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.

Pray. Love is Endemic.

Love surpasses all understanding. How is that? If you know the power of love; not sentimental warm feelings, but truth, justice, righteousness—the things that define God’s love–then you know that love surpasses all understanding. God pours love into our hearts so that we might give love out through our own love of life building it up until the whole of creation sings with joy.

As indeed it is doing right now. The rhododendrons are blooming gloriously, shortly it will be warm enough to plant vegetables for the summer, the peonies are swelling to blossom, after some dry spells the spring rain is gloriously back in Oregon giving us the opportunity for short drives in the rain, for in-between sunny day glimpses of Mount Hood glistening with new snow. Love is endemic.

There are two broad categories of prayer, or maybe I should say, approaches to prayer. Kataphatic prayer is the kind we find in liturgies, precise words repeated over and over in specific patterns. Apophatic prayer is the kind used in “centering” prayer, in which there is no content, only the job of being still and listening for what God brings (here is a tutorial).

I have always been more attracted to kataphatic prayer. Indeed, I find it apophatic in its repetitive nature. That is, as the prayer is recited over and over, consciousness shifts from the foreground to the back, where indeed there is silence, and room for God to enter in. But that’s just me I guess.

I thought of this when I saw this week’s story from Acts [10:44-48] where it says “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.” LOL, his kataphatic voice lulled them into apophatic presence. They were lulled into a trance by Peter’s voice and in the trance the Holy Spirit occupied their hearts. The listeners were converted by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Fascinatingly, the story ends by telling us they invited Peter to stick around for awhile.

But there also is a story here about the spiritual welcoming of those were were outcast. The crowd Peter was preaching to was a mix of insiders and outcast; the insiders were “astounded” that the outcasts could get it, not just that they heard and understood but that they received the Holy Spirit.

It reminded me of church conventions, where of necessity everyone is together in one place and in worship the divisions must cease. It is in such arenas that LGBTQ+ people are at their most powerful just by their presence, especially their visible presence among the faithful. Sing a new song, indeed [Psalm 98]. This past week after decades of division our United Methodist kin, in convention, used the joy and love in their hearts to bring LGTBQ+ people into full membership. The insiders embraced the formerly outcast and all of the faithful received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

John’s first epistle of love [1 John 5:1-6] continues to explain how all of us who know God’s love must be (as there can be no other possibility) children of God. We know God’s love because we know love as we know gravity. We know love as we know rain and sun and hugs and tears. We know love because we are love because we are people of love.

In John’s Gospel [15:9-17] Jesus tells his disciples about the transcendence of love: “As [God] has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Joy must be in us for us to make love complete. But God’s love brings us such joy that we have the capacity to make more love. Love builds up. If we love one another creation will bring everything we need.

Let us embrace the Holy Spirit, rejoice in inclusiveness, and pray however we can for peace in the Holy Land.

6 Easter Year B 2024 RCL (Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98 Cantate Domino; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17)

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

That Our Joy May Be Complete

The great message of Easter, indeed, the great message of Christianity, is that sin is forgiven for those who have faith in Christ.

To understand this requires multiple levels of comprehension, indeed, even dimensions of reality.

Sin, is disconnection, from God. The main way humans sin—disconnect from God—is to disconnect from each other. The opposite of sin is love. When we have love for one another—the love which is God—then we cannot be disconnected.

Today I heard a commentator on radio say that the problem in the world arises when both sides in a conflict are too hurt to stop hurting. In other words, so long as both sides are too hurt, they are so absent of love that they cannot see their way to a human realization of a way out.

Hurt is hurt; but let us remember the power of forgiveness. Forgiving is not forgetting, it is not forgoing justice, but it is the way to clear away the wall that prevents love. When that wall is raised there is no possibility of grace. The wall must be erased.

This is the essence of Christianity. Forgiveness is ours, by faith, by grace even, if only we can tear down those walls of sin that disconnect us.

Connection is God’s plan for creation. Not just connection, but synchrony, interconnection that is greater than the sum of its parts—otherwise known to us as “love builds up.” Connection, love, glory, blessing.

Both the epistle [1 John 1:1-2:2] and the Gospel reading [John 20:19-31] are from the author of John’s Gospel this week. The message is this: “what was from the beginning” “concerning the word of life,” that “our joy may be complete” when we walk in love. When we walk in love we understand that when sin occurs forgiveness is ours if we ask for it in faith. “Do not doubt but believe.”

Erasing the wall is the hard part. We who are created LGBTQ+  in God’s image learn to live with the powerful love in our souls even in the midst of oppression from all sides. We must erase the walls that separate us from each other—“Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity” [Psalm 133: 1]. If we can tear down those walls, we will see Christ among us and receive his peace.

2 Easter Year B 2024 RCL (Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133 Ecce, quam bonum!; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31)

©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.

Simple gifts: Cucumbers, Drag queens, Potato salad and Love

It is summer time for sure; life seems to return to simple pleasures. I picked my first cucumber yesterday, it’s funny-looking and kind of curly, which is cute. It reminds me that the stuff at the supermarket is so highly engineered and that in real life, sometimes things curl up! I also harvested my first ever plum tomatoes this week; sort of on the small side but very lovely nonetheless. And yesterday, I didn’t have a zillion things to do and was able to spend some time painting some tables red. Like I said, simple pleasures. The core of life, really.

The lectionary has been touring us through the generations of Abraham. This week we have the convoluted story of Jacob and Rachel and Leah and I’m not going to go into it, you can look it up if you want [Genesis 29: 15-28]. I think one main point of this story is in the persistence of love and in the reality life does not always follow our preferred pattern. One of my mentors as a young priest used to say to me all the time that things would happen “all in God’s good time.”

It is why we must take time to chuckle over the curly cucumbers and to paint a table and give thanks for all we have that we love [Psalm 105:1-11].

I was interested yesterday to hear a story on National Public Radio about how laws oppressing drag have actually not been succeeding (https://www.npr.org/2023/07/29/1190306861/drag-bans-fail-lgbtq-first-amendment-prurient-arkansas-florida-tennessee-montana ). It turns out that the drafted laws invariably violated the first amendment right to freedom of expression. What do you know? Drag is a constitutional right!

Is it too easy then to rejoice in one of Paul’s most powerful verses?:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This occurs in a passage of the letter to the Romans [8:26-39] where Paul refers to how the Holy Spirit “intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” How fitting.

In Matthew’s Gospel [13:31-33, 44-52] we see Jesus reeling off a series of parables—a mustard seed, some yeast, something buried in a field, a pearl merchant, a fishing net. What the stories all have in common is that a tiny investment in love pays off big time. A simple expression of faith from a loving heart yields loving results, the opening of the door into the dimension of God’s love.

We cooked out the other night (we cooked on the grill and ate dinner on the patio). Birds chirped and the fountain splashed and the giant Douglas firs waved gently to us in the wind and the gentle summer sun cast a stunning glow over everything. And of all the cooking I did, it was the first bite of potato salad that got my husband going. He just kept saying how good it was, meaning how much he enjoyed it, meaning how much love we managed to share in that simple moment.

We reap what we sow and when we sow love we reap the keys to the kingdom. Simple things, simple truths, simple love.

Proper 12 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 29: 15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b Confitemini domino; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52)

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

Ladders Angels Dreams Seeds and Love

Here we are at the end of July. Pride is past. Curiously, maybe because I was accustomed to Philadelphia Pride taking place on the Sunday of Pentecost, I have the sense that once “pride” is behind us it becomes time for reality, time for real life in normal time, weather, war and politics notwithstanding.

Jacob dreams about a ladder [Genesis 28:10-19a], and on this ladder angels are ascending and descending, and they speak to him in words given them by God. It is a metaphor of a metaphor of a metaphor. In the Old Testament and in the Gospels, dreams are means by which God speaks to humans. But, have you ever had that experience? I have not and I’m pretty … let’s just say mature. Not to say God has never spoken to me, only that it has not been in dreams. What should we make of this? Is it a literary mechanism from the people who wrote down these stories millenia ago? We cannot know, of course.

But we can know that God does speak to us, regularly even. And when we are paying attention we hear what God is trying to tell us. What God tells Jacob is revelatory for all humanity in all time: God is with us wherever we go … and God’s presence is awe-some (not like the colloquial misuse of the word, but meaning it fills your soul with the significance of the presence of the divine).

The Psalmist knows all of this, of course [Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23]. God knows us even in our creaking and groaning (that’s pretty much a description of how I sit down and rise up!). For God, night and day are one, it is all the same because it is all real God time, in which God is with us in our being.

In Romans 8 [12-25] Paul makes clear to us with LGBTQ eyes and ears what has so often been so clearly misused by power-seeking oppressors. Paul is saying that we all are children of God, and thus we all are heirs of God’s kingdom, which is the reality of love. When Paul makes a distinction between “body” or “flesh” and spirit, he means, can you override your innate animal defense mechanisms that shut you off from love?

And, hope, of course, hope.

Jesus’ journey continues in Matthew’s Gospel [13:24-30, 36-43] recording more preaching for crowds. Jesus is again telling truth to power “Let anyone with ears listen!” God is the gardner, God sows good seeds. In the end, the good seeds prosper.

I have had for three summers now a wonderful farm-garden. Three years ago when life was very much on the edge, I bought a small raised bed metal box. I bought some soil that I poured in it. Then I went to the nursery and bought tomatoes and peppers and zucchini and some lettuces. I planted them all in that little box. And I nursed them and nurtured them. Somewhat miraculously I harvested cucumbers and tomatoes and zucchini and salad greens and I was amazed at the abundance God had provided.

And when weeds popped up I pulled them out. But I get it, sometimes, they are imbedded with the real plant, and if you want the plant to flourish you have to let the weed grow too.

After all, some weeds, turn into things like mint or blackberries, which as it happens are quite good.

In another part of our garden I have planted dahlias every summer and every summer the lawn people dig them up or mow them down and I feel like giving up. But what do you know, last week I looked out at that garden and there where it shouldn’t be is a volunteer dahlia. Obviously left from last summer and growing just like it belongs there. And it does, belong there I mean.

Sometimes it is all about perception. And sometimes it is all about love and the abundance of love.

And about paying attention to the myriad ways in which God talks to you. In your loved one’s smile, in the flowers that bloom in your garden, in the little surprises of life.

In our responsibility as God’s LGBTQ heirs to listen to God speaking to us, to realize those angels are climbing ladders right beside us every day, to understand that, of course, we are the good seeds of God’s creation.

Proper 11 Year A RCL 2023 (Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23; Romans 8: 12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

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

Ever More Pride

It is high summer in Portland. This weekend is “Portland PRIDE.” There was an (I think successful) attempt to make a difference–a 48-hour drag show–this past weekend. This Sunday there will be a dinner cruise on the Willamette River hosted by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It should be an exciting event all around.

We need to remember the importance of Pride: first, it helps us provide witness that we are here and we are proud, and second, it helps us build up our own pride in our own selves. In fact, that is the main point isn’t it? “Love your neighbor as yourself” begins with having pride in your own self.

We went on a quiet dinner cruise the other night with some friends from college days. The food was great and the views of Portland from the middle of the Willamette River are always going to be stunning. Not to mention it created for us a time to relax and enjoy dinner with people we love.

As we sat down my husband excitedly patted my knee … he had noticed (as had I) a young gay couple being seated at the next table. We smiled and laughed. I said “we looked like that once upon a time.” I suppose they were in their early to mid-20s (just like us when we met 45 years ago). As we were getting ready to leave after the cruise I spotted a couple of bears arm-in-arm, maybe in their early 40s.

So, I thought to myself, our love is not so quiet anymore. Hallelujah! I took comfort in seeing both couples. I wonder whether they saw us. I hope so.

God asks us to “know and understand” how love works, and gives us both the grace and the power to know and to understand that we might continue to walk in love.

There is a long story in Genesis [25:19-34], a continuation of the history of the blessings of Abraham, in this case the blessings of Isaac, whose wife Rebekkah has twins. You can read the story; it has its ups and downs, and I think we are to take from that that even God’s chosen have ups and downs and have to cry a bit and pray a lot. But in the end it all works out. I think the key to the whole story is in Rebekkah’s prayer—she went to inquire of [God] and [God] answered.

There you have it. Ask, and you shall receive.

God gives us the tools we need to be loving people, to let our own lives be “a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path” [Psalm 119:105, 112]. What a concept, eh? That your life should so light up the world?

Sounds like Pride again doesn’t it?

Paul, oh my, Paul. I bear his name (it is my middle name). He tells the truth [Romans 8:1-11]. “There is no condemnation.” Repeat that to yourself, over and over, and let it sink in that there is no condemnation. The law of love, if you can always walk in love, has set you free to lead the life God created especially for you to live. If you can remember always to walk in love, and to reject your animal instinct to isolate yourself, then you have been already given the tools you need to live in the Spirit. And when you live in the Spirit, God dwells in you. And you have “received a spirit of adoption;” you are, indeed, “children of God … heirs.”

Matthew’s Gospel recounts a day of preaching for Jesus [13:1-9, 18-23]. Jesus has to get in a boat because so many people had come to hear his simple message of love. He told stories. He pulled no punches: “let anyone with ears listen.” His parable of the seed is all about faith, and all about the power of the persistence of love, which always wins.

God loves you.

God loves us.

God created us, as we are, in God’s own image.

God wants us to do a special job, which is to show that family comes from love.

May Pride be with us all always.

Proper 10 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23)

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

Trial-and-Error Faith

It rained Friday. It wasn’t supposed to. But, I kept praying “please rain.” And then, to help it along, I got the car washed.

But it rained. It hadn’t rained in 21 days and no rain was forecast for any time soon. And then there it was all night and all day about ½” which is really terrific for my arugula and basil and zinnias and lettuces not to mention the roses which are blooming in abundance.

And there’s another thing: I had heard all my life how impossible it was to have roses, and then I went to a friend’s house about 10 years ago and WHOA! the whole yard was filled with giant rose bushes taller than me and all blooming and blooming … so I got a couple just to see; this was when I was still back in the Midwest.

Then I moved here. Portland. It’s the “rose city,” right? So I planted roses, in pots and in the ground, and what do you know they actually enjoy being in my garden and they keep blooming and blooming.

I always have enjoyed them, but at first I wondered why they just bloomed once and quit.

Then a family crisis led to clipping roses every day to try to bring some joy; and what do you know, they kept blooming and blooming.

So now I clip the flowers and bring them in and we have beautiful vases of roses in our house. And in the gardens they keep on blooming, putting out new feelers and ever more clusters of blossoms.

It seems to me this is an example of faith, especially of the kind of faith that requires trial-and-error, and of course, it is an example of God’s faithfulness in creation.

In Genesis [12:1-9] we have this story about Abram (later he will be called Abraham) answering God’s call. It’s a long story but what I think is critical is that he just keeps going, he keeps trying one thing and then another, and especially at each step he keeps giving thanks. He “built an altar to the Lord” and then “he moved on” and then “he pitched his tent” and “built an altar to the Lord” and on and on he “journeyed on by stages.”

That’s the revelation of scripture about real life, isn’t it? We just journey on by stages. But what was the key for Abram? The key was gratitude, giving thanks, but more importantly being thankful; every time Abram pitched a tent he built an altar and gave thanks.

I’ve experienced a series of little miracles lately … I now laugh when they come because, of course, it gives me such joy, but also because I see how it works even if only in a mirror darkly (as Paul might have said). Some, if not most, have come from my singing praise without even thinking about it, not to mention healthy doses of trial-and-error. So trust me, don’t forget to give thanks and especially to sing your thanks as praise, as Augustine is said to have advised prayer sung is twice prayed.

Play the harp, the psaltery, the lyre, the trumpet, sing a new song, sound a fanfare … of loving kindness, which fills the whole of creation … [Psalm 33]

How funny, it is Paul here [Romans 4:13-25] who reminds us Abram was 100 years old when this story began! But the story is all about inheriting love through righteousness, which is walking in love. And it all rests on faith, which is the faith in knowing that love is the power of the universe, that love works, that love creates, that love gives, that loving creates more loving.

In Matthew 9 [9-13, 18-26] Jesus reminds the crowd that it is not about the establishment, but rather, it is about those who have fallen aside, those who are disconnected, those who need to heal, those who need healing. For Jesus, “healing” is not just about illness of the body, it is about being cast out of the body of Christ. He tells the woman with sores that her faith has made her well. He raises the daughter of the synagogue’s leader by offering love. He takes her by the hand to guide her back into the community.

And so Jesus takes us by the hand. It is a good moment for us to remember that it is we, God’s LGTBQ heirs, who are taken by Jesus’ hand and brought, in loving, into the community of all creation. It is in our pride in the loving selves God has made us in God’s own image, it is in our colorful diversity, it is in drag, in joy, in songs of praise, and indeed in our outcastness, our differentness, our oppression—it is in all these ways and uncounted others that Jesus takes us by the hand and shows us that healing is in the way of love.

Jesus takes us by the hand and reminds us that it is our faith, however trial-and-error it seems, it is our faith sung in songs of praise that makes us well. It is our faith that we are God’s LGBTQ heirs who are called to heal creation with the love that overflows in our hearts.

Proper 5 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 12:1-9; Psalm 33:1-12; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26)

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

From Mercy to Grace through Love

Mercy is that little break you need when just one more thing will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back; mercy is that space of relief you need when you just can’t take it anymore … which is why theologians talk about the quality of mercy … how deep does it need to be, how abiding must it be? The answer is, that stuff doesn’t matter, what matters is that there is, in the end, mercy, for those who are plugged into God

God has promised to all of us, who are made in God’s own image, who are living out the lives God has given us, that God will bless us, if we just remember to stay plugged in, and if we do that, we ourselves will become the blessing, and those who bless us will be blessed and all the earth will be blessed … wow, and it all starts with love in our own hearts (as God created us to be, after all) … love builds up as Paul says.

Faith, unlike what you have heard, is not about following rules. Faith is about what is in your heart. Are you in love with God’s love? It won’t matter what you say outwardly because God who is love will know, from what is truly in your heart. What to do about deeper faith, closer connection? Clear the cobwebs from your mind and your soul and just let your heart love.

And this will be righteousness which is grace lived out, which follows faith as. That’s another way of saying love builds up.

Jesus says, “pay attention.” It is a conundrum for sure how we all are alike and at the same time all completely different. And yet it is eternally true that that *#*$ person over there is a child of creation and an heir of God and is as created in God’s image as you and I are. And so Jesus’ admonition to “pay attention” is a reminder that it is from God that love comes and to God that love goes but only through the complex interlinking synergistic universe of all creation that love flows. In other words, it is in this universal access to God’s love that we all are the same, even in our fabulous uniqueness.

Which is another reason for God’s LGBTQ heirs to ponder faith, mercy, righteousness and grace in Lent. We are God’ specially created people who are identified uniquely by how we love. Building up that love is our job.

2 Lent Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121 Levavi oculos; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17) ©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Prayer, Joy, Faith

We are on a prayer trajectory it seems. Last Sunday I wrote about sustaining, connecting, present prayer. This week the scripture again points us directly to prayer, but this time with an emphasis on the expression of faith.

Is your prayer “lead me, guide me?” This is the prayer God, creation, the universe, the power of love, is looking for. “Lead me, guide me.”

This week my husband and I drove up (okay, we drove to the east) the Columbia Gorge and back so he could have a fun outing and a good sandwich. It was great. Portland and environs were engulfed in smoke from a wildfire in Washington State, but the Gorge was clear, with marine winds sweeping up the river. The big water of the Columbia River is soothing all by itself in its power and majesty. My husband ate an enormous bratwurst. I bought a whole salmon from the good folks under the Bridge of the Gods. It was fun, but it also was tender for the love we shared in the quiet moments in the presence of nature. We loved each other even more as we were doing it and yet more still in the evening at home, basking in the joy of the day.

I think we all as LGBTQ people are feeling threatened, for good reason. Those of us who are old enough probably know that LGBTQ people had vast liberation in the early 20^th century but it was all pulled back by oppression from the right wing in the 1930s and that lasted until the 1970s. We all know it could easily happen again.

Whatever else we do in the political world, which is not my mandate here, we must follow the law of love that God gives us. We must have faith expressed in the love we share. Hope must persist in the plans we make. And charity is how we make sure that both faith and hope persist—we must remain in the aura of love, we must constantly “be glad and rejoice.”

LOL there is a lot of scripture this week about rain. Well I can tell you we had months of 100 degree heat, and then we had a week of air quality nightmares with yellow foggy skies, and then God’s rain began and now even my lawn that looked like hay after one night of rain is green again. Hallelujah!

The sky is blue and hope has returned to us in creation.

In Joel 2:23-32 the prophet is led by God to proclaim the relief of rain “[God] has given the early rain for your vindication, [God] has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before.” It is a sign that faith has been rewarded by equilibrium, it is the basis of hope for fertility and growth and of course for love. The psalmist (Psalm 65: 9, 11) responds “you visit the earth and water it abundantly; you make it very plenteous; the river of God is full of water … you drench the furrows and smooth out the ridges; with heavy rain you soften the ground and bless its increase.” At the close of his second letter to Timothy (4:6-8, 16-18) Paul stands firm on his own faith “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Luke 18:9-14 records a parable of Jesus comparing the prayer of the self-righteous to the prayer of a sinner.  Jesus reminds us “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, ….”

“Lead me, guide me” indeed. Pray. Have faith.

The rain will come, the earth will nourish all creation with love.

Above all else have joy. Because joy is the beginning of love, given, which is faith expressed.

Proper 25 Year C 2022 RCL (Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65 Te decet hymnus; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14)

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