Have you had a good Advent? I have to say I did, although it also has been a challenging time in my life, somehow I suppose mirroring the world at large. Still, I have learned much this Advent, including how grateful I am for this venue and the revelations it brings to me.
Can we measure Advent? No, of course not. Not really. All we can do is ponder—ponder introspection, ponder revelation, ponder theophany, pondor comfort, pondor joy.
Was it introspective? Did you receive revelation?
Not long to wait now. Christmas will be here in a few hours; perhaps, given God’s space-time continuum Christmas already is with you. Expectation fulfilled once more, joy received in sweet harmony, blessings manifested eternally … in love.
We who are the LGBTQ+ people of creation are called to be hosts of love. We are called to be people of love. When love manifests in our hearts the dimension in which we reside expands with joy. When we learn to walk in love there is no longer any limit for those of us who are connected. And in this way, we perceive the joyous revelation that God is always with us because God is always within us.
Love dwells within, in the soul, it bursts forth from the heart, it finds realization in the Spirit. All we need do is remember to feel the love in our hearts.
The transformative power of love is ours.
All we need do is be present, to ponder all these things in our hearts, to let it be with us according to God’s word.
Our world is indeed a mysterious place. War rages, unrest is all around us like a raging sea.
And yet the truth rises to the surface and love always wins. What greater Christmas present could there be for the LGBTQ+ community than the announcement that the Roman church will join much of the rest of catholic Christianity in welcoming and celebrating and, indeed, blessing, our love.
It is a challenge, a Christmas challenge, a loving joyous challenge, to let our love shine like the star in the night leading creation to the fulfillment of the synchrony of love.
Merry Christmas.
4 Advent Year A 2023 RCL (2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Canticle 15 The Song of Mary Magnificat; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38)
I have a priest-friend (like me, a gay man) who likes to say that people need ritual. It is a topic that comes up in Anglicanism with regard to the level of ritual employed in worship. Some churches are highly formal about their ritual and others eschew it altogether—except, in those places they always replace it with some ritual of their own. Maybe there is no Great Litany in Procession, but there is likely to be a procession of flowers, or a circle of hand-holding, or some other formality that arises as a community expression of joy.
The same is true in the secular world. If you want an obvious example just look at the Olympic Games. Not only is there a highly stylized ritual procession of athletes—the “opening” ceremony—but there also is ceremony before, during and after each event, from the introduction of the athletes, to the formality of the competition, to the medal award ceremony. It is a formal way of the community giving thanks and rejoicing.
I have been fortunate in my ministry to be involved in ritual from the beginning. I was ordained on a Saturday morning, served at my first mass the next morning, and the morning after that found myself processing into the General Convention of the Episcopal Church with a zillion (ok, maybe 30 or so) other clergy to music by Handel. What could be more grand? I remember the moment because the exhilaration was profound. Later in my ministry I was blessed to serve at a church where the organist was so terrific that, as I mounted the steps into the pulpit to preach, the improvised music had just enough of some music that was individually profound (for me, often the strains of the hymn “General Seminary”) to get me to the point of tears as I reached the lectern. The beauty of it was that it moved me into soul-space from which my sermons then could proceed unfettered by ego (or traffic noise from outside).
In my secular life I was most profoundly moved I think in the gay discos of the 1970s. I loved to dance, I loved the music, for sure. But what was profound was the joy, the happiness, the smiles, the singing along with the dance. The energy on the dance floor was profoundly a ritual of rejoicing, of thanksgiving, of love freely given, of justice even if just for a moment. There are lots of other examples too, of course. What about the ritual of the drag show? Costume, ceremony, formal stylized events—it was my great and profound privilege to be a good friend of Madame Michelle DuBarry, Toronto’s famous drag queen and Empress VI and XXVI of the Imperial Court of Toronto. And, we can’t forget Pride and its parades. The whole point is a ritual of community rejoicing and, well, pride!
It seems the ritual of joy is a responsibility of LGBTQ+ life. It is not just an expression, it is a calling, to create a dimension of love and rejoicing that lifts the whole community.
In Advent as we experience the changing seasons around us and are reminded of the solemnity of the Christmas experience we also are called on this Sunday to step back a bit and rejoice, to give thanks, to experience love in community. Gaudete Sunday it is called (or Rose Sunday, if you will). We light the rose candle on the Advent wreath, rose vestments appear, we give thanks for grace and mercy. We know that grace is love freely given, that mercy is justice freely given, that love and justice are the same thing, because justice is love in action. And in the relief of the rose vestments and the lighting of the rose candle we know from the ritual of rejoicing that Christmas is coming. We know that love has indeed come to help and deliver us.
Isaiah [61:1-4, 8-11] prophesies that God’s good news takes the form of being “clothed with the garments of salvation … the robe of righteousness.” A ritual metaphor of righteousness, which is right-living, walking in love. The robe of righteousness is the glory of love worn as adornment. Creation’s glory springs up with thanksgiving, as the earth brings forth its shoots, as the rose candle symbolizes hope. The Psalmist [126] responds in praise. “Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.” Praise is joy expressed with the body, laughter, shouts, happiness endorphins are released physically; it is something God gave us in creation. We are intended to be joyous, to stir up love. We are called to rejoice.
Paul reminds us [1 Thessalonians 5:16-28] to “rejoice always, [to] pray without ceasing.” Part of joy is prayer, remembering to give thanks to God; remembering to feed the Spirit with joyousness; remembering to use joy to feed the body—no wonder we create ritual.
John’s Gospel [1:6-8, 19-28] tells us (as Mark did last week) about John the Baptist, who “came as a witness to testify to the light.” John quotes Isaiah when he says “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’” We all are called to witness to love, to testify to the joy God has given us. The wilderness is the noise of the world. Our voices of joy call love into our presence, making clear the pathway for the coming of God into our midst. It is in the rejoicing to which we have been called that we find the pathway into the dimension of love.
3 Advent Year B 2023 RCL (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28)
Atmospheric rivers … what a concept. Well, it seems the Pacific Northwest is the new home of them. At least this past week; we’re now on number 4 I think. True, they keep the terrestrial rivers full and the trees green and the mountains covered with snow.
Also true that they now remind me that we are in Advent. Just goes to show you how easily reference points shift; when I was a boy it was the first snowfall that let us know Christmas was right around the corner.
I always think this is a curious time of year, caught someplace between secularism and the holy. There is expectation, yes, and a glimmer of hope. There is excitement and all kinds of busy-ness from decorating to baking to shopping to … (fill in your own blank here). In the church it is a new year that opens with prayer and solemnity and with calls to the internal, which is to say we are called to turn inward to discover the ways in which we disconnect ourselves from each other and thus from God. Still, this time of year we all know what is coming soon and we have in our hearts the knowledge of the joy that is coming our way.
The prophet Isaiah is instructed by God [Isaiah 40:1-11] to “speak tenderly” and to “comfort” God’s people. Way back in 1994 I was living and working in New York City when I first encountered the Gay Games. I had no idea there even was such a thing. But one morning upon awakening and realizing I didn’t need to go to my office at the university I decided to wander down to the bodega on the corner and get a newspaper and a bagel (usually I would acquire these at Penn Station running to catch my train). Of course, it was a brilliantly sunny summer day! At the bodega I recognized the owner (of course) but nobody else, which was odd, and also it was odd that the place was crowded. I was barely awake, but slowly it began to dawn on me that it seemed like everybody in there was gay. It was a strange realization frankly. I sort of chuckled, then walking back to my apartment through crowds (I lived in Chelsea, which was then the heart of the gayborhood) I realized everybody around me seemed to be gay. And I had the odd thought “Oh, this is how they (i.e., straight people) feel all the time!” And I was comforted.
I was comforted to have known, if only for an instant, what it felt like for once in my life to be “normitive,” to be one of the “regular” majority. To let down my walls and just be me. It was glorious. Talk about “rough places plain” and “glory … revealed” and “all people see it together.”
I know I’ve written often here about the 1998 Amsterdam Gay Games; it was right after my ordination and it was a powerful time in my spiritual life. And the opportunity to be there at that time and to experience this sense yet again and for two weeks this time was a real gift.
We are too often afraid to look around us and see that the words of the prophets are not predictions about some dim future, but rather, they are revelations of our own reality.
So as I go about my daily life I no longer find myself in crowds of young gay men (more’s the pity) but I do live in a world of love created by the synchrony of my relationships, especially with my husband, who is clearly the greatest gift in my life as well.
In that realization, that this is the life given to me, that this is the glory love creates for me, is the sense of the critical importance of walking in love. When we walk in love we dwell in peace, and there in that place is where mercy and truth have met together [Psalm 85:7-13], for love produces peace which is the mother of mercy which can only thrive in truth.
I’ll say it again, that prophecy is not prediction but is revelation of our own truth, the reality about our own path into the dimension of love. There is no human time in the dimension of love, rather God’s time, which is all time all at once, forms the parameters of love. Love once experienced, once attained, is eternal [2 Peter 3:8-15a]. A glimmer is forever. The instant of realizing that there is a world full of LGBTQ+ people who God created in God’s own image—just that instant—becomes in my heart a pathway for walking in love each day. We are loved, we are created by love, we are called to love. Peter writes “we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home” … therefore we must “strive to be found … at peace.”
That brings us to the beginning of the good news” [Mark 1:1-8]. The good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is the pathway into the dimension of love. It is heralded by repentance—a reminder always to return to walking in love–which means connection, which means life eternal in the dimension of love.
2 Advent Year B 2023 RCL (Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 Benedixisti, Domine; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8)
Quaking in the presence of God, at the presence of God; theologians call this theophany. I know the text [Isaiah 64:1-9] says it is about mountains quaking, but of course, the holy people who recorded these prophecies were trying to impress the image on those who might listen or hear these words in future. And so the moment in my life that came immediately to fore when I read this the other day was my only visit to Westminster Abbey, when I went to Evensong. This was a few years ago, not many, but well before the pandemic. As often has happened, I was in London for academic work which was threatening to consume my time completely. This was, after all, my fourth trip to London and I had spent all of the preceding trips in meeting rooms, my only “tourist” events being the Uber rides to and from the airport. A year before I had been in Rome and on the last day of the conference I just walked out and hailed a cab and said “Vatican” and that was how I got to see the Vatican by “playing hooky.”
This time I planned. I told the conference folks I would take an afternoon off. I also did my homework—I communicated with a priest friend familiar with the Abbey about Evensong—he told me to wear clericals and … (never mind the details, but he told me what to do) and it worked! As I walked up I was greeted “Good afternoon, Father, come for Evensong?” And, in I went. It wasn’t just time yet so I was offered a seat and told someone would come for me in a bit. And there I was, in Westminster Abbey, a more than thousand-year-old home of prayer, a holy place that until that moment had been almost unimaginable to me. Under my feet were the crypts of saints. Overhead people scurried around doing what cathedral staff do. An organist was practicing, little bits of this and little bits of that. I began to pray, “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One” and as I prayed I began to tremble and quake. It was like shivering except I wasn’t cold, I was just quaking, trembling, and the more I prayed and the more the music went the more I quaked.
Eventually I was seated in the quire. I glanced at the paper bulletin, but I was very grateful in that moment for my education and priestly formation at The General Seminary, where we had sung Evensong daily, because, as the service began I realized I needed only to just engage as I had learned to do at General. The only time I needed the text was for the closing hymn.
And the quaking, the trembling, just kept on going, right up to the moment as I was exiting the Abbey that one of the clergy greeted me and I introduced myself.
[Psalm 80] “Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.”
As I wandered out to find a spot to summon an Uber to take me back to my other world the quaking abated and I found myself in the midst of the most profound calm. I could feel myself aglow. Maybe that’s why the Uber driver took a bunch of pictures for me of me standing in front of the abbey. He was aglow as well, perhaps infected by my glow; it turned out he was the son of a priest and he knew the signs. Or was it that he was sent to me, too, part of the theophany?
“Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.”
Grace is ours, given to us in Christ Jesus [1 Corinthians 1:3-9]. All we have to do is accept it willingly, lovingly, and let the light of that love shine in and through us.
Well, what was remarkable about my experience? It was clearly that I had been not just in the presence of God but with God—theophany. I had experienced theophany many times before and have since but the power of this experience was unique in my life. I was profoundly moved to wander about the Vatican but I did not have any such theophany there. I was certainly ontologically shifted in my ordinations, which come with their own sort of theophany, but not like that day.
Perhaps the times when I had experienced something sort of like it were, for the most part, moments of administering communion in the mass over the decades of my priesthood. Hold the host, look the person in the eye, say the words of administration, and feel the presence of God in the eternal relationship that last a nanosecond and an eternity all at once.
What else was remarkable? There I was, a gay man in his sixties, a product of epiphanies that had brought me from the closet to the altar to the Abbey. A scholar, a priest, a man, a husband, a queer, in the presence of God, who is always there.
The question for today is, can we keep awake as Jesus says we must [Mark 12:24-37]?
It surely is Advent now. A couple of days ago some of the Christmas lights outdoors came on in the morning, so dark had it grown as the rain came. I chuckled at both my discomfort that they were on at the wrong time and the realization that God in creation was calling light to shine in the darkness; a reminder to all of us to be ever more hospitable to each other at this time of year.
The world seems a charged place these days—wars, refugees, emigrants, oppression—you see the news too I’m sure. Our job as God’s LGBTQ+ heirs, as those created by God in God’s own LGBTQ+ image to bear the identity of love, our job is to keep awake in and to the presence of God, to allow God to quake within us, to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” [Book of Common Prayer, collect for Advent 1]; to put on the armor of light, which is love.
First Sunday of Advent Year B 2023 RCL (Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 Qui regis Israel; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37)
It is that delicious time again. By which I mean, in Oregon, where it is dark by 4:30pm and the inky night sky seems like a protective blanket given by creation to hold in the beautiful rain. The rain fills the rivers and waters the magnificent trees and even our humble gardens and in the rain and the winter night we know that God is with us. And then, slowly as though mimicking the dawn the neighborhood lights up house by house until the lights in the darkness become a symbol for us of the forthcoming light in the darkness (John 1:1-9) and therein is bountiful grace and mercy
Love conquers all, and this is the wonderful season when we prepare to welcome love incarnate, a ritual holy day, yes of course, but also a real tangible reminder that the love we share with each other is not fleeting but is sustaining. The love we share is the highway into the dimension of God (Isaiah 35:1-10), the dimension of love, the dimension of eternal creation, where all things always are made new, where love is power and righteousness and justice (Psalm 146:4-9).
James 5:7 reminds us that patience is the essence of love, it made me laugh to re-read that because of course it is. How else do two men last 44 years in relationship, in marriage, in love? The bumps in the road become more like roller-coaster thrills, life over all is smoothed into one long journey of love. The journey, if love is patient, along that highway into God’s dimension.
It is the third Sunday in Advent, a traditional “rose” Sunday on which more color finds its way into the liturgical enactment of that journey along that highway through that lighted night into the dimension of God’s love. It is time to get our act together to be ready for Christmas. Trees and lights and cards and spiral hams notwithstanding, getting ready for Christmas means getting ready to reinforce that journey along that highway, where our companions are all of humanity and all of creation in harmony, in sync, where “even the least in the kingdom” (Matthew 11:11) are empowered by God’s love and “everlasting joy” (Isaiah 35:10) will be the gift we share.
So, get ready to love, get ready for love, get love ready.
3 Advent Year A 2022 RCL (Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146:4-9; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11)
Prophets are god’s messengers. This week I met a prophet, a young man who was good to me in a difficult situation … no preaching, just a smile and understanding for a gay elder … it was a perfect example of how God’s prophets are always everywhere among us, showing us the way. The form of repentance they bring is the reminder of what a difference a little smile can make. The way of salvation is the door into the dimension of love where the little smiles reign.
This week’s Old Testament prophecy, then, from Isaiah (11:1-10), tells how a “shoot shall come out from the stump.” I have been nursing an avocado tree for a couple of years now, I grew it from a seed, I have been trying this for years and never succeeded until now, but then given the vagaries of life I let it grow too tall and thin so that the tiny trunk could not support the few leaves at the top. I said a little prayer and cut it off near the “stump.” I held my breath for about two months until at last a shoot came out from the stump, and now, about 3 months later, I have a nicely variegated tree with lots of strong branches and leaves. Prophecy here is yet again about how God shows us in these simple and everyday life ways where to find the doors into the dimension of love. Something as simple as tending a tree has the power of the knowledge of God, of the growth of righteousness and faithfulness, “a signal to the peoples,” a prayer carried to the heavens and across the world.
Stewardship of this life, then, is the obligation to render prosperity in the tending of creation. Righteousness inheres in the right harmony with creation (Psalm 72:1-8).
Hope is that spiritual sense of justice and righteousness and the certain knowledge that not only is God with us but we also are with God (Romans 15:4-13). Hope fills us with joy and peace in our believing, which is our harmony with creation, with God and with each other, and that is another sign of the door to the dimension of salvation.
To repent is just to think again, to pay attention, to not just respond to the smile but to let it change your life (Matthew 3:1-12). Years ago in Philadelphia I knew a guy (our regular Saturday night waiter for almost 25 years!) and he was one of God’s prophets too. I remember how he always seemed frightened about the idea of Advent. Having been raised in the Roman tradition he remembered only that the Advent readings seemed to be always about horrors to come. He was good to me, an Episcopal priest, and he had a desire to be connected to his faith, which he managed to work out through our casual conversations. And he was a prophet in many ways, but in this one thing is where I really see it now, that like so many LGBTQ people he had been mistreated at the hands of seemingly religious people who were ill informed about the true faith. Not unlike the Pharisees and Sadducees in today’s Gospel reading who are scolded by John the Baptizer.
I don’t know whether I ever managed to convince my friend that these readings were not about a future, but rather aboutthe present reality in our own hearts. But he had already, long ago, successfully navigated his way into the dimension of love.
What else can I say? Repent? Yes, of course, always rethink, and always ask forgiveness when you fail to act in a loving way, and do not let your heart be darkened by oppressive thoughts.
The earth will be full of the knowledge of the love of God as the waters cover the sea, and the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal of how creation grows God’s love.
2 Advent Year A 2022 RCL (Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 Deus, judicium; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12)
I now declare it officially Christmas; Advent has ended, the expectation is fulfilled. Go ahead, light up your lights, power up the Christmas tree, knock yourself out with Christmas music.
The solstice is imminent, soon there will be more daylight than dusk in our days, soon love will blossom.
The Jeopardy professor’s tournament is over, Amy Schneider, trans-glorious champion will be back tomorrow.
Love will blossom this week, its power growing day by day until we reach Christmas Eve on Friday night and then Christmas itself on Saturday. We will sing “Joy to the World” and we will feast and we will hug and kiss. We will exchange gifts, because they are symbols of our love. My husband put all the ornaments on our enormous tree himself last weekend, and yesterday eagerly piled wrapped presents under it, his smile ebullient, his joy permeating the whole house. It made me love him even more, if you can imagine such a thing. Love builds up. We are so blessed.
It’s Christmas. Christmas is all about making room for love. God has prepared a mansion of love in which God has called us to dwell. God has prepared the path for love into our hearts and from our hearts into the world, a synergy of love building up joy and peace and righteousness and justice. Our souls proclaim God’s greatness and our spirits rejoice. In God’s love we are blessed, and with God’s love we bless each other.
The pandemic surges again, but this time we are prepared, we know how to take care of ourselves, we will not let even this suppress the love God has called us to live into, to share, to build up.
Go ahead, embrace joy.
4 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15 Magnificat Luke 1:46-55; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55))
We are surrounded by love, we are the creatures of love, we are born to love, the greatest gift given to us is the power to love.
It is half-way through Advent, Christmas is coming. This week we broke out our Christmas stuff and started slowly decorating. We usually don’t get it all done until a day or two before, but that’s ok. It’s our version of that whole Advent expectation thing.
Like everybody else we are beginning to learn how to live through the pandemic, as opposed to living alongside it or hiding from it. The best thing for us is a beloved friend who now is able to be with us from time to time. After a separation of a year and a half it is nice to be together, loving each other, again, even if the travel is complicated and the things we can do together are limited. Still, we all have learned to revel in the love that surrounds us, to manifest the love inside us, to share the love among us.
We are meant to remember always to “rejoice and exult with all” our heart (Zephaniah 3:14). To smile and hug and laugh, to share, to be filled with the “peace … which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7), even just sitting by the fire, walking in the rain.
If we can remember to remember, if we can keep our minds focused on our role in creation, which is to love, we will reap the inestimable joys offered to us by a grateful creator (Canticle 9; Isaiah 12:3), like drawing water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation.
In Luke’s Gospel (3:7-18) we see John the Baptizer preaching repentance and baptizing the crowds of seekers who quiz him. We see his anger. We see their expectation. And then we learn the prophecy of the “one who is more powerful than” John, who “will baptize … with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Jesus, of course, who is God, who is love, will baptize with the Holy Spirit, which is love, which is the very fire of creation.
Expectation is powerful stuff. But not as powerful as the love we are called as the LGBTQ heirs of creation to bring to the table. Expect, of course. But love, revel, smile hug and laugh, and rejoice.
3 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9: The First Song of Isaiah (Ecce Deus Isaiah 12:2-6); Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18)
The sun is shining today in the Willamette Valley. When I went outside to get my newspaper this morning the sky was hazy with fog but the sun’s rays were pointing brilliantly in a fan shape through the stately Douglas firs all around. It was heavenly.
This past week we had arborists here. We had an old silver maple that had slowly been dropping its branches on our house and our neighbors’ backyards over the past year and a half. It took months to figure out what to do and finally get someone here to do it, but this week the tree was trimmed. Now there is a lot of fresh firewood in our woodshed and there is no possibility any branches will fall on anything. It is that last bit that I am noticing each morning as I look out where the cracked branches used to be. I had grown so accustomed to worrying about when they might fall that I find it difficult to remember, now, that that problem is resolved. We are prepared for ice storms and winter winds, whenever they might come.
Preparation means change, and change means both working past the former reality and accepting the new.
Advent is a season of preparation. We are called to look inward, to work past former realities, to generate new realities and to accept the change.
Love is the path to the dimension where change is not just accepted but embraced, cheered with joy, accepted with grace—dare I say (?) it is the dimension where change is loved.
Love, of course, is the “robe of righteousness that comes from God” (Baruch 5:2), the “diadem of the glory of the Everlasting.” It is the love of creation making those heavenly rays of sun shine through the trees to remind us not only that we are all part of something larger than us but also that we and all of creation are loved. It is the love that comes to us in this way that is the robe of righteousness and the diadem of glory. It is the love to which we are called that is the manifestation of our blessing. This call to love, that our love might “overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight” (Philippians 1:9), is the affirmation of the certainty that we are called to love. It is our sign as LGBTQ people that we are called as God’s loving children who are defined by the love we share, to love.
We are called to “prepare the way” (Luke 3:4).
We are called to embrace the love in our hearts as the instrument of change, of new reality, of preparation. Why, it is just like the new reality that Amy Schneider, a trans woman, is still an on-going champion of Jeopardy. The brilliance of her smile shows that love that fuels her. Her gentle embrace of her identity, her proud posture in the world, is a sign to all of us that we, too, can find the dimension of love.
Prepare the way indeed.
2 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Baruch 5:1-9; Canticle 16; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6)
Advent is the season of expectation, the prelude to the manifestation of hope. It is a very sweet time. It is when we carry love in our hearts—love for the people we are sending cards to, love for the people we are buying gifts for, love for the guests we are or will be cooking for—and all of that love spills over in smiles for the grocery cashier, the fish monger, the cheesemonger, the guys who tie your Christmas tree to the top of your car, and so forth. It is in all of this the perfect example of the way of love. Love at the center of your existence builds up as it radiates outward. Love builds up as radiating beams of love from everyone overlap.
In the US it begins with Thanksgiving, the annual holiday of remembrance combined with a harvest celebration merged with a ritual meal, the purpose of all of which is to build up—you guessed it—love. We carry love in our hearts when we buy the turkey, we radiate love when we donate a turkey, our love overlaps as we share the day itself but even more as we move out into the realm of the approach of Christmas.
In the church Advent is one of the loveliest seasons, we tamp down the ritual excitement and revel instead in expectation and hope. We pray to be freed from “works of darkness” and to be protected by “armor of light.” We remember the prophecies of the coming of Christ, who will teach us to embrace “justice and righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:15). We are reminded by the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) that joy and thanksgiving give rise to the prayer that God will help us to “increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” In Luke’s Gospel (21:25-36) Jesus talks about signs in the skies and in the earth and in the sea and among nations. He tells the parable of the fig tree: “as soon as they sprout leaves you can see … and know” that summer is coming, thus do these signs reveal to us that the kingdom of love is near. Jesus specifically says (34) to “be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down.”
The reality of the prophecy is that the time Jesus foretells, just like the fig tree leafing out each spring, is all around us all of the time. The celestial heavens show us that we are constantly a part of the immensity of creation linked in to and by all things. The seas and waves roar, people faint, and there is always distress among nations. Therefore, the kingdom of love is always near. The moment is not at some uncertain point in the future, for, remember, there is no such thing as linear time, all time has already happened. The kingdom of love already is here.
The question is, can we enter into the dimension where it rules creation with justice and righteousness? Can we find the way of love? Of course we can. All we have to do is extend the love we feel, the expectation and hope, the radiant beams of love.
LGBTQ people live in the moment Jesus foretells in perpetuity. We always live in an environment born of oppression, brined in the experience of minority, on the border between the works of darkness and the armor of light. We are the heirs of the kingdom of love designated in our creation in God’s own image as people who love. We are called to carry love in our hearts, to let that love spill over and radiate all around us, to overlap the love we have been given, to build up with love that fabulous armor of light.
Amy Schneider—a trans woman is still champion on Jeopardy a week later. Pete Buttigieg—a gay man—is US. Secretary of Transportation. My husband is still eating leftover turkey.
Be hopeful, be expectant, and love.
1 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36)
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 