Jupiter, it seems, has become my constant companion this summer. I’ve been watching it cross the night sky each night at a different time (it’s getting earlier each night) for awhile now. It has become almost humorous the way it seems sometimes to awaken me at just the right moment to look up and see it poking out through one Douglas fir on its way to the west to hide behind another. It is one of those wonderful points of harmony with creation, on the one hand, and God’s care of us, on the other, that reminds you there is a guiding force in creation.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying we are puppets by any means, there are no magic strings running things anywhere. Rather, it is that there is a harmony in creation that is at its best when we get onto its dimension, sort of like getting on the superhighway at the proper ramp.
In Lambeth the bishops of the Anglican communion are meeting, in some rancor. There is a lot of off-ramping or downright detouring from so-called conservative factions who keep insisting diverse sexualities are somehow “wrong.” But, as we who are God’s LGBTQ children created LGBTQ in God’s own image know, of course, our loves and lives are in perfect harmony. It is we who are on the superhighway breezing through the dimension of love.
And God is faithful to us.
This week’s scripture is all, humorously, focused on the idea of God’s faithfulness to God’s people. What is humorous is the idea that there is any question about that at all. It is not God whose faithfulness waivers, it is us. And so to understand the scripture we must invert our comprehension—look into yet another different spiritual dimension—to understand that like Jupiter night after night, God is always in harmony with us.
Hosea’s prophecy continues (https://rpsplus.wordpress.com/2022/07/25/whoredom-and-gods-prophets/) “they kept sacrificing to the Baals and offering incense to idols” (not unlike those voices of doom from the proverbial “right” wing) (Hosea 11:2). But (11:8) “my compassion grows warm and tender” and (11:11) “they shall come trembling like birds … and I will return them to their homes”—superhighways through the dimension of love indeed. Psalm 107 sings joyously of this superhighway into the dimension of love (3) “He gathered them out of the lands …”, (7) “He put their feet on a straight path ….”
Paul wrote to the fragile church at Colossae (Colossians 3: 2) “set your mind on things that are above” and (8) “get rid of all … anger, wrath, malice ….” (9) “seeing that you have stripped off the old self … and have clothed yourselves with the new self … renewed … according to the image of its creator … and (11) “Christ is all and in all.” We are meant to move in harmony with creation living the lives created for us in God’s image and moving always forward, not trapped in a past or distracting ourselves with petty anger. God’s faithfulness is most visible to us in this, when we live our lives walking in love in harmony with creation.
Jesus reminds the crowd (Luke 12:21) that treasures for self are not richness with God, that being distracted by jealousy blocks access to that superhighway of harmony.
Harmony with nature and humor with creation are all signs that we are traveling in the dimension of love. Like billboards on the side of the road, these are the reminders that God is always faithful to us, they are pointers to the places where we can show that we are faithful to God.
Proper 13 Year C 2022 RCL (Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43 Confitemini Domino; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21)
©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 