We are all connected. We can see that this week from the drama about the spy balloon, about the jobs report, about the surprise decrease in COVID … we are all connected, unless we choose not to be. Choosing not to be connected is sin.
Do not ever let anyone tell you (wag their finger at you, quote the so-called “bible,” look again, it doesn’t really say what they say it does) that you are in “sin” if you are LGBTQ. You are not choosing to be disconnected from humanity just because God made you to be a lover of souls.
(You can see what they are trying to do, it is the oldest trick in the propaganda book—make you feel guilty because you are “different” from how they are. It is a form of reverse projection! They put this on us because they cannot tolerate how we could be different from them and still be human. It is what the Ten Commandments mean when they say “no other gods before me,” which is idolatry; I must be normal, therefore I am like God, therefore you are in sin if you are not like me ….)
But, when we bother to make friends, be friendly, be people together, in connection—go ahead, try it, just smile, that’s all it takes, and show up, like sit in the pew every Sunday in church, or say “hi” when you stop by their stall at the farmer’s market every week—when we make ourselves visible, it always is witness to the fact that we are, in fact, alike precisely because we are connected. There is no sin, no disconnectedness in being LGBTQ.
God’s prophecy through the writer known as second Isaiah (58: 6-12) is that God wants us to create justice and to celebrate it. God wants us to bring healing through joy. God wants us to remove the yoke of oppression put on us by those who want us to not be ourselves. God says “remove the yoke from among you … your light shall rise in the darkness.” It means that we who are God’s LGBTQ people, created in God’s own image, are called to live our LGBTQ lives with joy and pride, we are called to demand justice, we are called to celebrate connections and connectedness.
The Psalmist sings (112: 4) that righteousness, which is living in a dimension of justice “stands fast for ever.” It is the lamp light that shines in the darkness. We are created in God’s own LGBTQ image and we are charged to demand righteousness, which is justice, which is full connection, which is the absence of sin.
Paul carried the Gospel to the communities outside Israel. He was the greatest of evangelists. He was in pain and living with some sort of speech impediment caused by the stroke he had on the road to Damascus, from which God saved him by sending first Jesus to call him to righteousness and then others to bring him to healing. His love of God is not only genuine but it is part of his soul. He knows God’s wisdom, because he is a scholar of Hebrew texts, but he knows God’s love because he has experienced it at the point of personal tragedy. And he knows that all God wants from us, which turns out to be incredibly difficult for us, is that we should receive God’s Holy Spirit with loving arms and we should rejoice in the lives we have been given (1 Corinthians 2:1-16).
And thus, in Matthew’s Gospel (5:17-20), Jesus tells the crowds that he has come to point to the new dimension, the fulfillment not only of the prophecy but of God’s very will, that our righteousness should bring justice, which brings love, to every corner of creation. And Jesus tells the crowds that they will find the dimension of love when their justice exceeds that of those who oppress them.
It can be difficult to realize how much love demands justice. God is love, God has created us to love, God has made us the manifestation of love, and God wants us to live in a dimension of love. But to get there we have to find justice. Not only for ourselves, not just to “throw off the yoke” of our oppression. But as well to be just, to embody justice as part of the love we give. This is righteousness.
Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Year A 2023 RCL (Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12); Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20)
©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 