Love Propagated

What comes to me today is Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.

It is the first Sunday of the Epiphany, Christmas is past, the New Year has begun, even Congress has calmed down however briefly. The weather is typical for Oregon, some rain now and again, moderate temperatures. According to Farmer’s Almanac the brutally cold December of ice and freezing was the coldest part of this Oregon winter (I hope they’re right; they usually are somehow).

God’s prophecy in Isaiah 42 is that “former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.” The Psalmist sings (29) “God shall give strength to God’s people, God shall give God’s people the blessing of peace.” Peter proclaims (Acts 10) “God shows no partiality,” … and especially that “we are witnesses.” At Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan river (Matthew 3) “the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The reality of the dimension of love into which God called us in our own creation, in God’s own LGBTQ image, is that all things always are being made new, that God shows no partiality, that we who are God’s LGBTQ heirs are witnesses to this constant renewal that God’s love, created in us so that it might be propagated through us in the love we share, makes the single constant in the dimension of love.

All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.

1 Epiphany Year A 2023 RCL “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17)

©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.