Seeing Love

Acts 5:32 “And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

Psalm 118:22 “The same stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”

John 20:29 “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Walking in love is the challenge. Saying you love is easy; doing it is both hard and easy. If you can walk in love, then a new dimension opens to your eyes and you can see how it works; this is what the apostle means: “we” are and “we can be” witnesses to these things. Witness is not just seeing; it is living, prophetically, into a specific reality. I witness spring and daffodils and tulips. I witness my husband’s sweet love. I witness tragedy in Ukraine. I witness hope.

Rejection is part of resurrection; the pain of rejection is the building stone of resurrection (the “chief cornerstone”), it is the beginning of new life, it is the moment dimensions shift, it requires witness.

God, who is love, is always in our midst, always among us. It is we who refuse to see, it is we who refuse to embrace, it is we who refuse to live in its dimension. It is we who refuse to love, who refuse to live in the dimension of love. But all we have to do to see Jesus among us, all we have to do to find love among us, is shift dimensions so that we love outward instead of waiting for love to come to us.

When we can walk in love we can rejoice, we will know we are blessed because we have not seen and yet have come to believe.

LGBTQ people are created in God’s—love’s—own image as people who are defined by their love. Loving LGBTQ people are facing new challenges in parts of the world. We are called to be fully ourselves, to have strength in the certainty that we are called to walk in love. We are called to resurrection, to new life in the dimension where love prevails.

 

Second Sunday of Easter Year C 2022 RCL (Acts 5: 27-32; Psalm 118:14-29 Confitemini Domino; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31)©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Easter Joy is Easter Love. Alleluia!

The magic of Easter is the magic of new things, of springtime, of sunshine and flowers and let’s just admit it—hope. And yet, the magic of Easter is the magic of old things made new, of regeneration, of sunshine and flowers and springtime yet again and again and again, and the reassurance of that is the reassurance of the certainty of love. And hope.

We know the Easter story so well we sometimes forget to focus on its meaning, the immanent eternal universality of love. God is love, and the actions that help us understand the elements of the Christ event are the actions of transmitting love.

Acts 10: Love shows no partiality. We who are love are witnesses to all that love has accomplished. Everyone who walks in love receives eternal connection to the source and power of love

Psalm 118: Give thanks to love, to the source of love, to the building up of love. Love’s mercy endures for ever. Love is my strength, love is my song, love has become my salvation. Love’s doing is marvelous in every way. On this day love has acted, we rejoice in love with love.

In the story of the resurrection told in John chapter 20, we have clearly a logical family, like the logical families of so many of us who are created with love as God’s LGBTQ people. This logical family is created by love, sustained by love, walking in love, and yet is forced to persist in love when pain is inflicted.

John 20: The “other” disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, outran all the others so powerful was the love and hope within. The “other” disciple saw and believed in what the power of love had done. Mary Magdalene’s love was so powerful he heart was broken, she wept, but angels comforted her. When she saw Jesus she supposed him to be the gardener, who was tending creation, as always, with love. She knew him when he spoke her name. She praised the power of love which had yet again transformed her.

The truth of the resurrection is this: it is not just as an event in history that we honor. Rather, it is a timeless event in our own hearts. We go through cruxifixion and resurrection daily, constantly even, in our lives. We depend on the promise of the eternity of love to restore and replenish us. That is the promise of Christ.

For us in the LGBTQ community, it is the promise that the love with which we are created in love’s very image is not only real but powerful and eternal. It is the knowledge that our loves and logical families are honored by love, that there is always another morning, that the tulips always will bloom in spring, that love is everywhere that we can embrace it.

Easter joy is Easter love. Alleluia!

 

Easter Day Principal Service Year C RCL 2022 (Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24  Confitemini Domino; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 ; John 20:1-18)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rest, Revel, Rejoice

I will be brief today. I know it’s Palm Sunday, the beginning of the church’s cathartic experience of the Passion of Christ. Our logical family is together, and we are celebrating quietly, alone together. It has been a rough couple of years, and we rejoice now that we are together and healthy and happy. We are delirious to be occupied with petty squabbles and normal nonsense.

It is the purpose of the celebration of the Passion, after all, to remind us that there always is resurrection, if we believe in the power of God’s love. We walk in Christ’s “way of suffering”—we do this daily, after all, don’t we as LGBTQ people in the world? We share in Christ’s resurrection in the little things, the smiles, the hugs, the warmth, the togetherness, the opportunity in life to constitute a family of love rather than obligation.

We are reminded to remember to “let the same mind be in [us] that was in Christ” (Philippians 2:5), meaning that we are to focus on love and loving and on giving love and accepting love and living love, no matter what. For it is in this walk in love that we find the path to resurrection.

So like Jesus’ disciples, who “on the sabbath … rested according to the commandment” we invite you to rest, to revel in love given and received.

Easter joy will come.

Palm Sunday 2022 RCL (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:14-23:5-6)

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

Expecting Grace

We are approaching the end of Lent, which, of course, means, we are approaching the Passion …

We usually walk through this in church in a kind of curious symmetry with the world around us. But, for the past few years we have walked the way of the Passion in real life. We have had to fear for our lives and to save our own lives, we have had to learn to fear contact with each other. We have had to forgo the love of those who love us the most for fear we might infect them and lose them. We have had to fear that we might lose them anyway.

And, now, as though it weren’t enough, we must fear the spread of war, because the war in Ukraine is clearly a war on the liberal world—by which I mean the world of reason.

We pray for grace, and we find grace, in simple things. Yesterday I took my car to the carwash, and there was a young man there who clearly was on his first day. He was doing a great job. I noticed the boss giving him instructions and moving him around from station to station, but really, he was doing a fine job, smiling and welcoming customers and working them through quickly. So, for me, there was grace in discovering a little bit of his story. I just hope, for him, there was grace in a job well done all day.

It is in the ways our hearts appreciate and absorb good feelings that we learn to walk in love.

It is so easy to lose synchrony in the middle of a complicated life. It is so easy to be distracted from grace. It is so easy to turn away from love. But it is always possible, even in the deepest depths, to return to love.

Today we read in Isaiah [43:19] God announcing: “I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Do we not perceive it? We err when we fail to understand that God offers us this change in every moment. We are called to joy, we are called to gladness, we are called to reap a harvest of joy. In fact. we are called [Philippians 3:14] to “press on” to joy, to press on “toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God.” Which, is love.

We are called, to expect grace, to be alert for every opportunity for a new thing. We are called to perceive the springing forth of grace in every part of life.

LGBTQ people live in what is called a “liberal” world. It is a world of reason, a world in which law promotes justice, the rights of individuals are guaranteed by law, righteousness inheres in the extension of the security of individuality, and all of it is powered by love, which is built up by more love, which is the source of grace.

We must be aware. We must perceive where grace reaches out to touch our lives. We must be alert to the operation of the passion in our everyday lives. We must not fear, even as we learn to cope. We must above all participate in the building up of the world of reason with the love God has given us.

5 Lent Year C RCL 2022: (Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126 In convertendo; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8)

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