Time is, as Einstein pointed out, an illusion. All time is all time all at once. The dimension of love is always not past or future but always now. We must live in it always now.
And, therefore, we must always be one with God. God wants us like a lover. God wants us to be always one with God. We must let God know we are there for God.
The life God wants us to live is a life of love, a life of realizing joy, a life of giving joy.
God wants us to understand that the message of salvation is that it always is always ours. There are no conditions other than that we walk in love in the dimension where God is.
Jesus pronounced “blessings”—promises of acceptance already given—to those who were willing to walk in love. All he asked in return is that they should rejoice and be glad.
My husband gave me a CD called “ExtANNAganza” from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus singing songs from Abba. It is an amazing gift for a whole lot of reasons. Of course, because he knows the music makes me joyful. It is music that just makes you feel good. But it particularly seems to me to be the hymnary of the LGBTQ community.
There are two extraordinary spiritual experiences in my life. I’ve written about them before, I know. But here I go again. The first was at the consecration of The Right Reverend Barbara Harris, the first woman bishop in the church of God (ok, since Joan the Pope) in Boston in 1989. Wikipedia tells me I was one of 8,000 people there that day. The thing I remember the most clearly was the moment in the liturgy when the 8,000 all rose to sing the Nicene Creed in unison. I could never ever have expected such a moment of power to come from the repetition of an ancient rite, I could never had imagined such a diverse crowd of witnesses coming together in the one thing that we all shared. It was almost an overpowering moment.
The other was, at the closing ceremony of the Gay Games in Amsterdam in 1998. I had been ordained a priest two months at that point. My friends who had supported my decade-long journey to ordination had all chipped in to give me the gift of that trip. And it had been an amazing couple of weeks, learning about the Netherlands, experiencing the thing the Gay Games gives, which is the sense of belonging no matter what. And now here we all were at the final evening, under the warm summer sky. And as the ceremony opened the strains of “Dancing Queen” began. And 50,000 (count us, 50,000!) queers all rose at once to sing and dance along. I remember my own joy. But I also remember the tears streaming down the faces of those all around me as we all stood and sang and dance. What amazing joy. What amazing reality. What amazing participation in God’s dimension of love.
And here is the message for us now—we must always hang onto that love that we all share, that joy that we alone can bring. Because our joy can change the world.
Look what we have done in three decades since—two lesbian governors, a gay former presidential candidate now in the cabinet, a trans-person in the cabinet—gay and lesbian bishops of the church, even a Roman pope who admits it is wrong to persecute us.
Keep on loving, keep on dancing, keep on creating joy, keep on keeping on.
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany Year A 2023 RCL (Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12)
©The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 