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.

From Triumph to Triumph of Love and Grace

Triumph takes many forms. We read this scripture for the Liturgy of the Palms [Mark 11:1-11]  about parades on donkeys through streets lined with followers. What about the hug you give your beloved every morning? Isn’t that, too, triumph? I think it is. In every moment in which you are able to love and be loved … hug your beloved; give your neighbors a plate of cookies; smile at the grocery cashier who took the trouble to smile at you … those are life’s triumphs. We are meant to treasure them.

Because it is God’s purpose in creation that we should live from triumph to triumph, from hug to hug, from cookies to smiles. And we are asked to give thanks as we go, because, as we see, love builds up.

We walk with Christ each day. We walk the way of creation, life is full of stumbles and steep cliffs and as we negotiate them, and survive them, and celebrate our triumphs with pure love, we are walking with Christ.

In the Liturgy of the Word for Palm Sunday [Mark 14:1-15:47] we walk the way of the cross. Have you ever wondered about the other people in this story, those with no names, or those we’ve never encountered before? There are bystanders and crowds and helpers all along the way. But in this story two things stand out for me, the young man following Jesus who ran away [Mark 14:51], and the women looking on from a distance … who used to follow Jesus [Mark 15:40 ff.]. I think this is where we are visible in the narrative of the way of the cross. These precious, loving people who are for whatever reason less than full members of society in their own day, these folks are made alive—literally healed—in the ministry of Jesus.

We who are God’s LGBTQ+ created people, we who populate that dimension in God’s multiverse, we are those people healed by his love. We are the fountain of love God has built up, from triumph to triumph, to provide the grace from which salvation springs.

Palm Sunday Year B RCL 2024 (The Liturgy of the Palms: Mark 11:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; The Liturgy of the Word: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16 In te, Domine, speravi; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1-15:47) ©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Love Blooming into Eternity

Daffodils are blooming.

Tulips are next.

The rhythm of life is always visible.

I love life.

I love my husband.

I surely love God.

Life is messy by nature for sure, which is what makes it “unruly” (to quote this week’s collect). It is one thing to believe in love and another thing entirely to keep love uppermost as you go through the day dealing with dropping your keys, stubbing your toe, forgetting to pick up tomatoes on the way home, dealing with traffic, and on and on and on. We ask to be granted “grace,” which is love unbounded and freely given, because if we can achieve a state of grace then our hearts will be fixed on the place where love prevails.

God’s law is love. God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah [32:31-34] that love has been written on our hearts, in other words, God has made it a part of our created nature. An inscription for eternity. So we will know that when we love we are naturally the people of God.

The Psalmist [51:1-13] sings a prayer for mercy according to God’s “loving kindness” and “great compassion.” Cleanse us from disconnection by washing away unruliness; create a clean heart that will make my spirit love until joy sustains me.

The epistle to the Hebrews [5:5-10] connects Christ to the Old Testament stories of creation by reminding us that God has created Christ a “priest forever.” A priest is one who accepts responsibility for mediating God and humanity. One accepts the responsibility both from God and from one’s peers. The job is richly rewarding, on the one hand, and constantly challenging on the other. Although on the face of it there are lots of potlucks and plumbing repairs and learning to fire up the oil burner, mostly, the job is to lead, spiritually.

That’s it, to lead, spiritually. Christ “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,” linking through eternity to the people of creation. In other words, all is all, all time is all at once, and God is just God. Paeans to God notwithstanding, God is not a mighty warrior or a royal prince or anything else other than what people need God to be.

And we need more than ever for God to be love.

In John’s Gospel [12:20-33] Jesus reveals the truth of love and connection and all creation. A grain of wheat falls on the earth, it germinates, in that it ceases to be a grain of wheat, becoming a plant that bears fruit that nourishes creation. We must likewise let our lives be open to the path of creation that makes us ever flexible for love. The Jesus tells the crowd: “Now is the judgment;” now is the time.

Now is always the time. Now is always connected to all eternity. The daffodils bloom in spring; but in between they are hard at work for next time creating new life, multiplying and generating more beauty. Love builds up.

A piece I saw this week in a gay venue said that now is the time for LGBTQ+ people to celebrate ourselves. Our community created in God’s own image of love, is incredibly loving.

I posted a picture this week of my hellebore, which I planted 3 years ago and which only now, at last, has bloomed. The loving response from other queer gardeners has been not only overwhelming but profound in its love. Love builds up.

Let us bloom like the hellebores and the daffodils and tulips, let us show our love shining forth in the universe, and then let us use that love to multiply and regenerate and to sustain connection with each other, with God, with creation, into eternity.

Happy Lent.  

5 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Jeremiah 31:31-34;; Psalm 51:1-13 Miserere mei, Deus; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33)

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

Microhabitats of Love

Microhabitats can be fascinating. It is time for Japanese Camellias to bloom in Oregon. My neighbor’s, which is about 100 meters away from my study window, has been blooming for two weeks. Mine just started blooming this week; as I drive around I see some blooming, some just budding. What makes the difference?

Well, sometimes they’re called microhabitats, small spaces that have microclimates. I know, for example, that the roses and Japanese Maple east of my house are in a protected environment and the sun’s warmth is amplified there. But in my west garden under pretty serious tree canopy, the same plants are weeks behind. Fascinating.

But then, how is it we comprehend that, but we cannot comprehend that we live in a multidimensional universe, where some of us live in a universe of love? All at once.

God, who is love, which is the power of creation, which is the force of the universe, took human form in Jesus, to teach us how to move into and thrive in the dimension of love.

Abram, encounters God, and is transformed [Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16]. Encounter with God causes what theologians call an “ontological shift;” being itself changes. You might have experienced this–my own experiences of ontological shift include my marriage and my ordinations. Everything looks the same, but everything is different too. In the story, Abram’s body is changed from elderly to vibrant, his name is changed because his being is now suffused with love, his wife is also transformed, which further transforms his ontological reality. In the aftermath of the encounter Abraham receives from God a covenant of love fulfilled.

On the face of it, the story is about how God “changes” Abram and Sarai into Abraham and Sarah. But that misses the point. In reality—one might even say in truth—Abram and Sarai were walking in love where they encountered God as they moved into the eternal dimension of love.

The Psalmist rejoices with praise [Psalm 22:22-30]. Love, God, is open to every petition. Love, God, fulfills, fills, satisifies. Love, God, sustains the heart, the heart sustains love in synchrony, love builds up.

Paul’s own midrash on Abraham [Romans 4:13-25] is focused on the promise of the covenant of love eternal, which comes through the experience of faith, which is lived experience of love. It was Abraham and Sarah’s life of loving that drew them closer to the realization of their encounter with God. In other words, love builds up, love is attracted to love, love rests on grace which is love received, faith builds as love builds as lived experience. Love, walking in love, is living rightly. “Therefore … faith was reckoned … as righteousness.”

In Mark’s Gospel [8:31-38] Jesus has quite directly told the disciples the details of the journey toward crucifixion and resurrection on which he, Jesus, and they, have embarked. Peter rebukes Jesus for saying such things. Peter lets his feelings overwhelm him. Jesus calls out the absence of love; he says to get the absence of love behind him. Jesus makes the difficult proclamation “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” To cling to self, to things, to hunker down is to shut out love, which is to lose life itself. It is a tough lesson to learn that those who give up whatever love requires thereby enter the dimension of salvation in which love transforms everything.

LGBTQ+ people often live in microhabitats subject to microclimates. We live deeply into the love we share, which is the love that defines us, which is the love with which we are created in God’s own image. We cling fiercely to our security. We celebrate our love. We have been called to walk in the dimension of love, to be transformed by love, to be the visible evidence of the power of love. We are called to lead the building up of love that has the power to transform our microhabitats into the grace and power of the dimension of love. We are called to show how to receive from God a covenant of love fulfilled.

2 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30 Deus, Deus meus; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38)

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

Great is Grace, the Embodiment of Love

We had a mini-vacation this week. We just went up the river (LOL, we went up the Columbia Gorge) for a few days to escape. Curiously the heat dome followed us, so we were pretty much stuck inside. It was ok, the Gorge is beautiful at any time, truly one of earth’s natural wonders. There is no question why it was (and still is) for so many people for millenia, sacred territory. It is at once life-giving (water, sky, fish, trees, etc.) and a bit terrifying because of its immensity. It wasn’t always navigable and it is easy now to see why making it so was such a major feat of human engineering.

As vacation is meant to be, it was a time of grace, a time of respite, a time for healing.

Grace … that’s that thing that catches you from falling, that stops you from bad thoughts, that holds you up in difficult moments … that is grace. We receive grace constantly from the love we give; this is the relationship we have with God, who is love. When we love then we receive, it is as simple as that. If we want the grace to continue we must give thanks constantly, eternally.

Well, last week we saw Joseph stripped of his dream coat and sold into slavery. And I said to stay tuned. Because here we are in the next chapter (Genesis 45:1-15). Famine has ravaged the land and so, like so many refugees we see in constant movement today, Joseph’s brothers have gone to Egypt looking for food and work. And somehow or other they have been ushered into the court of who else but Joseph, who now is “Lord of [Pharoah’s] house and ruler over all the land of Egypt [45:8].” Joseph has become a leader of prominence because he has saved millions from famine. And now he promises his brothers, if only they will send his love to his father, that he will guarantee their future too.

Let us not miss the point that the reason Joseph was disliked by his brothers was not just because he was the “son of Jacob’s old age” but because he was one of us. Why else would they call him a “dreamer” and attack him and throw him in a pit and sell him to itinerant merchants? And now the dreamer has become the embodiment of love; he has saved the people from famine. And he says to his brothers “see, this was God’s plan all along” …

And that is grace.

in Romans 11 {1-2a] Paul establishes his credentials as descendant of Jacob’s brother Benjamin, and thus of Abraham. And in an oblique reference to the story of Jacob [11:29] “God has not rejected [God’s] people whom [God] foreknew.” And thus, like Jacob, who received grace and was enabled to dispense love to create enduring grace, we see that even for us God’s gifts are without question; God’s gifts are irrevocable; God’s gifts are eternal for all who can make the loving shift into the dimension of God’s love.

In Matthew’s Gospel [15:10-28] Jesus preaches—“Listen and understand”—that the dietary laws are not of God (“it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person”); rather, “it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” And what, then, comes out of the mouth that defiles? Hate, oppression, rejection, disconnection, caste, class, arrogance—“what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.” This is why grace requires personal vigilance, personal attention, personal action, in every moment, to cleanse your heart to keep it focused outwardly on love.

To make his case ever more clear Matthew tells us the story of Jesus going away into a “foreign” region where he is approached by a woman who is essentially an outcast. She prays for mercy, for healing for her daughter. And we see Jesus struggle with his own heart until her faith breaks through. Grace.

As Anglicans we cannot miss that this is one of the sources of the prayer of humble access, a  much beloved text of the English reformation:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

It was an amazing creation of the English reformation, that we might learn to pray not to trust in our own righteousness, but that, as Jesus demonstrated, we learn to trust instead in God’s mercy.

Great is your faith if you just believe in love. If you believe in love you walk in love. If you walk in love you will experience grace.

Proper 15 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 45: 1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28)

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

Pride, Prevailing Grace

We are in Pride month, we are on the eve of “Juneteenth” … is it a coincidence that celebrations of liberation coincide?

They are the evidence of grace, which is the work of God’s love in and among us. Grace always prevails.

The hard part is that “prevail” part … unfortunately, it means there often are struggles. Pride is about LGBTQ people saying we are proud of who we are and more importantly, we are ready to proclaim our creation as people created in God’s image. Juneteenth, well, it is a celebration of the end of the enslavement of people in the United States, but as we know, it was the end of the beginning … we could hardly say that black people have equality in the US today. Just as we could barely choke it out that some of us queers are sort of equal a little bit sometimes.

But look at what God asks of us—to “proclaim with boldness the truth” and to “minister justice with compassion” [collect for Proper 6].

God appeared to Abraham “as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day” [Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)]. Theophany at high noon while you’re sitting on the front stoop? Not only does Abraham not realize this is God, God does nothing but appear and the sit down in the shade of the tree.

God drops in and waits for hospitality. What a concept!

Abraham begs pardon of the visitors and throws open his home and his larder. The whole household rushes to make a meal–they bake cakes, they roast a calf, they even make cheese! and then they stand by while they partake of hospitality.

And then grace prevails. Then, God says that Abraham, who is 100 and his wife Sarah who also is 100 will have a baby. And they do!

I love this story. At first Sarah hides, then she laughs, then she sings with joy. Abraham did not recognize God, but did the right thing anyway. How much does that sound like real life? How much does that sound like a pride parade? Laughter, song, tears of joy, and grace … not to mention the heat of the day.

We are called to follow the examples of Abraham and Sarah, to be hospitable—to walk in love—and to “offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving” [Psalm 116:11, 10-17], to sing praises to God and to creation.

Paul [Romans 5:1-8] reminds us that it takes perseverance. That although grace prevails, it is not without the hard work of walking in love that we realize grace. Paul writes that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint” because we are after all made of love at the core.

Sounds like Pride to me again. I am (erm) “mature” enough to remember when it was a crime to be me, to remember when I dare not express my love in public, to have known the joy of both dancing queens and marriage equality. I am wise enough to know that this fight has been fought over and over and over and that we must not now give in to the voices that would oppress and suppress us. We must walk in love, offer hospitality even in the heat of the day, and sing praises to God. We must march with joy and pride. Most of all we must persevere.

And grace will prevail.

Jesus goes on a campaign from town to town and he sees that the need is immense so he ordains his disciples to act as well in his name, to heal, to cure, to bless [Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)]. He gives them quite specific instructions, which, as we can see, match the actions of Abraham in the unknown presence of God.

And here is the sum for today: it is in hospitality that we will find that God is in our presence. When we open our hearts to the possibility of love we can see that God is with us always and that grace has indeed prevailed.

And, finally, is Jesus’ perfect advice about those who will not receive God .. shake the dust off your feet and move on … and when you find a welcome sing praises and give thanks.

Proper 6 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7); Psalm 116:1, 10-17 Dilexi, quoniam; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23))

©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.

Spirit, Flesh, Grace

The Spirit is our very life force. It is that thing in the back of your consciousness that leads you to smile, or to get (erm) aroused. Paul writes again and again about the difference between Spirit and flesh; the difference is between that part of you that is biological and that part that is sentient, between that part of you that occurs without heart (flesh) and that which occurs only with love (Spirit).

LGBTQ people are particularly gifted because our sentience is biological. We are part of the biosphere, genetically created as we are to advance love.

In the church it is the First Sunday in Lent. We have the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2), and Paul’s midrash on it (Romans 5), and the story of Jesus led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4). The focus is on this distinction between Spirit, that which is holy because it sentient, and flesh. We are being reminded that it is by choice that we follow the Spirit.

This story of Eve and the tree and the opened eyes, well, it’s sort of like coming out isn’t it? When I was a boy I knew I loved boys, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to love boys, but I did, but I knew to keep it shut up inside me. Then one day, I ate the proverbial apple (erm) and my eyes were opened and … oh my!!

Grace is that gift of knowledge of love that comes from God. Like when I discovered that being bodily gay was in fact being led by the Spirit to discover my truth; that was grace. That was God calling me to be me. That was grace. In everything, that is grace.

Jesus was “led by the Spirit” to go into the wilderness … he was moved by his connection to creation. Because Jesus was God and was of God and was with God he could not have had any sin, he had only connectedness. And in every test Jesus sent disconnectedness away. He chose life. He chose power. He chose grace.

We are called In Lent to reflect on our place in God’s creation. We who are called to be God’s LGBTQ heirs are called to reflect on the grace of being who we have been created to be, because it is an essential part of the connectedness of everything.

First Sunday in Lent A 2023 RCL (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

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

Grace (and flying objects)

We pray, with our hearts and souls and minds, for all those who have experienced the earthquake and aftershocks in Turkey and Syria.

We wonder what the *#*$ is going on with “objects” that need to be shot down over North American airspace.

We marvel that this creation of God’s can deliver at once so much beauty alongside so much devastation. We pray, with our hearts and souls and minds, for everyone, everywhere.

We hope for grace.

Grace is that moment when, unprompted and yet in an instant moved by the Holy Spirit, you realize unity with God. Grace–those moments, those ultimate gifts of love unmitigated and yet just there—is always unexpected and yet joyfully welcomed. You see, we experience grace when we are fully open to the dimension of love.

Grace is unexpected because we fail to be aware of God with every breath, with every moment, in every heartbeat. We forget God. And then when we are troubled we ask God “why?” but the answer always is that God always is there for us, it is we who forget to be there for God. Because to be there for God means to be there for each other first. And so grace seems unexpected when we realize it because it always is there if only, if only we can reach out for it, by loving, with our hearts and souls and minds. And this is all that God asks of us, that we experience God’s love as a life-force, that we receive God’s love in equilibrium with how we give God’s love. As Moses said to God’s people “choose life” and the “land God swore to give” is ours, we already are there if only we can see it, in God’s dimension of love.

And then in those moments of unexpected grace we give thanks given as an utterance, as an ejaculation, the proverbial “OMG” moment–true gratitude when thanks is given with an “unfeigned heart” comes when we have arrived in the dimension of love.

Paul address the church at Corinth as “people of the flesh, as infants in Christ” because they have not yet found the open door into the dimension of love. They have had a glimpse in the fellowship, in the singing, in the joy. But yet, Paul needs to remind them that God has created them explicitly to be the field for planting, the building up of creation. We are the hope and future and past and foundation of God’s love which is creation. It is in us that God intends to manifest and realize the dimension of love.

Yes—in us. In we, who are God’s LGBTQ children, created in God’s own image, and imbued with God’s love, because we are the creatures in creation who are created specifically to be defined by the love we are created to share. We are the fertile ground, we are the concrete superstructure, we are the future and past and foundation of God’s love.

That warmth in your heart when you hug the one you love–that is the life power of the universe that God has given you.

Jesus wants us to give thanks freely “with an unfeigned heart” for which we must have a clean Spirit, and so in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells his listeners not to approach the dimension of love until they are free of anger and spite and any emotion of the “flesh” (as Paul would put it), until they are free to receive the love that is going to be the water and air and life stream of the dimension of love.

We approach Valentine’s Day, the annual celebration of love, in a world that is at war, reeling with famine, grieving lives lost in natural disaster, at fear of flying objects.

But one thing is certain—God’s grace, which is love.

6^th Sunday after the Epiphany Year A RCL 2023 (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37).

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

Expecting Grace

We are approaching the end of Lent, which, of course, means, we are approaching the Passion …

We usually walk through this in church in a kind of curious symmetry with the world around us. But, for the past few years we have walked the way of the Passion in real life. We have had to fear for our lives and to save our own lives, we have had to learn to fear contact with each other. We have had to forgo the love of those who love us the most for fear we might infect them and lose them. We have had to fear that we might lose them anyway.

And, now, as though it weren’t enough, we must fear the spread of war, because the war in Ukraine is clearly a war on the liberal world—by which I mean the world of reason.

We pray for grace, and we find grace, in simple things. Yesterday I took my car to the carwash, and there was a young man there who clearly was on his first day. He was doing a great job. I noticed the boss giving him instructions and moving him around from station to station, but really, he was doing a fine job, smiling and welcoming customers and working them through quickly. So, for me, there was grace in discovering a little bit of his story. I just hope, for him, there was grace in a job well done all day.

It is in the ways our hearts appreciate and absorb good feelings that we learn to walk in love.

It is so easy to lose synchrony in the middle of a complicated life. It is so easy to be distracted from grace. It is so easy to turn away from love. But it is always possible, even in the deepest depths, to return to love.

Today we read in Isaiah [43:19] God announcing: “I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Do we not perceive it? We err when we fail to understand that God offers us this change in every moment. We are called to joy, we are called to gladness, we are called to reap a harvest of joy. In fact. we are called [Philippians 3:14] to “press on” to joy, to press on “toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God.” Which, is love.

We are called, to expect grace, to be alert for every opportunity for a new thing. We are called to perceive the springing forth of grace in every part of life.

LGBTQ people live in what is called a “liberal” world. It is a world of reason, a world in which law promotes justice, the rights of individuals are guaranteed by law, righteousness inheres in the extension of the security of individuality, and all of it is powered by love, which is built up by more love, which is the source of grace.

We must be aware. We must perceive where grace reaches out to touch our lives. We must be alert to the operation of the passion in our everyday lives. We must not fear, even as we learn to cope. We must above all participate in the building up of the world of reason with the love God has given us.

5 Lent Year C RCL 2022: (Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126 In convertendo; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8)

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