The weather is beautiful here, at last. Sunny, warm, late spring still not quite summer but hints of summer. The constant rain is gone now. No matter how showers reappear, we have the promise of warm evenings under the stars in nature’s magnificent canopy of tall firs. We will trade in the tv and the fireplace for the grill and the firepit. I was on the patio for several hours yesterday cleaning winter away from the furniture and our wildlife companions kept up a constant chatter the whole time. I told my husband after months of abandoning the outdoors to them it’s time to remind them we live here too. We do that by sitting outside, by tending the gardens, by being gently present with them in nature.
God calls us to live in harmony, to experience love in the goodness of nature, the better that we might build up that love and extend it not only to each other but into all of creation. This is God’s message, this is the Good News about love—that we are blessed so long as we return the blessing always.
In Acts 16 we are reminded that the nascent church in the days after the resurrection of Christ was not only not established but it was the province of regular everyday people called to love. Paul has a vision that leads him and his companions to discover a woman, “a dealer in purple cloth,” who is open to receive the Good News. She not only receives the news but invites Paul and his companions on the way into her household, and the Good News spreads thus through hospitality, through the building up of love through sharing and living in harmony with creation.
Psalm 67 reminds us that love rescues us, love blesses us, love shows us the light, love comes to us. We give thanks for love at all times. Love gives so many blessings that all the earth is in awe.
The Revelation (22) reminds us that God is love, that God’s angels are love. Love carries us to where we can see the clearing, the opening in the forest, the beginning of the pathway to the dimension of love. Once we can see it we can attain it by simply taking the first step of loving over and over, each first step leading to the next.
In John 14 (23-29) post-resurrection Jesus soothes his companions with the reminder that love is the true power. Love is the answer, love is the Good News, love is the way. Love is everything. As the angels sang to the shepherds at Jesus birth, thus on the eve of his ascension he says to his disciples “do not be afraid.” Just have love.
We who are God’s LGBTQ people, created in God’s image to be the visible power of love in creation, we are called in the present time to be the very household of love, to be bold in our own love, to inhabit creation in harmony, to use our hospitality to build up the dimension of love.
The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C 2022 RCL (Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67 Deus misereatur; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29)
©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 