Drag Queens, Owls and Turkeys

The weather is warm, it is mimicking spring (fortunately we will go back to the rain tomorrow, we need rain in winter in Oregon). I am recovering nicely from something odd and asthma-like. Having done an immense amount of writing during isolation and asthmaishness I now find myself liberated to work on my model railroads (yes, plural), my gardens, composing and making music, and my usual past-time of too much cooking. This is the magic of semi-“retirement.” You can do what you want, and there is more to do than there is time to do it.

Today is Superb Owl day (thanks to National Public Radio for that one! https://www.npr.org/2022/02/11/1080119057/superbowl-superb-owl-super-bowl-sunday ) and I want to shout out to the owl that kept me awake from September until late January. Thank goodness it finally has gone quiet (or maybe just gone).

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Valentine. I’ve decided to roast the second turkey I picked up at Thanksgiving for my husband—he loves turkey and dressing, not to mention the aroma of turkey roasting.It will be fun and loving and that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s all grace.

God’s grace is the love we share, it is the only help we need, because by staying plugged into love we can attain perfect grace, that state sometimes known as heaven. As Jesus reminds us constantly, the kingdom of heaven has come near if only we can turn to its dimension.

One of the most amazing moments of grace I experienced this week was listening (even more thanks to NPR) to some queer STEM queens (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/drag-artists-science/ ).

I don’t suppose I will ever meet any of these people, but my heart went pit-a-pat at the idea that one of them might really know what a confidence interval is, what the word “significant” really means in science, what it means to understand that events occur under various probability distributions (oh, what would my mentor at the University of Chicago have said?) Well, you know, after three grueling years of unforgiving coursework, the day I passed my comprehensive exams he asked me to take a walk with him on the “quad.” It was bracingly chilly, we walked and chatted. I was in heaven (it was grace experienced), here was my mentor choosing to spend time with me. It turned out he had a zillion questions for me about music, he had been waiting for me to make it to “colleague” level. Memories aside, to know there are not just queens, but drag queens, who not only get science but create science and change the human capacity for grace, is thrilling.

Love, you see, is always the crux of the matter, turning from love means turning to mortal self, turning to love means living in the frequency of the heart, in the reality of the identity in which God has created us. To be blessed is to know God by staying in your own heart where God always is urging you to be more and more the you God created you to be.

In Luke’s Gospel (6:17-26) we continue the story of Jesus’ ministry to vast crowds, It says (6:18) “They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.” It is a theme in Luke’s narrative that the healing comes from hearing. We are meant to understand that it doesn’t just happen; rather, it comes from the internalization that happens when we “hear,” (the term is metaphorical for perception, it doesn’t require physicality) when the love actually changes us and moves us closer to a new dimension. It was in their “hearing”–perception–that the hearts of the people in the crowd were touched and healing began. It also is important to remember that the essence of healing is full restitution into the community. Healing is being. Thus, it was in seeking change that the crowds opened their own hearts to the love offered. The love moving from Jesus to them was like electricity moving through power lines. No wonder we can understand they shifted into the new dimension of grace and love.

We are blessed when we stay in the dimension of the heart where God (Jesus) always is. Jesus recounts the famous “beatitudes”: statements that all begin “blessed are you” and end with the command to live fully into the new dimension by “rejoic[ing]” and “leap[ing] for joy.” Walking in love is rejoicing, leaping for joy, heaven is that state of pure grace.

God’s grace is the love we share, it is the doorway to the heavenly dimension where drag queens and gay priests do science, where husbands roast turkeys, where even owls are honored. Amen!

Epiphany 6 Year C RCL 2022 (Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1  Beatus vir qui non abiit; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26)

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

Moving the Furniture

I know it isn’t Lent yet. Mercifully it’s still a ways away. Maybe what I’m experiencing is a prelude to spring, which also is still a ways away. Yesterday we had some of those hunky moving guys come clean out the garage and take away several pieces of furniture we had been tripping over. And then, once that was done, I moved my desk. In fact, I moved my whole study around. It’s quite surprising how refreshing it is. Almost like having a new life. Everything is the same, except everything looks different. Perspective shifts. I see things in a different light with a different emphasis. Fascinating ….

Just to be clear, I don’t like where my desk is now, and if I manage to get this online I’m going to move it again. But that will just shift my perspective yet again. I might be on to something here ….

There is a strange kind of synergy between how you feel and how you are and how you are going to be. It is all about love, of course. If you can fill your heart with love, you can win. I know my husband feels loved because I’ve been telling him constantly lately. It’s amazing how it can change your whole life, your whole perspective, just to tell someone you love them.

Today’s old testament scripture is about the calling of Isaiah (6:1-13). It takes place inside a glorious vision of heaven—that place where love dwells in abundance—with six-winged seraphs and smoke and hot coals and the ordaining of Isaiah thus (vs. 6-8):

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

I remember the first time this was read aloud in chapel when I was in seminary. We all suspiciously looked around, looking each other in the eye, to see who felt like this was their own story too (all of us, of course).

The metaphor of the cleansing by burning coal is important because it involves not just interaction with God but challenge and pain and cleansing and renewal and commission all at once. In my own case, I had been an active but not very prominent member of my church. My husband and I sat in a pew near the front, right behind our best friends. When I first told my rector I thought I was called to the priesthood he sent me away (three times in fact) to pray over it. When I finally convinced him, he sent me to the bishop, and only then did the whole process commence. A committee of parishioners (most of whom had never made my acquaintance) was appointed to work with me prayerfully to discover my call. After several months, as I was about to go to a diocesan retreat, one of the members of the committee lit into me (see the parallel there?) by asking how a [epithet for gay man] dared defile the church by pretending to be called to the priesthood. To say I was shocked is understatement. It was no less stunning than would hot coals have been. In the moment my heart sank and I prepared to be turned away. My rector just looked at me and raised his eyebrows and I knew it was up to me to speak the truth. I said a bit shakily (but I got it all out): “I know I have been called to proclaim the good news and to serve as a spiritual leader.”

The meeting broke up. Nothing else happened. Here I am in my 24^th year of priesthood. (And, yes, that person was at my ordination and among the first at the altar to receive the new priest’s blessing. We subsequently worked together for many years in the diocese.)

Nothing like moving the furniture, in reality or metaphorically, to shift your perspective, to show you what is truly important, to bring you back to the good news of God’s love given to all in creation and restored in salvation.

Ultimately it is grace that sustains us. It is grace, which is love, that nurtures us. It is grace, which is love incarnate in those we love and in those who love us that literally sustains us in all things. Without the smiles and the “I love you” there is nothing else.

The reading today from Luke’s Gospel (5:1-11) is the story about the catching of an abundance of fish. Simon Peter and James and John were exhausted from a night of failure to catch anything when Jesus commandeered their boat to preach from. Defeated and frightened, we can almost imagine their raised eyebrows when Jesus says to let down their nets. The catch was so immense, almost overwhelming, that all were amazed. But Simon and James and John were shocked, stunned. Their perspective was shifted, and in that moment they were called and commissioned.

And so it is with all of us every day. We have to constantly see shifting perspectives to experience the grace of eternal love. Each day is a new opportunity to move life’s furniture, to say “Here I am; send me!”

5 Epiphany Year C 2022 RCL (Isaiah 6:1-8(9-13); ; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11)

Prophets of Love

We were watching an old movie last night and the heroine said “I just want things to stop happening to me.”

I said to my husband “that’s how I feel.”

Peace.

Peace is that place where nothing is happening. Because when nothing is happening, everything can happen.

Well, that’s hard to explain isn’t it?

But first, a note about Amy Schneider, whose forty day winning streak ended this week on Jeopardy!. Yes, she was just one of those people who plays on tv game shows. But, no. She was a heroine of the LGBTQ movement, for showing up, for telling her story about Princess Ozma on national television and for then continuing to show up. This is the essence of prophecy, showing up and being visible and sometimes nothing seems to happen. Prophets bring peace in just this way.

After a couple of challenging weeks, I am really looking forward, with love in my heart, to a fire in the fireplace and tuna casserole for supper (although I am puzzled by the shortage of medium shells in the market!?). I’m really looking forward, with love in my heart, to my husband’s hugs and his laughter. I’m really looking forward, with love in my heart, to peace, to that time and place where nothing is the best loving thing happening, where love can just be.

The essence of God’s creation is love. Love underlies all else. We call that subtstrate in my science. It means everything else rests on its functioning. The way it functions is that we must call it forth to make it visible. We can do that easily, by just being people of love.

Making the supper, knowing your husband will revel in eating it. That kind of thing is what it means to love.

In Luke’s Gospel (4:21-30) Jesus returns to the synagogue of his youth. Everyone is smiling and welcoming him and beaming with pride at this nice young man, now all grown up. That is, until he tells them the truth about love. He recounts this history of prophets who came and found no love and so could build no love. The crowd, without love, notoriously becomes enraged and chases Jesus to the edge of a cliff. The cliff is very real but is also a perfect metaphor for the cliff we live on if we fail to walk in love. Jesus, who has love for them, is protected by the love in his being and they part, like the proverbial Red Sea, for him to pass through the midst of them.

Prophets come from God to show us a glimpse of ourselves. We can see in them the source of love that can be built up for the glory of creation. We can find that peace that passes all understanding if we can see the love the prophet shows us and find just a bit of it in our own selves. All we need is a scintilla, from which to build up. As Paul says (1 Corinthians 13:12) we need only see love as “in a mirror, dimly” for it to begin to build.

At the beginning of the Gospel story (which is also the final line from last week’s appointed scripture) Jesus says “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” As I wrote last week, it is important that it happens in their hearing, in a community sensibility, rather than in their sight, which they might easily ignore. He means, love has come for you, love has come to tell you love is here, love has brought you a prophet to show you the way, love is ready for you to grasp it and to build it up.

In a way, in this time and this world, all of us who are God’s created LGBTQ people are prophets. Our job is to love, to love and to live, in peace, to be seen to be loving people living in peace, to build up the power of love. Even when we understand only as in a mirror dimly.

Epiphany 4 Year C 2022 RCL (Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30)

Rays of the Sun

The sun is shining, the rain seems to be on hold for awhile, it’s lovely to look out to see bulbs beginning to pop up in the garden, to see the sun gently shining. It’s terrific to be able to use my whole house, to sit where I want to, to putter and fix things and plan meals.

You see, we just spent ten days in isolation, masked in our own home, living in separate rooms. One day my husband was so lonely he went outside to wave at me through my window. A COVID scare, of course. It seems I was exposed. It might seem our reaction was severe except that I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t a carrier and I couldn’t live with myself if I gave it to him.

It wasn’t a blithe error on my part. I had gone for healthcare and was treated by someone who wasn’t very responsible, as it happens.

Then again, I was masked at all times.

I called my doctor who ordered a test and said if it was negative we didn’t need to isolate. Except, it took 4 days to get the test and 5 days more to get its result, by which time it was 10 days past the exposure. In the end, there was no infection (and, 3 tests in all, just to be precise). We endured 10 days of being separated from each other, being denied the love that comforts and nurtures us, because we were—frankly—betrayed.

Then again, now we know masks work. N95.

I guess it’s a sign of the times. I can’t begin to describe the sinking feeling in my heart at the first news, the denial–we both said over and over “but we’ve been careful for two years” and “we’ve done everything right.” Except, I went for healthcare. Foolish me.

I did my best to build up the love in my soul. I spent whole nights chanting “I love you.” We knocked on each other’s doors to say out loud “I love you.”

I wrote my Epiphany song of love to my husband last week. It was all the scripture said to me. Love, and building up more love.

The first part of loving, the beginning of giving love, is having love. To have love we must feel the love in our own being.

Then Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen” …. “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep” …. This day is holy to our LORD; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength” [Nehemiah 8:6, 9-10]

The magnificence of God’s love is in the simple way that love builds up, in the manifestations of overlapping spheres of love. I love, you love, God loves, you love God’s love, I love the liberation of creation and all of this love overlaps and grows, nourishing everything. And, there is no time like the present, which is in fact all time all at once. Time is loving through space, the overlapping spheres of love overlap now but also forever, my mother’s love enveloping me and her mother’s her and evermore onward (it was the memorial of my mother’s birthday right at the midpoint of our isolation and I could feel her love and remember her tending me as a boy).

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, * and the firmament shows his handiwork.

2 One day tells its tale to another, * and one night imparts knowledge to another [Psalm 19:1-2]

And we all are one, all people, all of creation, all one synthesis of the overlapping spheres of love.

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body [1 Corinthians 12:12]

Love builds up and explodes outward like the rays of the sun. Giving love is received in love. Love is imparted by all the senses. Especially, we experience love in the words of those whom we love.

Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit …

began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone …

“Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” [Like 4:14, 15, 21]

Life is restored in the love we share once again, still, and forever. The gentle smiles, doing the dishes and taking out the garbage, coffee together in the morning sun, hugs whenever it seems right. Love builds up.

Is there a message here to the LGBTQ heir of God’s love? Only my constant reminder that we are singularly created in God’s own image as people who are defined and identified by the love we share.

3 Epiphany Year C 2022 RCL (Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19 Caeli enarrant; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21)

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

A Song of Constant Epiphany

the light of the world

may shine with the radiance

a new light to shine in our hearts

to give the knowledge of your glory

shines out like the dawn

salvation like a burning torch

in your light we see light.

spiritual gifts

the manifestation of the Spirit

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory

The light of the world that sustains me is the love of my husband. New light comes from every hug, every kiss, every sneeze, every brusque angry retort because you can only talk that way to the people who love you. His love is so sweet it hurts, his hug comforts me, his smile and his laugh warm my heart, when I hear him moving about in the other room I am soothed. Our light is in each other. Our love is in each other. Love is the way. Our gifts consist wholly of the love we give each other in all the little ways. It is this love that is the manifestation of the Spirit. Miracles, glory, it is all about love and giving love and being love.

It is through the love we experience as LGBTQ heirs of God’s creation that we know the truth that we are, indeed, created in God’s own image, to love.

2^nd Sunday after the Epiphany Year C 2022 RCL (Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10 Dixit injustus; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11)

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

Celebrating Us

I’ve been bringing Amy Schneider into my midrash every week lately. I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of a trans-woman making such an impact in such a regular kind of “normal” American venue. After all, Jeopardy! is watched by millions daily, but is very well-known to be the stomping ground of those who are, shall we say, “mature” (of which I must admit I am)? When I was training to be a hospital chaplain and we were being instructed to make rounds every evening (we were to visit anyone who was to have surgery the next morning) we were told to go eat supper during the 30 minutes Jeopardy! was on television—“nobody will want to talk to you if you interrupt Jeopardy!” we were told! It was true, even the nurses tried not to bother people then.

So it is pretty exciting that it is in this venue that a trans-woman is receiving acceptance, even being honored. Amy has now won over 1 million dollars and joined the exclusive club of long-term winners. Friday I was also a little bit startled (can you be a little bit startled?) to realize one of the other contestants (Sean Sweeney) was a gay man, which is not so unusual, but during the comment period was talking about his husband. Maybe “surprised” is a better word than “startled.” It reminded me (and I know I’ve told this story here someplace) of a time when I was hospitalized briefly (for a few hours, which made us all wonder what they were thinking!) and I had to go three rounds with a nurse about my husband. He had gone to get a cup of tea or something and when I asked her if she had seen him she said pointedly “your FRIEND” is sitting outside in the waiting room. I said “he’s my husband” and she said “your FRIEND” is probably more comfortable out there. And I said “look, we’re married, he’s my husband, it’s the law, get over it!” Interestingly, I didn’t see her again, another nurse took over until I got sprung.

Well, I guess my point is that I was pleasantly surprised to see on regular evening television both a trans-woman champion and a married gay man and nobody batted an eyelash. It made me think about the past centuries of phobia and oppression, the decades of striving for equality, the power summoned by the LGBTQ community to come out and stand up for ourselves insisting on our basic rights as citizens to life and love. And here is how it plays out in the end, on Jeopardy!.

(Another curious point is how little feedback I’ve been getting about Amy and her social witness. One might have expected a larger proportion of readers of t his blog to be excited about this amazing development.)

I’ve been fascinated watching Christmas deconstructed in my neighborhood the past ten days or so. Of course, we kept our outdoor lights on and decorations up until the Feast of the Epiphany, until the twelfth night of Christmas had passed. Many of our neighbors began to take things down the day after Christmas, most of them had everything gone by New Year’s Day. It led me to ponder the true meaning of Christmas, which is not a singular event but an eternity. That is, Christmas is not a one-off event that we remember each year. Rather, Christmas is the epiphany of the incarnation of God as human, it is the reminder to us that it is in every moment that God not only is but also is becoming with us, and that we are called by God’s covenant with us to manifest God’s presence among us through sharing the love God gave us in creation. Indeed, we are called to share the love God gave us by creating us as LGBTQ people of love in God’s own image. We are to celebrate us, and in doing so, build up love in the whole of creation.

God is love, in us God has created a powerhouse of love, through us God has honored our creation in God’s loving image. We are called to fuel that powerhouse of love by building up love, by sharing love, by celebrating love, eternally. We are called to lay aside the distractions of daily living and to embrace the Spirit of God’s love. We are called to walk in love, until we, like those assembled at the baptism of Christ, hear the transformative power of the voice of God saying “with you I am well pleased.”

1 Epiphany Year C 2022 RCL “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22)

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

Illuminate

One of the problems with our seasonal culture is the recurrence of “doldrums”–periods of weariness I guess you might call them. Sometimes it seems to me Christmas is designed to yield doldrums—we get almost too excited with anticipation to the point that some sort of letdown is inevitable. Then, of course, is the fact that (at least in the northern hemisphere) we are in the middle of winter. I’m happy that, although it is now a little bit colder in Oregon, at least there is a bit more light each day—the occasional bits of sun make the rain seem all the sweeter. Oh well.

Of course, we also are still living in the middle of a global pandemic. Things that used to help us through the doldrums are now deadly. That means we feel like we have shrinking options, not only for picking up our spirits but for life itself. Gayborhoods, once the liveliest of winter gathering spots, had already begun to give way to better social integration of lgbt communities, but the pandemic has devastated the remaining bright spots. For the moment we cannot gather, which means we cannot see each other, which means we cannot manage our collective identity as a jubilant loving subculture.

And then there’s the continuing critical situation in the US government, which of course creates a critical situation globally as well.

Can you tell it’s a gray day in Oregon?

Well, I guess I could tell myself to “lighten up.” As it happens, our eternal call to faithfulness takes just this shape. That is, we must remember, doldrums or no, that the reason we are here is to carry forward the action of walking in love, always. Giving into dreariness is giving in to the absence of love. We are called to “listen up” for the cues in life that remind us to reach into the recesses of our hearts to find the love that lives there, to feel the love that lives there, to pass it along so as to build it up. We are called to walk in love in order that the creation of love might be a mighty cascade.

We have to look up from our winter obsessions to find the cues that call us back to lives of love. Just now I saw a blue bird hopping around in a fir tree outside my window—no winter doldrums for this bird. In fact, I know this bird from this time last winter when I first encountered him. During the summer I wondered where he had gone until one day I saw him in a tree down at the end of the road, and later that day saw him disappear back into my fir tree. I have no real idea what occupies his life but seeing him gives me joy, and seeing him living and indeed thriving gives me hope. Hope and joy are two of the hallmarks of love.

It turns out that our job is to shine with the radiance of glory. We can do that only if we can walk in love. In order to walk in love we must take care not to be overwhelmed by life’s exigencies. Rather, we must overwhelm with love.

The collect for the second Sunday in Epiphany asks that we might be “illumined” and “shine with radiance” of the glory that is God’s creation of love. The story from 1 Samuel (3:1-20) of Samuel’s own call to faithfulness reminds us that God’s call is constant and eternal. God does not let us fail to hear the recurrent visceral call to walk in love. Psalm 139:1 reminds us that God knows us each intimately. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 6:12-20) reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, which is love, which is within us. We are to tease out this love that is placed within us the better to give it out into the world around us. In John’s Gospel (1:43-51) we see the action of Jesus calling Philip and Nathaniel with the words “follow me” and “come and see.”

What a coincidence, that this week, with all that is happening in the world at large, our call is to shine with the radiance of love, that our own love might indeed build up power enough to shift the dimensions of all creation into the path of love.

We have witnessed the labor pains of the end of a period consumed by the vacuum that opens in the absence of love. It is our job to let none of God’s love, given to us in creation, lie fallow—rather it is up to us, God’s lgbt people created by love with love for love to love, to “come and see” the new dimension of love.

2 Epiphany Year B RCL 2021 (1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20); Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17 Page 794, BCP Domine, probasti; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Tough Love

I’ve been taking my time putting away Christmas decorations. I told several people I kept having the feeling that Christmas was stolen from me this year. We had lights on the house, a tree, lots of decorations, all the usual food, lots of presents—you’d think I’d have been satisfied. But what we didn’t have was a four week run up of church through Advent—not just the liturgical realities but also the preparations and rehearsals for Christmas itself. We didn’t have friends in or drop in on anybody. We didn’t sing. After Christmas I love the sweetness of the season of Christmas too—the twelve days ending in the feast of the Epiphany, the arrival of the magi, the fruition of the remembrance of Emmanuel “God-with-us” and the launch into the refreshed new year. I was really looking forward to Epiphany this year.

Well, that sort of got taken from us too, didn’t it? We knew it was going to coincide this year with the certification of the Electoral College votes by the US Congress. But we didn’t know what else was coming down the pike. No sweet multi-course meal, no music by the fireplace this year. Rather, it was a tense day reminiscent of other days of tragedy in the world. I spent most of it working on academic research on one computer with CNN open on the other computer and NPR on the radio behind me. The only exception was the hour I spent driving to a healthcare appointment and back—all of that time spent listening to NPR on the radio as well. The capital was “breached,” a mob attempted a “coup,” a vile set of circumstances came home to roost (forgive my nicely mucked up metaphors). Democracy, in the form of the Congress reconvened if shaken returning to the constitutionally-mandated work of certifying a free and fair election, triumphed. But the social fabric remains shaky at best. Everyone is angry or frightened or both.

It seems there is a lot of anger floating about in the world today and much of it landed on us, much of it is still present within us. Preaching a gospel of love often feels futile. People want to believe in love, but it is really quite difficult to understand the concept properly. We love chocolate, we love strawberries, we love the sunshine, we love beauty, we love music, we love each other. Yes, these are all inward ways of comprehending love. But this is not what we mean when we say that we are called to walk in love. To walk in love is to give oneself to the act of always loving—it is an outward action, not an inward sense.

When difficult things present themselves, it is very hard to think about how to work around them by walking in love. Part of it is that we think we are supposed to love some one or some thing that obviously has caused us harm. Maybe, if you can do that it might help. But really, what it means to walk in love through difficulty is to refuse to give into hate, refuse to be embroiled in fear. Instead, we must fill our hearts and minds with the love of God and keep going forward. A psalm comes to mind (23:4) “yea though I walk the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” In a week like the one we just experienced in the United States, with mounting death from a pandemic that could have been mitigated year ago, with a seditious coup propagated by a sitting president, it is indeed tough to love.

Thus, it is time for tough love. It is time to refuse to be consumed by fear or hate or trembling, but instead to walk in love. How? Not by disregarding the circumstances. Rather, by responding bravely and firmly but always with a loving heart.

Here is where the season of Epiphany can show us the way. In Genesis 1:3-4 God’s creation is defined by the manifestation of light, which was good, because light is love. God’s love shines like the sunlight. The presence of light is the sign of the presence of love. The presence of love separates the dimension of love from the chaos of the absence of love. When we walk in love we walk in the dimension of light, the dimension of creation, eternally.

In the book of the Acts of the Apostles (19:1-7) Paul, arriving in Ephesus, baptizes a group of believers. Now, baptism is new birth by the Holy Spirit given through the action of water. The flowing water is a symbol both of the birth process and of the motion of the spirit, always forward, always cleansing, always refreshing. In Mark’s Gospel (1:4-11) Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan river. As Jesus comes up out of the water he receives a dramatic vision of heaven accompanied by the arrival of the Holy Spirit descending “like a dove” together with the voice of God. Interestingly, it is an internal experience for Jesus, it is not just a response to baptism but also a catalyst to action. It is the acknowledgment of and the catalyst for the creative power of the presence of love.

We baptize children, we baptize new Christians. We forget, easily, that the people we baptize are people who embrace love. What happens after baptism? Many of us forget to walk in love. We pretty much learn to walk defensively, walls up, in fear. We learn to reside with the absence of love. And we forget that when we do that we create the kind of world we have now.

If we want a world that is not ruled by chaos or hate, then we must learn to fill our own world with love, even when it is tough. We must learn to look for, to prize, to nourish the light of love in our lives. Is there an LGBTQ perspective? Only that it is in this that we are truly and fully integrated. Indeed, it is we who are identified by the love we are created to share who can show the way.

1 Epiphany Year B 2015 RCL “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Salty Helpers in the Nest

I love to cook. I’m good at it too, as my friends will tell you if you ask them. Like Gladwell’s ten thousand hours theory, I’ve learned over time that cooking, which is equal parts art and science, relies on experience. I started cooking as a child, at my grandmother’s right hand.

But my best salt story comes from adolescence. I remember we were living in Pearl City, Hawaii, so it would have been 1965 or so. I remember making a peach pie for the family for dessert. That’s not all that simple a thing, so I must have been fairly accomplished at that age if I was making pies regularly. I don’t remember much about the construction of it, but it was really a thing of beauty—golden crust, all piled high with the bright orange-yellow peach filling. It looked and smelled delicious. We all couldn’t wait to have a piece for dessert. Proudly I served the slices all around the table. Then, fortunately, my mother and I took the first bites simultaneously. I say fortunately because it was inedible and we were able, despite nearly choking, to stop my siblings from taking a bite. It was all salt! It turned out, I recalled, as I reconstructed having followed the recipe, that I had mixed up the salt and sugar, using a cup of salt and a teaspoon of sugar. Oh well …

Too much salt spoils the pie, and everything else too. A friend complained on social media a couple of years ago about having been to several restaurants where salt seemed to be an ingredient in all of the dishes. I replied that it was supposed to be seasoning, not an ingredient. Salt works chemically in several ways but primarily it is best used for enhancing flavor, which it does by causing things like onions to give up their harsh acidity and leaving behind a more intense and sweet-savory onion flavor. That’s why so many dishes start with sautéing onions with a dash of salt and pepper (the pepper adds intensity too; but neither salt nor pepper should be recognizable as ingredients in the finished dish). I’d better stop before I get too far out on this limb—I’m a good cook but I’m no food anthropologist or chemist.

But if your restaurant dish tastes like salt you should send it back, but be explicit why. It probably got—like my pie—too much salt in the “season everything on the way to the table” step.

In Matthew 5:12 Jesus says: “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. He says this to his disciples, but of course, in full ear of a large crowd too. It is a layered metaphor, not unlike the way a cook learns to layer flavor with the judicious use of salt. The metaphor for uselessness comes from the fact that salt, when too watered down, loses its ability to cause the flavorfully necessary chemical reactions. In other words, you—God’s children—are meant to add flavor to God’s kingdom by gently teasing out the goodness around you. You do this by showing the love of God that is in your heart. But if you let that love get too watered down—primarily by self-centeredness—it is no longer helpful to anybody.

Ah, here we are back at love again—and you thought this was going to be about salt. Well, love is one interpretation of salt here. If you lose your salt it means you have become so focused on your own self that you have quit giving love. You have become so watered down you no longer add flavor to your relationships with the people you love.

The tricky part is, and you all know this, first you have to take care of your own self. If you have lost your salt you are of no use to anybody. But once you have some back, it attracts more to you. Like love, a little beginning can add up to a lot. So it is your responsibility to get your salt back. Try giving a little bit of love. The rest will take care of itself.

There is another metaphor here in Matthew’s Gospel, about a light shining. It is mirrored in Isaiah where it is a metaphor for justice, which is a wonderful form of love, and in the Psalm, where it is a metaphor for righteousness, which is also a wonderful form of love, and in 1 Corinthians, where it is a metaphor for wisdom. My goodness—layers and layers and layers of metaphor. Just like seasoning.

The key to the light metaphor is to understand that light helps us see things as they really are. Shining light shows the difference between giving love and the absence of love. Shining light shows how love reveals justice, springs from righteousness and comes from wisdom.

There is a bio-sociological theory that homosexualities are necessary for just this purpose—that lgbt people are necessary to reveal the true power of love in creation. Sometimes called the “helpers in the nest” theory (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26089486) the idea is that we are here as light shining in society through the love we share, which in turn reveals the true power of love given freely. I most like this theory because it resonates with my own experience as a pastor—I’ve seen over and over the “light” and “salt” added to a congregation by its lgbt members.

You see, light and salt are our job. Love, love and more love—give love. Let all creation know that love is in your heart and salt is in your blood. As Jesus said: let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

 

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12)); Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20

©2020 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Perceptions, righteousness, glimpses of the kingdom

The last time I wrote in this blog was the Sunday before the US presidential election. It is no coincidence that I, like many, have been in shock since then. Enough about that …

We had a white Christmas in Wisconsin, barely, by which I mean we had a lot of snow running up to Christmas and the rain all Christmas Day washed it away. So we were at least able to contemplate the state of climatic grace known as white Christmas for the week running up to and through Christmas Eve. It was a good and holy Christmas and Christmastide, something we can treasure going forward.

Just after the start of the New Year we traveled to Toronto for the wedding of two dear friends, men who have been building a life together for several years and now have become family to each other. It was a wonderful wedding and a holy fellowship blending the families of the two men together with the family of their friends. It was for me one of those transformative moments, when I see a glimpse of the kingdom.

I have just been to Malta and back. Trips like that, as accustomed as I am to them now, still amaze me just because they are possible. After flying all night across the Atlantic I always think to myself, as the plane prepares to land (usually for me at Schiphol in Amsterdam), “my goodness, look where we are!” And then again a few days later as the Mediterranean glistened outside the midday windows of my plane landing in Malta. My hotel room afforded me a deck overlooking the ocean, which was delightful. I was very tired the first day and slept soundly. The next morning when I opened the curtains I was shocked to see through the morning mist and island just off the beach outside my window. “I don’t remember and island being there” I said to myself. Just then, the mist cleared a bit and I could see the island was moving toward the port—a cruise ship—well, then I guess (aside from the humor of it) it is another example of dimensions of human perception. What we see in one way at one moment can easily appear to be another thing a moment later. It makes life at once tricky and interesting.

In today’s scripture we hear Moses remind the people that righteousness comes from a right heart attuned to God’s commandment to love God and love each other. We hear the Psalmist reflect that message, singing thanks together with a vow to walk in God’s way, which is justice. We hear Saint Paul remind the people at Corinth that arguing about details of churchmanship is vanity and not of one heart with God and God’s justice, because we all have a common purpose together which is to maintain God’s just and righteous kingdom among us. Finally we hear Jesus interpret the law in several difficult passages that all boil down to two things: first that constant reconciliation is a key to just righteousness, and second that it is critical to remain focused, as Moses’ message said, on a right heart attuned to God.

We are living in both a wonderful and a difficult moment. I suppose most people in most times can have said that same thing. Of course it is true for lgbt people that this situation is always a part of our condition. That for every momentous act of love and unity we experience there is in society at large a balancing act to be performed. Still, it is critical for us to keep focused, not to be distracted by emotions, to rejoice in the good and holy and transformative moments we experience, to repent of the sin of casting ourselves as right rather than as being people of right hearts attuned to God, to be open to glimpses of God’s kingdom among us.

 

6 Epiphany (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37)

©2017 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.