Justice, Love, Salvation

Sometimes you have to take a chance on love.

Sounds like a song lyric, doesn’t it? But it is just the honest truth about God, and creation, and being LGBTQ+ and reality. Love defines us, and if we aren’t willing to take a chance on love then we risk the purgatory of that vacuum dimension where love never is. When we take that chance, when we give just a little bit of love, it comes back a thousand-fold, and we thrive in what the scriptures call heaven on earth, otherwise known as your real life.

God, who is love, always helps us, even if we try just a liitle bit, God helps us to sure footing on God’s foundation of loving-kindness. God is always with us, we are most in God’s grace when we seek to walk in love. The point is, take that chance, let down your wall, love, and you will receive grace a thousand-fold.

When approaching scripture it is always important to understand that it is intended as a form of revelation, and neither as history or as instructions. The story [1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49] about David slaying Goliath in the midst of a pretty unpleasant battle is intended to be revealing because—wait for it: because David who walks on the fundament of the love of God always wins over the vacuum dimension absent love.

The Psalmist [Psalm 9:9-20 Confitebor tibi] sings of God, who is love, whose love is known as justice.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth [2 Corinthians 6:1-13]: that today, now, this moment, with every breath, is the day of salvation. Salvation is now. If we can accept it. If we can walk in love. We must live with wide open hearts, as the hearts of children, open to joy and love.

I remember well my first days in seminary. We were all extremely spiritually hyped up. After all, here we were beginning the real journey to the priesthood. We ate together and worshipped together and learned together and lived together (albeit in our own apartments in the close). A couple of days in I was going to get my mail when I ran into a couple of people from my class. They said “I saw you were out until 8:30 last night then your lights were on” and I was sort of shocked. It suddenly became apparent to me that living in community meant living fully in community.

If you are LGBTQ+ you probably, like I did that day, recoil at the idea of living “in community” because that means living in the prying eyes of judgmental people. So, that was a challenge for me, to accept the love of my new friends and to stop being afraid of their love.

At a couples workshop the leader asked us to introduce ourselves to the group. My husband was sitting on the floor between my legs, and I patted him on the head and introduced him as my puppy, which was a tenderness between us. You should have seen the shocked looks on the faces of all of the heterosexuals in the group. They were stunned I could be so rude; and yet, I thought (and he thought) that I had been perfectly loving. So you see, living a life of love is always a challenge. It isn’t as easy as just having happy thoughts and saying “I love you” or even just “thank you” all the time.

Love is tough work. We who are God’s LGBTQ+ people are, indeed, just folks some of the time, but we also are the real loving people God created us and called us to be, and our lives take shapes that are different from those of other folks. We live integrated into the community, sort of, but also we live in our own ways of loving of which we should be proud and for which we should demand the justice of acceptance.

Love is tough work but it is worth it because love is the only path to salvation.

In Mark’s Gospel [4:35-41] exhausted Jesus gets in the boat with his disciples to escape the crowd by crossing to the other side; he falls asleep even as a storm comes up. They panic, awaken him, and forgetting all about love because they have given themselves over to fear, they reproach him. Weary, but understanding, and loving, he stops the wind. Then he reprimands them gently: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” As Mark tells it, the disciples miss the point, that it was their fear that opened the door to the vacuum of the absence of love.

Faith is trust that the power of love in action fills the void and wipes out that vacuum. Love is the power that saves. Love is the power that brings salvation now. Love is the power known in God’s justice.

We have that very power in the love we share, the love we experience, the joy we bring to each other and to those around us and by extension to the whole of creation. We are called to have pride in our LGTBQ+ lives and the love that defines them.

For Pride 2024 The Episcopal Church has unveiled a new pride shield (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/publicaffairs/episcopal-church-unveils-new-pride-shield-in-celebration-of-lgbtq-inclusion/ ). The shield is an attempt to integrate and celebrate the power of God’s LGBTQ+ people and of God’s love lived out as justice.

The design retains the upper-left blue corner of The Episcopal Church’s shield logo and incorporates elements of the traditional Pride flag as well as the Progress Pride flag and Philadelphia Pride flag. In their use of black, brown, pink, and light-blue diagonal lines, the latter two flags represent intersectional progress in acknowledging people who are often overlooked by the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement: communities of color; the transgender community; and the many thousands harmed by anti-LGBTQ+ policy—from those who lost their lives in the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s, to those still disproportionately impacted today.

In June 2023, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry issued a video message of encouragement to “all of my LGBTQ+ family members,” noting, “I believe deep in my soul that God is always seeking to create a world and a society where all are loved, where justice is done, and where the God-given equality of us all is honored in our relationships, in our social arrangements, and in law.”

Proper 7 Year B RCL 2024 (1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49; Psalm 9:9-20 Confitebor tibi; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41)

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

The Door to the Dimension of Love

I begin as often with a note about nature. In Oregon spring clearly is with us. Tulips have been beautiful but are about finished; azaleas are blooming radiantly, rhododendron are opening their glorious blossoms. Tree pollen has been like yellow snow for weeks but now seems to be giving way to the flurry of petals from cherry and apple trees. A few very warm very sunny days have been tantalizing but the reality is that spring has come too soon and we are very grateful now that the rains have returned. The rhythm of life here in the Pacific Northwest is that the temperate summers are dependent on the rainy winters. It is an ecosystem. It is the visual evidence of the action of the creative power of God, which is love, expressed in the totality of the environment. Nature breathes and so do we, nature smiles and so do we, nature relaxes and so do we. And as the ecosystem in synchrony builds and communicates love, wonder and joy increase as well.

So, it is critical to comprehend human enterprise not as singular but, rather, as part of this ecosystem of love from God. We are created in God’s own image as loving people, and the stewardship of nature we have been given consists primarily of maintaining our synchrony of love with creation. Stop and smell the flowers, but remember to prune judiciously so they will continue to thrive. And in this way responsibility evolves as loving action.

Indeed, the cosmos is everlasting, the cosmos brings light and movement and gravity and pull and push and ebb and flow, all possible because it is love filling what would otherwise be a void. Without love there is only the void. With love there is only life.

Thus, there is an ecosystem of love in which the entry into the dimension of love is the pathway to eternal life in joy. The ecosystem of love is available to every child of God who loves, who loves God, who loves the other children of God. Therefore, there can be no outcasts. Anyone who loves, has found the door into the dimension of love.

Love can take many forms, we have to be clear about this. When we talk about God and love we are not talking about warm fuzzy feelings; we are, instead, talking about justice, righteousness, equality, egalitarianism, peace, and the accompanying concepts of restraint, refrain, responsibility.

In the Acts of the Apostles [8:26-40] Philip is directed by God, fueled by the power of love. An angel sends him to the right spot, the Spirit directs him to where he encounters the official identified as a eunuch. After their interaction—their synchrony of love in action–the Spirit snatches Philip away and deposits him where he is next needed to preach the Gospel of love. God’s Spirit of love moves Philip across dimensions to build up the love needed to spread the good news of salvation.

The court official identified as a eunuch is an outcast from the religious community; because of his sexual difference he cannot be a part of the congregation. But his love of God overcomes his difference, his love of God compels his desire to know Jesus. This is his opening to the dimension of love. God, love, always rushes into the opening to fill the void.

Philip proclaims the Gospel of love, baptizes him and receives him into the household of God, and he goes on his way rejoicing, no longer outcast, now a full member of the community. Such is the power of love to bring everyone into the fold as a child of God through believing in Christ Jesus.

If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us [1 John 4:12].

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them [1 John 4:16].

John’s first epistle [1 John 4:7-21] continues the expression of the power of love. Love is the very force of life, life is God because love is God, God is love and therefore God is life. When we love each other God is alive within and among us thriving and building up more love.

In John’s Gospel [15:1-8] Jesus uses the metaphor of a vineyard to make his point about the ecosystem of love. God is the vinegrower, Jesus is the vine, the branches must be pruned to bear the best fruit, those branches that are pruned grow and bear much fruit.

God is love, Jesus is the Word of love, the vine is the dimension of love, the branches that bear even a little love bear much love, we are those branches, our job is to bear the fruit of love.

When we live in God’s loving ecosystem we thrive, love thrives, love builds up, whatever creates more love (joy) is part of the working of the ecosystem.

Of course, we who are LGBTQ+ people might identify with the outcast in Philip’s story, but also as the lovingly tended vine that bears much fruit in Jesus’ metaphor.

Remember, the purpose of scripture is not to serve like a cookbook or a legal repository, but rather, to reveal to us God’s purpose.

Here is a person who was outcast because of his sexual classification who, despite that, seeks understanding, finds God, and the Holy Spirit sends him an apostle and leads him to the waters of baptism. From there it is revealed that, like us, he has eternal life in Christ.

And Philip, the apostle, I love this story (not least because for several years I was rector of one of his churches), is shunted like the Jetsons from spot to spot from need to need by God’s Spirit of love. And the whole time Philip stands at the door to the dimension of love.

5 Easter Year B 2024 RCL (Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30 Deus, Deus meus; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8)

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

Keep Awake … Invest your LGBTQ+ Love

It must be winter. Even we have turned on our “Christmas” lights on the outside of the house. The rain is back. Blessed rain. In Oregon we love the rain because it blesses creation, but also because it provides a kind of natural advent for our souls, seven months of quiet and sleep with the sound of creation working its wonders, which are these ancient trees that bless us each day, not to mention snow on the mountains, which also bless us. We are blessed indeed in the PNW. The early lighting of the house is more an Oregonian thing I guess; we have no street lights where we live and winter nights are very very dark; the lights coming on at dusk lend an air of conviviality (most of the neighbors are lighting up now too … sigh, I would say I must feel guilty about it, except that the lights so delight my husband that his joy fills my heart to overflowing).

In these dark nights for the soul, which fortunately are not metaphorically dark, but rather are nights of soul-regeneration time in sleep in the dark with the comforting rhythmic sound of the rain, we learn to give thanks for the opportunity to live in this creation, we gain comprehension of the love that surrounds and infuses and protects us and we are moving eternally into the dimension of hope.

I am at odds with the scripture over the last few weeks. The Old Testament lessons are very warlike, they are very much about God and the “Israelites” and it all hits a little bit too close to reality at the moment. The lesson we are intended to take collectively from this scripture, its revelation in other words, is that, no matter how much we muck up as humans, God’s love is always available to us if only we can remember to turn to it. And that all people are heirs of God’s love.

But, of course, this week in scripture we encounter not Moses, not Joshua, but Deborah as prophet, judge and leader [Judges 4:1-7]. And it is Deborah who leads the people to the victory that God has prepared for them. Which, mind you, despite the text, is the victory of love over the absence of love. If we peer deeply into the text we see the rhythm of God’s people sinning, then suffering, then repenting, then receiving God’s eternal blessing. God’s love was there all along, had they just trusted in it in the first place. It is the oldest story in creation, it is the story of each of us.

Paul, beloved Paul, my leader prophet apostle because he is in pain and disfigured and outcast and yet continually blessed by the God of love .. Paul writes to the Thessalonians [1 Thessalonians 5:1-10] that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” so they must not “fall asleep … but … keep awake and be sober.” He means, God’s reckoning is not a prediction of a distant future; rather it is an interpretation of God’s eternal time … in other words now, in your heart. If you are awake to the workings of love in your own heart then you can put on the “breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”

In Matthew’s Gospel [25:14-30] Jesus is very directly and forthrightly preaching to those who refuse to see the dimension of love. The message is pretty simple: if you invest love, more love will be the result and all will be blessed. If you hide your love and do not share it you will suffer “outer darkness.”

All people are heirs of God’s love, which is always present, always available, always both potential and reality. All people of faith, those who wear the breastplate of God’s healing love and the helmet of the hope of salvation, are, in the act of having faith and walking in love, indeed keeping awake. Keeping awake to the working of love in our hearts. All heirs of God’s love are called to invest their love in order that it might grow and envelope ever more of creation.

And here is God’s call to God’s LGBTQ+ people, created in God’s own image to love, to choose family of love …. we are called indeed to invest our love, to walk with the love God calls us to, to be visible and to be visibly God’s LGBTQ+ loving people in creation.

Keep awake by letting the love in your life be a witness to all of creation.

Proper 28 Year A 2023 RCL (Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30)

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

Majesty, Glory, Love

I have missed a couple of weeks (so sorry). The good news is, I was able to make my triumphant (LOL) return to Amsterdam via Toronto, a route I traveled every few weeks for 25 years. This was my first outing since the pandemic, thus my first air travel and first visits to Toronto or Amsterdam in over 4 years. It was wonderful to see my friends. It was awe inspiring to see how my favorite places were still the same on the surface but changed in subtle ways underneath. It is the natural outcome of the pandemic—like those wonderful globe paperweights that you would shake and then watch the “snow” fall, always the same yet every time also a little bit different.

I was working, so no partying and only one dinner out in each city. I’m not complaining; I find it fulfilling to drop by Albert Heijn on my way home from the office to pick up something to cook for dinner. And while I’m enjoying my repast I can see Amsterdam out my window. This is something that gives me great joy, which means it is something that stirs up in me the love that is within me.

Air travel has changed too, not in good ways. I was startled to hear all the coughing and sneezing going on all around me on all six of my flights. I kept thinking “whatever happened to stay home if you’re ill?” Well, it doesn’t matter now, I’ve got my first rhinovirus in four years. Hallelujah.

A funny thing happened on one flight; a woman seated next to me, on takeoff, crossed herself repeatedly. I wanted to lean over and say “it’s ok dear I’m a priest” but I didn’t. I did have the curious (or humorous) thought, however, that maybe it’s all of us who pray on planes that actually make them work. Years ago I had a dear parishioner who insisted that whenever I traveled I give her my itinerary. She said she had to pray me back and forth. And, of course, I have many times experienced the behavior on Greek airliners of all passengers stopping to kiss a priest’s ring and then everybody crossing themselves vigorously on takeoff and landing, and bursting into applause when the plane stops. See, there is something to connecting to the force of love.

Our continuing journey through Exodus lands us this week on the occasion of God presenting to Moses the Ten Commandments, which Moses says are [Exodus 20:20] “so that you do not sin.” Let us always remember that sin means being disconnected from God, choosing to walk not in the dimension of love, but in the dimension of self. It is confusing that this oral history enumerates ways in which people can walk away from the dimension of love as though it were the acts themselves that were sin. Rather, as we know, it is the intent that precedes the act, the internal mechanism that says “take what you want, do as you will, never mind being connected to creation through God’s other chosen people”–this is sin. Remember, Jesus will later sum it all up with “love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength; and love your neighbor as yourself” [Mark 12:30-31 or Luke 10:27 or Matthew 22:36049].

That said, it was wonderful once again to experience the majesty of the earth from 34,000 feet, to experience the glory of a September full moon from above the canals of Amsterdam. It was magnificent to see how “one day tells its tale to another … and how the earth “Goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens” [Psalm 19]. Here is the majestic full moon rising over Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

It was heart-warming to experience the glory of people smiling in the supermarket in Amsterdam and in the drug store in Toronto and to hear the gentle laughter of servers welcoming guests in restaurants on both sides of the Atlantic, each in their own way, each full of joy, each opening a door into the dimension of love. We are blessed to live in this very rich creation. It is incumbent upon us to get up and have a look around at the glory of humanity outside of our own hideout niches.

It is especially important for LGBTQ people, especially for LGBTQ people in the United States, to see that life can be, and is, better, more open, more transformative, more accepting, in the developed world. It is healing to experience the love of being one of God’s created LGBTQ heirs in one of the cultures that get it, because it builds up the joy in our hearts and souls that helps us keep opening those doors into the dimension of love. This is why Paul says “this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal” [Philippians 3:14]. It is why Jesus concludes the parables of the vineyard with a warning: “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom” [Matthew 21:43].

The fruit of the kingdom, the goal to press on toward, the prize, is the majesty of the opening of the door into the dimension of love.

[But please stay home if you’re sick.]

Proper 22 Year A 2023 RCL (Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19 Caeli enarrant; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46)

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

Take a Chance on Love

I know I write about ABBA’s music from time to time; the reason is that their music seems so prescient about LGBTQ+ love and lives …. it often seems sacred to me, not just (and not least) because it is so full of life and love, but also because it is so clearly aware of love, love’s pitfalls, and love’s glory. “Take a chance on me” for example …. who among us hasn’t had that anthem tell part of our story?

As God’s LGBTQ+ heirs it is our call to let love rule our hearts; that means the part where you are a little bit broken, a little bit hurt, a little bit vulnerable. Until or unless you can reach that dimension of vulnerable openness you cannot push through into the dimension of love where the answer to “take a chance on me” is “lay all your love on me.”

Take a chance, indeed. In his letter to the church at Rome [Romans 14:1-12] Paul wrote “welcome those who are weak in faith.” In other words, take a chance on them, love them, and take a chance on love. He also asked “why do you pass judgment? … we all will stand before the judgment seat of God.”  It is inevitable that we will be tempted to pass judgment. As in yesterday driving to the supermarket, I had to pull over three different times to let tailgaters go past me. Let’s not tempt love by telling you how I judged them, but see? I keep telling you, this walking in love stuff isn’t easy.

What is easy is to judge and to demand that people should conform to you. What God calls us to do is to resist judging, to just love and not give energy in the absence of love. Pull over and wait, and when they’re gone, enjoy the first blush of fall color in the leaves and the joy of being with the one who 45 years ago took a chance on me.

In Matthew’s Gospel [18:21-35] Jesus is asked how many times one must forgive before one can give up. He uses a mathematical formula that was intended in his time to be beyond the imagining of his listeners. There is no specific number of times one must forgive, of course; rather it is that forgiveness is always hard hard hard and yet must always be forthcoming. Because if we cannot forgive we are not only not walking in love, but we have left the dimension of love. Jesus offers a metaphor of eternal torture … well, when have you chosen not to forgive and how often are your tortured by that? It is all about how love comes from God to you and from you goes outward and not about those whom you are tempted to judge.

Our lectionary has us following the history of the generations of Abraham, which now on the retelling of the actual Exodus event [Exodus 14:19-31] are called “the army of Israel.” This is the famous parting of the Red Sea, and the exodus of Israel from captivity in Egypt.

The point here, as always, is how to shift into the dimension of love. Yes, this is a written account of events that were experienced in real time and recorded after centuries of oral history. But that is not what scripture is about. Scripture is for our enlightenment about the revelation of God’s action in creation. What did God do in the Red Sea but open the door into a different dimension? Israel found the door and passed through it. Those who could not did not do so well.

As indeed will we if we cannot find the door. But, if we do find the door we discover a passageway of miraculous love. And when we pass through we discover a life of love. We discover those who will take a chance on love.

It is no accident that LGBTQ+ people explain coming out as a kind of exodus. Coming out is not just escape from a closet, it is passing miraculously and perhaps perilously through a doorway into a different dimension where love prevails on a higher plane. Tough but life affirming. Scary but joyous. You know the rest.

Hallelujah! When Israel came out from the Red Sea, when you or I come out into the light of the dimension of love the mountains skip like rams and the little hills like young sheep … ‘tremble’ at the presence of [God’s love][Psalm 114].

Proper 19 Year A 2023 RCL (Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35)

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

Music, Opportunity, Love

Music is a wonderful thing. I was born a child of professional musicians and I was a musician (playing instruments at least) from the age of 4. By college it seemed I was growing up to become a professional musician and then things like rent and groceries convinced me to try for an academic career instead. I was playing semi-professionally by my early 20s but as satisfying as it was spiritually it wasn’t paying the bills. So I became a music librarian, and during the 15 years I held that career I also played semi-professionally (we used to call them “pick-up” orchestras, heaven knows what they’re called now, and I was never in the union). Working at a major music school meant there were a lot of composition and conducting majors who needed to pull together orchestras for graduation recitals. Although I had been an avid student of early music, I became an instant expert at really new music. (Now that I write this, I realize how it seems to sort of parallel my spiritual maturation as a high-church Anglo-Catholic whose priesthood took place mostly in broad churches; fascinating …).

Still, after returning to Oregon I revived my musical life. These days I play the flute, the piccolo, the harpsichord, the piano, and the glockenspiel all every day as many days as I can. (Yes, I skipped about 40 years there.)

Music gives me joy. And making music with my body—my hands, my breath—reminds me that I am still very much alive and still very much in the spirit of love because surely making music is an act of love; it fills my soul with love, not to mention the house (we have good insulation so the neighbors mostly are spared).

During the illness I experienced over the past six months or so it was often only my hour at the piano or harpsichord in the evening, or my flute in the afternoon (go figure, I can’t explain that odd schedule, it has something to do with work and chores), it was this time that gave me peace and fortified me to fight the ailment and to convince my body that we were, in fact, in the dimension where music and love and Spirit and health are all the same thing.

Did you ever wonder why so many musicians are LGBTQ folk? Did you ever think of it the other way around, why are so many LGBTQ people musicians? It is, of course, because God has created us in God’s own image as children of love, and love is Spirit, and Spirit is music. It is our job, then, to create Spirit. And that is why so many of us are musicians (dancers, producers, etc.) and why so many musicians are people like us.

Yes, it is much a challenge as a joy to walk in love; it is a challenge to not change course when obstacles arise, but rather, to think of life events as opportunities for love.

In the continuing saga of Abraham and his descendents we have come to the story of Joseph, he of the amazing techni-color dreamcoat. Genesis 37 [1-4, 12-28] puts it more simply, that the coat was “a long robe with sleeves” that Jacob had made for the beloved “son of his old age.” It is Joseph’s jealous brothers (on whom Joseph apparently had given a bad report) who call the seventeen year old a “dreamer.” This is a very long story about love (between Jacob and Joseph), jealousy (the brothers), and salvation in the form of a tragic detour—an obstacle which turns out to be an opportunity—Joseph winds up in Egypt (stay tuned … more next week!).

We read these Old Testament stories because, as Father Corney said to me on my first day of seminary (he was Professor of Old Testament at GTS in my day), it is the revelation of God’s action in the world.

I took that in. And for the 25 plus years of my priesthood I have pondered it. And it is the truth that in those old stories from millenia ago is the revelation of God’s action in the world.

This story about Joseph, the coat, the brothers, the tragedy, the open end of the story, this is the revelation of God’s action in the world.

And that tells us many things. First and foremost that (as I have said over and over) God is no puppet master pulling strings. It is more like God is a catalyst setting off chain reactions. And we, are supposed to manage them; because that is our job, we are part of God’s revelation.

So begin with music; let praise and thanksgiving produce glory, which emulsifies love, which fortifies love, which ensures sustainability in love [Psalm 105].

“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” [Romans 10:8].

Love, praise, glory … always is on the tip of your tongue, always is in the glimmer in your eye; but to believe and live in the dimension of love requires accepting obstacles as opportunities, learning from them the fortuity of love [Romans 10:5-15].

introvert Jesus, I love it [Matthew 14: 22-33] … he sends everyone away; it says he went up the mountain by himself to pray but I bet he just wanted to be alone, maybe a little nap … when he comes to he sees his disciples have mucked everything up … their boat is at sea in a wind. Jesus figures he has to go get them so he starts out. Here is where the story gets interesting. Were they afraid of Jesus? Or were they in awe of Jesus? Was their fear the fear that love might overwhelm them? He says “do not be afraid.” You might recall that at his birth, when angels appeared to the shepherds the angels sang “fear not.” In fact this is a theme in the dimension of love, that fear pushes out love. And we have the perfect example. Peter trusts Jesus and starts to walk toward him, but then his fear overwhelms him and fills him with doubt—obstacles. Jesus rescues Peter, calms the wind, rescues everyone and reminds them “why did you doubt?”

Their obstacle turned to opportunity, they “worshipped him, saying ‘Truly, you are the Son of God.’”

Dare we wonder whether they sang as they realized they had well entered the dimension of love?

Proper 14 Year A RCL 2023 (Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105, 1-6, 16-22, 45b Confitemini Domino; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33)

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

Belonging in the Garden

I’m not sure when the last time was that I was so glad for a dreary day but I really am, trust me. I am sure I am incredibly grateful that daylight savings time is over and I can go back to sleeping on the earth’s schedule. Hallelujah! I’m also grateful for the current atmospheric river (weather people have such fun names now, when I was a boy we called it “rain”), which has been greening my lawn and thinning out the autumn leaves for a few days now. Yesterday I pulled out my tomatoes and peppers, harvesting any late season fruit to ripen indoors. So, now I can put away the tomato cages and the fences that keep critters out of my vegetable garden. Tomorrow, when it stops raining, I will make a trip around the flower gardens clipping any buds (there are buds on all the roses and the dahlias), which I will hope will bloom indoors. It’s going to freeze tomorrow night or the next night, and then that will be that for the gardens (except for the arugula, thank goodness, which is just delighted at the cold and dark and rain).

I have gardened one way or another all of my life, but I don’t think I have been this close to nature since I was a kid living in Hawaii, where like Oregon, nature is essentially inescapable. I love the rhythm of it, and I love the fascination of the flowers and fruits. We have a fig tree at the end of the driveway and I tug off a bowl of them every few days; they’re terrific. I feel like I’m getting away with something eating food I didn’t haul home for $60 from a store!

So there is something, some sort of message from creation, in that feeling. It is almost like a sort of secret plot—”water us and clear the weeds and feed us once in awhile and we’ll delight you for months”—something like that.

There also is some sort of hidden gay thing in it too. Again, I can’t really put a finger on it, as it were. I remember when I first had my own house in Urbana, Illinois; I would be out planting around and it guys riding by on bikes would stop and chat me up. I’m sure they all were avid gardeners. Later, in Philadelphia, I actually met most of my gay friends by admiring their work in little pocket gardens on corners here and there in the Spruce Hill neighborhood where we first lived, and some of them would drop by and help me get accustomed to the soil and hills and the felonious fellow citizens who would steal plants unless you wired the roots to cinder blocks before planting them.

Community emerged from this shared experience of creation, and I think it made us all feel like we belonged in a way being gay men didn’t usually make us feel socially. Of course this all was happening in the beginning of the AIDS pandemic when we had to learn new ways of socializing. So I guess it makes sense that one of the delights of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the growth of social media groups like “bears in the garden” and “gay gardeners” and the newer “bears in the kitchen” where a cross section of gay men check in daily for support and advice and, of course, those much-sought “likes.” Back in July I broke the soufflé dish I hadn’t used in years—my husband had given it to me when we first were together four decades ago because he “always wanted a boyfriend who made soufflés.” Embarrassed, I bought a new one, and promptly made a cheese soufflé for dinner, and posted the pictures. I was humbled at the loving supportive response.

So where am I going with all this? Rain, time, winter, gardens, cooking, yes. But also, social acceptance, social support, belonging—all active forms of loving, all examples of walking in love, and still more so examples of healing, the sort of healing Jesus brought wherever he went. He helped people shift their reality into the dimension of love, which in turn brought them back to belonging, which in turn allowed them to walk in love. We see this formula over and over in his parables—person(s), problem, resolution, healing, thanksgiving, or, belonging as the shift into the dimension of love.

In today’s scripture Haggai prophesies (1:15b-2:9) that God’s spirit always remains among us, which is after all the spirit of belonging made manifest in the splendor of creation. Paul writes to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17) to remind them that they were chosen by God to be “the first fruits for salvation” which they receive by shifting into the dimension of Christ through “the proclamation of the good news.” In Luke (20:27-38) Jesus answers satirical questions about marriage and resurrection by reminding the crowd that those who have found the dimension of love have eternal life, belonging “like angels and … children of God, being children of the resurrection.” God is “[God] of the living; for to [God] all of them are alive.”

PostScript

For readers who are citizens of the United States, Tuesday is election day. If you haven’t voted yet, please remember to do so on Tuesday. Please remember that voting is the most essential act of love we can perform as citizens of God.

Proper 27 Year C 2022 RCL (Haggai 1:15b-2:9; Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38)

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

To Know is to Love

We “know”—knowledge is that firmament that is both within us and outside us to which we conform as a form of synergy. Creation requires knowledge, after all—we know that spacetime is one existentiality, all space exists and all time exists all at once, it is not on a line, there is no sequence except that derived from our perception.

So, if we perceive that we are outcast because we are of the LGBTQ communion, instead of perceiving that the oppressors are condemning themselves, then we accept a perception. If we perceive that one day is better than another then we accept a perception. But if we comprehend that all days are the same and all places are the same, therefore there can be no divisions among creatures or creation except those imposed as perception jealously to prevent love, then we can approximate understanding of the multi-dimensionality of love.

All love exists all the time.

We always are called to love. We always are called to walk in love. We always are called to walk away from those who cannot or do not or choose not to love. We are not called to complain. We are called to create, to build, to build up—Jesus says over and over “the kingdom has come near” and Paul says over and over “love builds up.” Put the two together and you see …

You see, and when you see, then you can walk in love.

In Jeremiah 29 God says to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you .. for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” It is in walking in love that peace and justice flourish and nourish creation. In the Second Letter to Timothy Paul says to “avoid wrangling over words” and “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by [God].” It is a New Testament paraphrase of God’s word from Jeremiah–it is love that counts and the good that love brings and only love counts. In Luke 17 we receive the story of Jesus’ healing of ten lepers. They called to him and they were healed but only one, “a Samaritan” “turned back, praising God with a loud voice … and thanked [Jesus].” It is this man cast out from society for his illness and cast out because he comes from a different culture, it is this man doubly an outcast who truly “sees” that healing is a sign of the kingdom of love and love is the only thing that brings salvation. It is only this newly healed disciple who sees and knows and grasps the truth, that all time and space are one and only love counts.

We who are God’s LGBTQ people in this world must see and know somehow that we inhabit a different universe than the one our str8 relatives, neighbors, etc., walk in. Parallel maybe, but different.

And that’s okay. That is how it is.

And all space and all time are the same and only love counts.

Does this seem too wifty to you? I suppose it might. But it is important for LGBTQ people now, living through this period of re-re-re-oppression—laws against simple books, laws against health care for trans people, laws against sex—it is important for us to see and know that only love counts.

Proper 23 Year C 2022 RCL (Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Psalm 66:1-11; 2 Timothy 2: 8-15; Luke 17:11-19)

©2022 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.

Midsummer of Parallel Dimensions

I guess it is well past mid-summer although it feels about like it to me now; the spring rains went on for so long in Oregon we really only have had a few weeks of real summer at this point. It is lovely, not quite yet dog days (as they say back east). Roses from the garden are nice; the tomatoes and peppers are just beginning to fruit, later than usual, the herbs are doing well, the zucchini are blooming (fingers crossed there) and the broccoli beginning to mature. I still can’t get the mulch out, maybe this week.

Out in the real world it seems we are in something like dogged-days—a progressive president and administration can’t get traction on much of anything as disruption and disaster and a shifting economy seem to swirl uncontrolled, on the one hand, and a rising tide of miscontent and discontent threatens what the constitution calls “domestic tranquility.” Pride celebrations are protested more dangerously than is usual, and we are told our right to marriage equality is on the right-wing court’s hit list.

We can’t put on blinders and just tinker in the garden. But we can’t sink into despair either. Neither is an expression of walking in love as we have been called to do. In Amos (8:1-12) we see God providing Amos with prophecy by metaphor—a basket of summer fruit. A basket of summer fruit is a sign of the product of the power of God’s love. It also is a foretaste of the kingdom of love. It also is a warning that this is the last if love does not persist. If love does not persist, then all there is, is a basket of rotting fruit, soon gone, leaving waste matter in its past.

God’s ire in this tale arises from the piling up of miscontent and discontent among God’s people who have forsaken love for self. The prophecy describes the antithesis of love: wailing, death, casting out, land trembling, mourning, flooding, darkness, lamentation, famine, wandering seeking love. A basekt of summer fruit indeed.

Psalm 52 “Quid gloriaris” or “Why do you boast?” is a lament on the absence of love among people of discontent miscontent malcontent, they “see and tremble.” The psalm is sun by those who love who neither tinker in the garden nor sink into despair, but rather, they understand the mounting loss experienced by those who do not love. Those who do not love rely on wealth and selfishness instead of love. Love means loving neighbor as self. Those who love are like “the green olive tree,” rich with potential ripeness, with strength to grow and produce into eternity, a true sign of hope, justice, trust, mercy, thanksgiving.

In Colossians (1:15-28) Paul reminds the faithful that all it takes is a little bit of love. Love builds up. The absence of love is quickly healed with a little bit of love. This is the secret of God’s kingdom given to us in Christ which is intended to be spread throughout creation.

In Luke (10:38-42) Jesus visits his friends Mary and Martha. It doesn’t say so, but we can imagine all of the disciples have crowded in as well to sit about accepting hospitality and listening to Jesus. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens intently. Martha scurries about in the background, working, cooking, planning, fuming (I understand, this is how I entertain, my husband is the talker who sits with the guests and socializes while I’m out in the kitchen banging things around and dropping food on the floor). Finally, Martha loses it, and tells Jesus to make Mary pony up some help. Jesus isn’t having any of it, because he knows what has happened to Martha is that she has let her loving lapse into despair and tinkering.

Mary and Martha are both people who walk in love. So, this is a message from Jesus to those of us who do already walk in love to not take ourselves too seriously and to not forget that love is more important than any thing of loving. Neither tinker nor worry. Rather, love in your heart, even just a little bit. This is more important, “the better part.”

This speaks to us now in the current time of trial. We occupy parallel dimensions. Some of us, most of us in the LGBTQ community, live in the dimension of love where God has created us to be people identified by love. Love is in our hearts, love is in our hospitality, love is in our caregiving, love is our path to eternity. We live alongside people who dwell mostly in a dimension without love. Our job is to build up God’s love to the point that they, too, can find the door into the dimension of God’s love. That basket of summer fruit should be a sign of hope and eternity for every child of God.

Proper 11 Year C RCL 2022 (Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52 Quid gloriaris?; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42)

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