057/superbowl-superb-owl-super-bowl-sunday ) and I want to shout out to the owl that kept me awake from September until late January. Thank goodness it finally has gone quiet (or maybe just gone).

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Valentine. I’ve decided to roast the second turkey I picked up at Thanksgiving for my husband—he loves turkey and dressing, not to mention the aroma of turkey roasting.It will be fun and loving and that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s all grace.

God’s grace is the love we share, it is the only help we need, because by staying plugged into love we can attain perfect grace, that state sometimes known as heaven. As Jesus reminds us constantly, the kingdom of heaven has come near if only we can turn to its dimension.

One of the most amazing moments of grace I experienced this week was listening (even more thanks to NPR) to some queer STEM queens (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/drag-artists-science/ ).

I don’t suppose I will ever meet any of these people, but my heart went pit-a-pat at the idea that one of them might really know what a confidence interval is, what the word “significant” really means in science, what it means to understand that events occur under various probability distributions (oh, what would my mentor at the University of Chicago have said?) Well, you know, after three grueling years of unforgiving coursework, the day I passed my comprehensive exams he asked me to take a walk with him on the “quad.” It was bracingly chilly, we walked and chatted. I was in heaven (it was grace experienced), here was my mentor choosing to spend time with me. It turned out he had a zillion questions for me about music, he had been waiting for me to make it to “colleague” level. Memories aside, to know there are not just queens, but drag queens, who not only get science but create science and change the human capacity for grace, is thrilling.

Love, you see, is always the crux of the matter, turning from love means turning to mortal self, turning to love means living in the frequency of the heart, in the reality of the identity in which God has created us. To be blessed is to know God by staying in your own heart where God always is urging you to be more and more the you God created you to be.

In Luke’s Gospel (6:17-26) we continue the story of Jesus’ ministry to vast crowds, It says (6:18) “They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.” It is a theme in Luke’s narrative that the healing comes from hearing. We are meant to understand that it doesn’t just happen; rather, it comes from the internalization that happens when we “hear,” (the term is metaphorical for perception, it doesn’t require physicality) when the love actually changes us and moves us closer to a new dimension. It was in their “hearing”–perception–that the hearts of the people in the crowd were touched and healing began. It also is important to remember that the essence of healing is full restitution into the community. Healing is being. Thus, it was in seeking change that the crowds opened their own hearts to the love offered. The love moving from Jesus to them was like electricity moving through power lines. No wonder we can understand they shifted into the new dimension of grace and love.

We are blessed when we stay in the dimension of the heart where God (Jesus) always is. Jesus recounts the famous “beatitudes”: statements that all begin “blessed are you” and end with the command to live fully into the new dimension by “rejoic[ing]” and “leap[ing] for joy.” Walking in love is rejoicing, leaping for joy, heaven is that state of pure grace.

God’s grace is the love we share, it is the doorway to the heavenly dimension where drag queens and gay priests do science, where husbands roast turkeys, where even owls are honored. Amen!

Epiphany 6 Year C RCL 2022 (Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1  Beatus vir qui non abiit; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26)

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Moving the Furniture

I know it isn’t Lent yet. Mercifully it’s still a ways away. Maybe what I’m experiencing is a prelude to spring, which also is still a ways away. Yesterday we had some of those hunky moving guys come clean out the garage and take away several pieces of furniture we had been tripping over. And then, once that was done, I moved my desk. In fact, I moved my whole study around. It’s quite surprising how refreshing it is. Almost like having a new life. Everything is the same, except everything looks different. Perspective shifts. I see things in a different light with a different emphasis. Fascinating ….

Just to be clear, I don’t like where my desk is now, and if I manage to get this online I’m going to move it again. But that will just shift my perspective yet again. I might be on to something here ….

There is a strange kind of synergy between how you feel and how you are and how you are going to be. It is all about love, of course. If you can fill your heart with love, you can win. I know my husband feels loved because I’ve been telling him constantly lately. It’s amazing how it can change your whole life, your whole perspective, just to tell someone you love them.

Today’s old testament scripture is about the calling of Isaiah (6:1-13). It takes place inside a glorious vision of heaven—that place where love dwells in abundance—with six-winged seraphs and smoke and hot coals and the ordaining of Isaiah thus (vs. 6-8):

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

I remember the first time this was read aloud in chapel when I was in seminary. We all suspiciously looked around, looking each other in the eye, to see who felt like this was their own story too (all of us, of course).

The metaphor of the cleansing by burning coal is important because it involves not just interaction with God but challenge and pain and cleansing and renewal and commission all at once. In my own case, I had been an active but not very prominent member of my church. My husband and I sat in a pew near the front, right behind our best friends. When I first told my rector I thought I was called to the priesthood he sent me away (three times in fact) to pray over it. When I finally convinced him, he sent me to the bishop, and only then did the whole process commence. A committee of parishioners (most of whom had never made my acquaintance) was appointed to work with me prayerfully to discover my call. After several months, as I was about to go to a diocesan retreat, one of the members of the committee lit into me (see the parallel there?) by asking how a [epithet for gay man] dared defile the church by pretending to be called to the priesthood. To say I was shocked is understatement. It was no less stunning than would hot coals have been. In the moment my heart sank and I prepared to be turned away. My rector just looked at me and raised his eyebrows and I knew it was up to me to speak the truth. I said a bit shakily (but I got it all out): “I know I have been called to proclaim the good news and to serve as a spiritual leader.”

The meeting broke up. Nothing else happened. Here I am in my 24^th year of priesthood. (And, yes, that person was at my ordination and among the first at the altar to receive the new priest’s blessing. We subsequently worked together for many years in the diocese.)

Nothing like moving the furniture, in reality or metaphorically, to shift your perspective, to show you what is truly important, to bring you back to the good news of God’s love given to all in creation and restored in salvation.

Ultimately it is grace that sustains us. It is grace, which is love, that nurtures us. It is grace, which is love incarnate in those we love and in those who love us that literally sustains us in all things. Without the smiles and the “I love you” there is nothing else.

The reading today from Luke’s Gospel (5:1-11) is the story about the catching of an abundance of fish. Simon Peter and James and John were exhausted from a night of failure to catch anything when Jesus commandeered their boat to preach from. Defeated and frightened, we can almost imagine their raised eyebrows when Jesus says to let down their nets. The catch was so immense, almost overwhelming, that all were amazed. But Simon and James and John were shocked, stunned. Their perspective was shifted, and in that moment they were called and commissioned.

And so it is with all of us every day. We have to constantly see shifting perspectives to experience the grace of eternal love. Each day is a new opportunity to move life’s furniture, to say “Here I am; send me!”

5 Epiphany Year C 2022 RCL (Isaiah 6:1-8(9-13); ; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11)