Microhabitats can be fascinating. It is time for Japanese Camellias to bloom in Oregon. My neighbor’s, which is about 100 meters away from my study window, has been blooming for two weeks. Mine just started blooming this week; as I drive around I see some blooming, some just budding. What makes the difference?
Well, sometimes they’re called microhabitats, small spaces that have microclimates. I know, for example, that the roses and Japanese Maple east of my house are in a protected environment and the sun’s warmth is amplified there. But in my west garden under pretty serious tree canopy, the same plants are weeks behind. Fascinating.
But then, how is it we comprehend that, but we cannot comprehend that we live in a multidimensional universe, where some of us live in a universe of love? All at once.
God, who is love, which is the power of creation, which is the force of the universe, took human form in Jesus, to teach us how to move into and thrive in the dimension of love.
Abram, encounters God, and is transformed [Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16]. Encounter with God causes what theologians call an “ontological shift;” being itself changes. You might have experienced this–my own experiences of ontological shift include my marriage and my ordinations. Everything looks the same, but everything is different too. In the story, Abram’s body is changed from elderly to vibrant, his name is changed because his being is now suffused with love, his wife is also transformed, which further transforms his ontological reality. In the aftermath of the encounter Abraham receives from God a covenant of love fulfilled.
On the face of it, the story is about how God “changes” Abram and Sarai into Abraham and Sarah. But that misses the point. In reality—one might even say in truth—Abram and Sarai were walking in love where they encountered God as they moved into the eternal dimension of love.
The Psalmist rejoices with praise [Psalm 22:22-30]. Love, God, is open to every petition. Love, God, fulfills, fills, satisifies. Love, God, sustains the heart, the heart sustains love in synchrony, love builds up.
Paul’s own midrash on Abraham [Romans 4:13-25] is focused on the promise of the covenant of love eternal, which comes through the experience of faith, which is lived experience of love. It was Abraham and Sarah’s life of loving that drew them closer to the realization of their encounter with God. In other words, love builds up, love is attracted to love, love rests on grace which is love received, faith builds as love builds as lived experience. Love, walking in love, is living rightly. “Therefore … faith was reckoned … as righteousness.”
In Mark’s Gospel [8:31-38] Jesus has quite directly told the disciples the details of the journey toward crucifixion and resurrection on which he, Jesus, and they, have embarked. Peter rebukes Jesus for saying such things. Peter lets his feelings overwhelm him. Jesus calls out the absence of love; he says to get the absence of love behind him. Jesus makes the difficult proclamation “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” To cling to self, to things, to hunker down is to shut out love, which is to lose life itself. It is a tough lesson to learn that those who give up whatever love requires thereby enter the dimension of salvation in which love transforms everything.
LGBTQ+ people often live in microhabitats subject to microclimates. We live deeply into the love we share, which is the love that defines us, which is the love with which we are created in God’s own image. We cling fiercely to our security. We celebrate our love. We have been called to walk in the dimension of love, to be transformed by love, to be the visible evidence of the power of love. We are called to lead the building up of love that has the power to transform our microhabitats into the grace and power of the dimension of love. We are called to show how to receive from God a covenant of love fulfilled.
2 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30 Deus, Deus meus; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38)
©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 