Love in Truth and Action

In the fourth week of Eastertide the seasons everywhere remind us of the eternity of creation and of the power of God’s love. Here in Oregon the spring is at its peak; tulips are at their prime, as the cammellia’s finish their riot of late winter color the azaleas and rhododendrons begin their turn, the blooming cherry trees yield in turn to the apple trees, the vineyards are dressed one again in frocks of deep green.

The evidence of the eternal reliability of God’s love is all around us to see if we can slow down the pace of our daily lives long enough to appreciate it.

In our lives as LGBTQ+ people there is nothing more important than to hold on to the love that is the essential nature of our creation in God’s own image. We love because we must. We love because we are made of love. We love because love builds up—our love insures the active creative habitat around us as our love builds and spreads. It is to this that we have been called.

The scripture appointed for this Sunday is all focused on the concept of love in truth and action, as John writes in his first epistle [1 John 3:18].

In the scene from the Acts of the Apostles [4:5-12] Peter and John have been preaching and healing in Jesus’ name. Healing is restoring fullness of life and equality in community through the power of love.

Healing, especially in the New Testament sense of being made whole in community is something God’s L:GBTQ+ people understand. We are often on a roller-coaster ride of being cast out one day and brought back into community the next. More to the point, we are jostled by competing forces in the world. Last week Title IX protections (in education) were expanded to protect against any “sex-based harrassment” and especially to enhance protection of trans folks. This rolls back decisions made just four years ago by different political forces in the US. This is an act of healing. But, in the same week the conservative supreme court let an Idaho law stand that prohibits transgender care for minors. This is the crowd pushing back and preventing healing. We live and love on this roller coaster, as indeed, do all of God’s creatures.

Excoriated for healing Peter and John are arrested and confined by the authorities. They know this roller coaster too. Peter testifies, or preaches if you will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is love. It says Peter is “filled with the Holy Spirit.” It means he has pushed out the vacuum of the absence of love and filled it with loving action, which, of course, is how he has been able to pass along healing. Peter testifies before this crowd to the power of healing love.

Psalm 23 says that God is my shepherd, and in John’s Gospel [10:11-18] Jesus says “I am the good shepherd … I know my own and my own know me.”

John’s epistle reminds us that we know Jesus because we know his love, and we know this love because love has created and surrounded and suffused us. John, who was standing there arrested by the crowd with Peter when the spirit of love filled Peter and compelled him to preach the Gospel of love. John’s epistles are among the most beautiful testimonies to the love of God in Christ and its power to heal. Love in truth and action fills the void. Love enlightens creation.

Jesus reminds us that everyone is included. Everyone is known by the love of God. All we have to do to receive God’s love is to recognize God calling us by our own names.

God calls each of to be God’s loving LGBTQ+ people in truth and action in the world.

Alleluia!

4 Easter Year B 2021 RCL (Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23 Dominus regit me; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18)

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