By Grace … Alleluia!

We have tulips. We have daffodils. We have sunshine. We have health. We have love. We have what God has intended for us.

And, we have joy. Joy is the outward expression of happiness, which is the inward expression of grace, which is God’s gift to those who remain connected, connected to each other most of all, which is how we remain connected to God.

Yes, of course, as Peter preaches: “God shows no partiality … anyone who … does what is right is acceptable.” And “everyone who believes in [Jesus Christ] receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” All of us are connected among us and with God through our faith in the one who taught us of the ultimate power of love.

God is love, and love is salvation, because love builds up, love creates, love heals, love sustains, love infuses, love is the greatest power God has given us. We sing [Psalm 118: 14-15] with exultation about our victory, we celebrate our righteousness—read that “right ness”—read that “walking in love.”

By God’s grace Paul writes [1 Corinthians 15:1-11] “I am what I am.” All that we are and whatever we are, we are by God’s grace. Remember, God created us in God’s own image. Next time you look in the mirror remember, you reflect the image of God. LGBTQ+ people, by grace, we are who we are, created LGBTQ+ in the image of God. Amen.

Of, course, today is Easter. Today is the Feast of the Resurrection. Today is the celebration of God’s promise to us—wait, even more, it is the celebration of our faith in God’s promise to us—of eternal life in the dimension of love. All we have to do is get it.

In John’s Gospel [20:1-18] it is early Saturday morning, before sunrise the day after the crucifixion, when Mary Magdalene gets up and goes to the tomb. She is ashamed for not having gone earlier to perform ablutions and tend to the body of Jesus. She is consumed with guilt and her own bad feelings. She therefore does not understand when she arrives to find the tombstone rolled away.

She is shocked. She runs to the disciples; note it is Peter and “the one Jesus loved” who come running. It literally says she ran, and then they ran. It says they ran together–connection. Peter and the disciple Jesus loved see that Jesus is gone. The one Jesus loved is first to believe. Love builds up. Love triumphs. Love conquers all.

But Mary Magdalene stood there weeping. Suddenly two angels appeared to ask her why she was weeping, then Jesus himself asks her.

She does not recognize him.

She thinks he’s a groundskeeper.

But when he calls her by name she shifts dimensions, her emotions fall away, and now she sees, now she knows, now she believes. By grace, she is who she is, in God’s image.

For us, as for Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the disciple Jesus loved, salvation comes in the most difficult moments when we are the most confused. All it asks of us is faith, faith in love. If we love enough, we will enter the dimension where love prevails. This is the message of Easter.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Easter Day Year B RCL 2024 (Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:14-29 Confitemini Domino; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 20:1-18)

©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

From Triumph to Triumph of Love and Grace

Triumph takes many forms. We read this scripture for the Liturgy of the Palms [Mark 11:1-11]  about parades on donkeys through streets lined with followers. What about the hug you give your beloved every morning? Isn’t that, too, triumph? I think it is. In every moment in which you are able to love and be loved … hug your beloved; give your neighbors a plate of cookies; smile at the grocery cashier who took the trouble to smile at you … those are life’s triumphs. We are meant to treasure them.

Because it is God’s purpose in creation that we should live from triumph to triumph, from hug to hug, from cookies to smiles. And we are asked to give thanks as we go, because, as we see, love builds up.

We walk with Christ each day. We walk the way of creation, life is full of stumbles and steep cliffs and as we negotiate them, and survive them, and celebrate our triumphs with pure love, we are walking with Christ.

In the Liturgy of the Word for Palm Sunday [Mark 14:1-15:47] we walk the way of the cross. Have you ever wondered about the other people in this story, those with no names, or those we’ve never encountered before? There are bystanders and crowds and helpers all along the way. But in this story two things stand out for me, the young man following Jesus who ran away [Mark 14:51], and the women looking on from a distance … who used to follow Jesus [Mark 15:40 ff.]. I think this is where we are visible in the narrative of the way of the cross. These precious, loving people who are for whatever reason less than full members of society in their own day, these folks are made alive—literally healed—in the ministry of Jesus.

We who are God’s LGBTQ+ created people, we who populate that dimension in God’s multiverse, we are those people healed by his love. We are the fountain of love God has built up, from triumph to triumph, to provide the grace from which salvation springs.

Palm Sunday Year B RCL 2024 (The Liturgy of the Palms: Mark 11:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; The Liturgy of the Word: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16 In te, Domine, speravi; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1-15:47) ©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Love Blooming into Eternity

Daffodils are blooming.

Tulips are next.

The rhythm of life is always visible.

I love life.

I love my husband.

I surely love God.

Life is messy by nature for sure, which is what makes it “unruly” (to quote this week’s collect). It is one thing to believe in love and another thing entirely to keep love uppermost as you go through the day dealing with dropping your keys, stubbing your toe, forgetting to pick up tomatoes on the way home, dealing with traffic, and on and on and on. We ask to be granted “grace,” which is love unbounded and freely given, because if we can achieve a state of grace then our hearts will be fixed on the place where love prevails.

God’s law is love. God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah [32:31-34] that love has been written on our hearts, in other words, God has made it a part of our created nature. An inscription for eternity. So we will know that when we love we are naturally the people of God.

The Psalmist [51:1-13] sings a prayer for mercy according to God’s “loving kindness” and “great compassion.” Cleanse us from disconnection by washing away unruliness; create a clean heart that will make my spirit love until joy sustains me.

The epistle to the Hebrews [5:5-10] connects Christ to the Old Testament stories of creation by reminding us that God has created Christ a “priest forever.” A priest is one who accepts responsibility for mediating God and humanity. One accepts the responsibility both from God and from one’s peers. The job is richly rewarding, on the one hand, and constantly challenging on the other. Although on the face of it there are lots of potlucks and plumbing repairs and learning to fire up the oil burner, mostly, the job is to lead, spiritually.

That’s it, to lead, spiritually. Christ “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,” linking through eternity to the people of creation. In other words, all is all, all time is all at once, and God is just God. Paeans to God notwithstanding, God is not a mighty warrior or a royal prince or anything else other than what people need God to be.

And we need more than ever for God to be love.

In John’s Gospel [12:20-33] Jesus reveals the truth of love and connection and all creation. A grain of wheat falls on the earth, it germinates, in that it ceases to be a grain of wheat, becoming a plant that bears fruit that nourishes creation. We must likewise let our lives be open to the path of creation that makes us ever flexible for love. The Jesus tells the crowd: “Now is the judgment;” now is the time.

Now is always the time. Now is always connected to all eternity. The daffodils bloom in spring; but in between they are hard at work for next time creating new life, multiplying and generating more beauty. Love builds up.

A piece I saw this week in a gay venue said that now is the time for LGBTQ+ people to celebrate ourselves. Our community created in God’s own image of love, is incredibly loving.

I posted a picture this week of my hellebore, which I planted 3 years ago and which only now, at last, has bloomed. The loving response from other queer gardeners has been not only overwhelming but profound in its love. Love builds up.

Let us bloom like the hellebores and the daffodils and tulips, let us show our love shining forth in the universe, and then let us use that love to multiply and regenerate and to sustain connection with each other, with God, with creation, into eternity.

Happy Lent.  

5 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Jeremiah 31:31-34;; Psalm 51:1-13 Miserere mei, Deus; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33)

©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

We Are What God Made Us

“For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” [Ephesians 2:10]

The greatest love story ever told is yours. Because you are what God has made you, prepared for love.

I know this because I know it is the truth of my life. The love my husband and I share saves us over and over and over and over. Love wins. But you have to let it.

And that, too, is the message of the Gospel. Love wins. If you let it.

There are a metaphors galore in this week’s scripture, it is the fourth Sunday in Lent after all, we should really be down there digging deep into our process of re-penting—rethinking and remembering the power of love.

In Numbers [21:4-9] the wanderers are angry and weary. In their weariness they turn inward and stop loving disconnecting themselves from each other and thus from God. Absent God’s love they become vulnerable. But they repent and reconnect and the love shared with God saves them.

In Psalm 107 [:1-3, 17-22] the Psalmist sings the story of the angry wanderers losing sight of their faith.

In the letter to the church at Ephesus [Ephesians 2:1-10] Paul gives a midrash on the same story, pointing out the punch line that salvation is by grace through faith … translation: love wins, but you have to let it.

In John’s Gospel [3:14-21} Jesus preaches about the true meaning of his impending Crucifixion and Resurrection. The point is, again, that love wins, but you have to get out of the way and let it.

Those who believe in the Son of Man, therefore believe in the power of walking in love, and therefore remain connected. Those who love life come to the light. Their salvation is now “realized” when they let it be within them.

What does that say to LGBTQ+ people?

Paul says “We are what [God] has made us.”

Jesus says “those who do what is true come to the light.”

Paul concludes “salvation is by grace through faith.”

4 Lent Year B RCL 2024 (Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21) ©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Synergy of Love

Body-mind connection, another kind of “syn”ergy, is critical in creation. We have certain biological imperatives, but our evolution, which is God-given, has brought us to a place where mature life (I mean grown-up, not “old”) is meant to be a perfect synergy of mind and body. Sometimes theologians refer to this as “spirit” and “flesh,” to achieve the right balance is the key. In fact, this synergy is presented all through scripture as variously dichotomy, challenge, and gift.

It is a gift, that our minds control our bodies and our bodies control our minds.

To live in connection, without “sin,” means that we must manage the balance constantly. Yet, we must have faith that it is managed, and not expend spiritual energy on “control,” because that disrupts the synergy.

See, I’ve been telling you, it’s complicated. I know I’ve written more than once here that there was a day in seminary, not too far into the first term, when I sat straight up in my little desk and said to myself “there is just no way to explain this ever.”

Still, I was ordained and sent out to keep trying. So, still I try. Because God’s kingdom requires us to grasp the truth about this simple but complex balance.

In today’s scripture you will encounter the “Ten Commandments” [Exodus 20:1-17]. They are given at a critical time in the story of how God was revealed to God’s people. They are moral rules, they are all in some way the same rule over and over, which is, to love your neighbor as yourself, which is, to love your own self, and then to extend your love outward. Always.

Psalm 19 [7-14] says God’s law is perfect and revives the soul and rejoices the heart, our love of God, indeed the love God has given us, endures forever. Indeed, God’s love for us is true, more desired than gold, sweeter than honey in the comb. We pray to be kept from secret faults, from presumptuous disconnection, from the outcome of letting the synergy of body and mind, of flesh and spirit, get out of balance, even in our innermost thoughts.

In 1 Corinthians [1:18-25] Paul reminds us that we, indeed, are those who are the called. God has created us, specifically to call us, to show humanity how to live a life of love.

The inexorable march of Lent moves us ever closer to the truths of what theologians call “the Christ event”—the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. John’s Goespel [2:13-22] is one of the accounts of Jesus storming the temple in Jerusalem. We read the story as though it is an act of anger, vengeance, retribution. But, if we look deeper we see that Jesus took dramatic action which no doubt was unwelcome by those in the temple precinct.

But, did he ravage and kill?

No.

He drove out the cattle and sheep and released the doves. Do you know why the cattle and sheep and doves were there? To be sacrificed; the sellers were there to make money providing the animals for sacrifice.

Jesus saved the lives of the animals and ended the financial exploitation of the people. He brought love back into a space where love had long since ceased to prevail.

And that is the essential story of Christ, that Jesus of Nazareth, who is anointed the Messiah, the Christ, brought love into the foreground in space where love had receded in the face of habit and custom and the imbalance of body over mind, of flesh over spirit. Jesus reminded people of the joy of walking in love. Jesus loved so we too, might learn to love.

God creates us to live in synergy and calls us in that very act of creation, in God’s own image, to live fully into our LGBTQ+ lives, as Paul reminds us, as Jesus shows us, to be witnesses of the synergy of love.

3 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 Caeli enarrant; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22)

©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.