The Beginning of the Good News

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)

©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Replenishing Love

There was a spectacular show outside my window last night, first the almost still full moon rose over the Douglas firs and moved across the sky, fairly rapidly, and then just as it was disappearing behind another stand of trees Jupiter emerged as though giving chase, and it moved across the sky … good thing I wasn’t asleep yet!

Nature is all around us here in Oregon, there is no escaping its beauty, majesty, magnificence, and yet also there is no escaping our interlocking responsibility for it. The trees and mountains and rivers are, indeed, beautiful, but they also are much more than backdrop to human life. We live among them, we coexist with them, we have responsibility for them as well as for our own selves. It is a real and constant opportunity to experience the Gospel of love in a way that reminds us that it is about much more than just warm feelings. The Gospel of love, the Good News of God in Christ Jesus, is the call to constant faith.

Not that we don’t have daily tests of our faith, just look at the news (or maybe don’t, look at the trees instead ….). I keep writing here that it is a constant challenge to remind ourselves that walking in love is not just about reacting to events around us. Rather, it is about the challenge to remain in a state of grace, a semblance of the beginning of love in our hearts at all moments, so that there always is the opportunity for that love to build up.

Love is faith and faith is love and faith and love must be steadfast. In Hebrews 11:20-40 Paul recounts the history of faith as revealed in the Old Testament texts. But he concludes in 12:1 that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Not only those who walked in love but those in the present who do as well, especially those among us who walk in love, steadfast in faith. We are to follow their example of the love that builds up, thus we are to “lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely” and “run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Words for all people in all times, for sure.

In Luke 12:49-56 Jesus has harsh words for almost everybody, including that he “came to bring fire;” he means he has come to see the flame of love kindled and the detritus of the absence of love swept away like underbrush. The fire Jesus wants to kindle is the fire of raging building love (a purification, a new beginning). It requires work and constant attention.

He ends by cajoling the crowd for their hypocrisy, and asking “why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” It is critically important in this instance to remember that these are Jesus’ words to the crowd in front of him. He is not asking us to interpret the daily news in 2022 as full of omens. Rather, he is excoriating the crowd to understand that it is his presence, his call, his challenge, his epiphany, his baptism and his death and resurrection that are there for them to see. Jesus means their hearts must be open to the new dimension of love, into which he has come to usher humanity.

Of course, scripture is for all time, that is its purpose. Of course, for us the present time is now, but what Jesus means is that the the time for experiencing Jesus’ love is always, in every moment. Jesus calls us to experience the replenishing cleansing fire he brings into our hearts because it is this that opens the way to the new dimension. He means, the time to turn to love always is now.

We are who God’s LGBTQ creation are especially privileged to be called to share the love that defines our identities. We must keep love foremost at the center of our being. We are guides into the dimension of love. The love we share can be the love that cleanses the underbrush, the love that builds up, the love that lights the way.

Proper 15 Year C 2022 RCL (Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1-2,8-18; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56)

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Finding the Gate

What if we knew what love really was? Not warm fuzzy emotion, but the hard work of building up good in creation?

What if we knew that the old way—the way we were before we learned this hard lesson about love—had to pass away before the new way—the way of building up love, could take over?

What if we just tried to love out, not love in? Do you know what I mean by loving out? I mean have love in your heart, be happy, be joyous, be gracious, smile.

To “know” God is indeed the key to everlasting life. God is love, to know love is to have a full reciprocal relationship with love, which is God. To be in relationship with love is to embrace eternity. This is the gate into the dimension where love reigns and life, which is just love’s expression, must be eternal.

Finding this gate, walking forward on this path, requires first loving yourself. It is why it is so critical for LGBTQ people to be fully who they have been created in love’s image to be, by which I mean it is critical that we embrace our LGBTQ selves fully. It is crucial that we are empowered by our LGBTQ selves, that we take pride in who we are, that we demand not just social equality by justice, for justice is the manifestation of the power of love in community.

We give thanks and praise to God, who is love, who calls us to love, who has through love given us strength in our calling as God’s LGBTQ people. Hallelujah.

When we can turn to the dimension of love there we can live into the new heaven and the new earth intended for us, the old ones of misery and injustice and oppression can pass away.

In other words, it is all up to us to embrace love.

This is the eternal message—embrace love. Love is the beginning and the ending and the power and the glory of our eternal LGBTQ lives.

5 Easter Year C 2013 RCL (Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148 Laudate Dominum; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35)

Provoke One Another*

My favorite waiter is a sort of lapsed Roman Catholic. I doubt he has been to mass in decades, although really I don’t know. I do know he has a sort of terror about apocalyptic scripture; every year as Advent approaches he gets scared about the lessons he would hear were he actually to go to mass. I find it humorous and also a little awe-inspiring. I always try to tell him what I’m going to try to say here, but he doesn’t believe me.

Jesus is very clear in this Gospel (Mark 13:1-8), that as the decision-point approaches there will be wars and famines and earthquakes.

Well, 2000 years on we still are having wars and famines and earthquakes. What you need to try to grasp here is that that is not the important part of Jesus’ message. The important part is the last phrase “this is but the beginning of the birthpangs.” You see, our whole lives are made up of sequences of wars and famines and earthquakes. Trials come and go. It is the nature of human existence. And yet, how often do we fall to pieces in the midst of these trials, thinking it somehow is the end? Instead, we must see these trials as beginnings, as places in life where we begin to see the truth about our existence and our relationship with God, which is our relationship with each other.

As it says in the letter to the Hebrews “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without ever wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” We must understand that through our trials our love for one another deepens, and as a natural consequence of that, our relationship with God strengthens.

LGBT people in America have just won several important victories. We have won votes for basic marriage equality in three more states. An out lesbian has been elected to the United States Senate. It is a kind of morning, like a new day, except it is the result of something like a cross between a war and a famine and an earthquake. And so we see it is the beginning of a birthpang, of justice. Justice my friends is the one thing God always delivers.

So “let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds … and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). Yes, indeed, let us consider how to provoke one another to love.

It is Thanksgiving in America. As a citizen of the world, I always am surprised to discover how little people in other countries understand what this week means to us. And as I grow older and older I understand ever more just how important Thanksgiving is for us. Because it is our once-a-year time to pause, and consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.

Happy Thanksgiving!

©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Proper 28 (1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Hebrews 10: 11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13:1-8)

Transfiguring gay life*

I was in Milwaukee last week, no, not the last five days but the week before that. I was busy, and I apologize that I didn’t manage to post a homily last week. But then what was I going to say? The gospel was that damn thing that is always the Gospel on Thanksgiving about how the birds are pretty so don’t worry …. Silly nonsense.

I think one reason I was paralyzed about that was that the whole time I was in Wisconsin I was subjected to apocalyptic television, and I don’t mean CNN. And I don’t mean the news about the crisis in Wisconsin budget legislation either. I mean, the airwaves in Wisconsin are full of non-stop “this is the end of the world DO SOMETHING” programming. Much of it refers you to the Web, where it says the same thing. But then at the end it says “let me sell you a solution.”

So I don’t know what to think. Except that everything seems to be pretty bizarre at the moment.

This Sunday is a special day in the Christian calendar. We pause for a moment, maybe just to take an official deep breath after Christmastide,  before launching into the secular silliness of Lenten giving up of things. It’s a nice pause I have to admit, because we get to sing terrific hymns and hear all about magical goings on on mountaintops and so on.

And Tuesday is Mardi Gras, so we get to celebrate wildly—either with pancakes or lots of martinis—you choose (ha ha)—and then suddenly into Lent we dive with purple and penitence and flagellation and so forth. Ugh.

I love Advent, but I’m not so sure about Lent. Before I was a priest I savoured Lent; I enjoyed the difference, I sought out the special disciplines, I waited with eagerness for Holy Week and the Triduum and the change that would be wrought in my soul, especially after my annual Holy Week confession.
Then I was ordained and I found out most people just don’t care much and don’t even pay much attention, not even to the ritual. Nobody makes a confession. Nobody comes to the services during the Triduum—“what, and miss American Idol?” And the Easter Vigil gets a tiny congregation. And then BOOM thousands show up for Easter.

I’m never sure what to make of the whole thing. Which is what was resonating with me when I read this text from Exodus about Moses. God says “Yo, Moses, come up here, I want to talk.” And Moses has to climb a mountain. Now, I was just in Seattle, and I tried to walk two blocks from hotel A to hotel B and I know now how Moses and his assistant Joshua felt. I was out of breath halfway up the first block; and my back took two weeks to recover.

So Moses finally gets up there and he’s out of breath and his back hurts and he’s not sure what to hold on to not to fall down the damn mountain again and a cloud comes. Come to think of it that sounds like Seattle too.  So this cloud covers God and the mountain for seven days. And that’s just the beginning. This cloud that covers everything is called “the glory of the Lord.” And Moses, who just nearly broke his back climbing up there has to stand there for SEVEN DAYS!

And then, like some MTV prank, God calls out of the cloud, which by the way also is a devouring fire …. Oh, it must have been a volcano, I just got that …. And now Moses has to go in to see the boss, and all it tells us is he was in there for 40 days and 40 nights.

When I read this I was reminded of how disconnected from the world I become when I travel. And I also was reminded of how disconnected from the world I become when I pray. And that’s a pretty interesting set of reminiscences. What does it mean to be connected to the world? We equate connection with God with connection with one another. But it seems connection with the world is another thing altogether. Hmmmm.

In the Gospel Jesus goes up the mountain into the cloud, and takes Peter and James and John with him. This time the wordly guys get a glimpse of what’s going on—they see Jesus talking to Elijah and Moses. Jesus tells them it was a vision, and tells them to keep it to themselves until after he is raised from the dead.

You know I heard someone say recently how Jesus woke up and resurrected himself from the dead. You know, it’s really important to understand that that’s ALL WRONG. In fact, in the Gospel, in the Greek, the whole business is in a special tense called “aorist passive” such that what it really says is that Jesus “was raised”—are you following? It means he didn’t just get up, it means God made it happen. And it doesn’t say how.

Those are important metaphors for Christians. God is taking care of things. And you cannot know how it works. It is not perceivable by human means. Which is why God asks us to have faith and trust in God. And  yet God does not leave us bereft at the bottom of the cliff. God makes us claw our way up the mountain and then gasp our way through the volcanic ash.

I think that’s a pretty good metaphor for life. It isn’t easy. But it works. Promise is everywhere, but there’s no certainty about most things. And faith greases the emotional skids—if we have faith, if was have reasonable faith, then we will see what is in the cloud.

You know having faith doesn’t mean being blind and it doesn’t mean letting churchy types walk all over you. It means doing your best to listen to God even in the cloud. Listening is a lost art—it requires shutting up … even the tape in your brain …

If you listen, you will hear what God has to say. And if you listen to what God has said to you, you will know where your faith is well-placed in the risen One.

We had our latest lgbt (okay, for some of us it was glbt) potluck last night. It was great. Every time we have one we have a little bit more listening among us. There was a lot of talk last night from those of us who are married about how it feels, what happened, what we did. That’s all a sort of revelation now isn’t it? And you know what I think when we go into the potluck and begin Evening Prayer God’s cloud descends around us, like a protective blanket, like that fog that comes over Twin Peaks in San Francisco every evening around 5. And it’s like a comforter. And inside the cloud we get to hear God speaking to us, through us.

That’s transfiguration my friends.

 

*Last Sunday after Epiphany (Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 2; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9)

©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.