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.

We Are What God Made Us

“For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” [Ephesians 2:10]

The greatest love story ever told is yours. Because you are what God has made you, prepared for love.

I know this because I know it is the truth of my life. The love my husband and I share saves us over and over and over and over. Love wins. But you have to let it.

And that, too, is the message of the Gospel. Love wins. If you let it.

There are a metaphors galore in this week’s scripture, it is the fourth Sunday in Lent after all, we should really be down there digging deep into our process of re-penting—rethinking and remembering the power of love.

In Numbers [21:4-9] the wanderers are angry and weary. In their weariness they turn inward and stop loving disconnecting themselves from each other and thus from God. Absent God’s love they become vulnerable. But they repent and reconnect and the love shared with God saves them.

In Psalm 107 [:1-3, 17-22] the Psalmist sings the story of the angry wanderers losing sight of their faith.

In the letter to the church at Ephesus [Ephesians 2:1-10] Paul gives a midrash on the same story, pointing out the punch line that salvation is by grace through faith … translation: love wins, but you have to let it.

In John’s Gospel [3:14-21} Jesus preaches about the true meaning of his impending Crucifixion and Resurrection. The point is, again, that love wins, but you have to get out of the way and let it.

Those who believe in the Son of Man, therefore believe in the power of walking in love, and therefore remain connected. Those who love life come to the light. Their salvation is now “realized” when they let it be within them.

What does that say to LGBTQ+ people?

Paul says “We are what [God] has made us.”

Jesus says “those who do what is true come to the light.”

Paul concludes “salvation is by grace through faith.”

4 Lent Year B RCL 2024 (Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21) ©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Synergy of Love

Body-mind connection, another kind of “syn”ergy, is critical in creation. We have certain biological imperatives, but our evolution, which is God-given, has brought us to a place where mature life (I mean grown-up, not “old”) is meant to be a perfect synergy of mind and body. Sometimes theologians refer to this as “spirit” and “flesh,” to achieve the right balance is the key. In fact, this synergy is presented all through scripture as variously dichotomy, challenge, and gift.

It is a gift, that our minds control our bodies and our bodies control our minds.

To live in connection, without “sin,” means that we must manage the balance constantly. Yet, we must have faith that it is managed, and not expend spiritual energy on “control,” because that disrupts the synergy.

See, I’ve been telling you, it’s complicated. I know I’ve written more than once here that there was a day in seminary, not too far into the first term, when I sat straight up in my little desk and said to myself “there is just no way to explain this ever.”

Still, I was ordained and sent out to keep trying. So, still I try. Because God’s kingdom requires us to grasp the truth about this simple but complex balance.

In today’s scripture you will encounter the “Ten Commandments” [Exodus 20:1-17]. They are given at a critical time in the story of how God was revealed to God’s people. They are moral rules, they are all in some way the same rule over and over, which is, to love your neighbor as yourself, which is, to love your own self, and then to extend your love outward. Always.

Psalm 19 [7-14] says God’s law is perfect and revives the soul and rejoices the heart, our love of God, indeed the love God has given us, endures forever. Indeed, God’s love for us is true, more desired than gold, sweeter than honey in the comb. We pray to be kept from secret faults, from presumptuous disconnection, from the outcome of letting the synergy of body and mind, of flesh and spirit, get out of balance, even in our innermost thoughts.

In 1 Corinthians [1:18-25] Paul reminds us that we, indeed, are those who are the called. God has created us, specifically to call us, to show humanity how to live a life of love.

The inexorable march of Lent moves us ever closer to the truths of what theologians call “the Christ event”—the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. John’s Goespel [2:13-22] is one of the accounts of Jesus storming the temple in Jerusalem. We read the story as though it is an act of anger, vengeance, retribution. But, if we look deeper we see that Jesus took dramatic action which no doubt was unwelcome by those in the temple precinct.

But, did he ravage and kill?

No.

He drove out the cattle and sheep and released the doves. Do you know why the cattle and sheep and doves were there? To be sacrificed; the sellers were there to make money providing the animals for sacrifice.

Jesus saved the lives of the animals and ended the financial exploitation of the people. He brought love back into a space where love had long since ceased to prevail.

And that is the essential story of Christ, that Jesus of Nazareth, who is anointed the Messiah, the Christ, brought love into the foreground in space where love had receded in the face of habit and custom and the imbalance of body over mind, of flesh over spirit. Jesus reminded people of the joy of walking in love. Jesus loved so we too, might learn to love.

God creates us to live in synergy and calls us in that very act of creation, in God’s own image, to live fully into our LGBTQ+ lives, as Paul reminds us, as Jesus shows us, to be witnesses of the synergy of love.

3 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 Caeli enarrant; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22)

©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.

Alive in the Covenant of God’s Love

The Great Litany [Book of Common Prayer 148] begins:

O God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth,
Have mercy upon us.
O God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
Have mercy upon us.
O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faithful,
Have mercy upon us.
O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God,
Have mercy upon us.

Remember not, Lord Christ, our offenses, nor the offenses of our forefathers; neither reward us according to our sins.
Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and by thy mercy preserve us, for ever.
Spare us, good Lord.

And, the collect for the First Sunday in Lent asks God to “Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations” [Book of Common Prayer 218].

Remember that old phrase “the quick and the dead”? Did you know the word “quick” doesn’t mean “hurry up”? It means, “alive” (OED: “living, endowed with life, animate). So, then, for what do we pray when we pray for God to “come quickly” to help us? We pray for God to continue to fulfill the lives God created for us to live. We are asking God to stand by us, to be our fortress in every storm. Because we know in our souls that we are created in God’s image, and that we are endowed with God’s love, and that all we need is to be “quick”—to be alive.

In the story of Noah’s ark and the rainbow covenant [Genesis 9:8-17], we see a reflection of our creation in God’s image as the story presents an almost human-like God interacting with Noah and with the creatures of all creation. God announces God’s covenant four times, over and over. But, that doesn’t distract from the promise God made, to set a bow in the clouds, that would be forever a reminder that all of creation is united in love.

This week we saw evidence of that: “Greece Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage in a First for an Orthodox Christian Country” (CNN, Elinda Labropoulu, Feb. 15. 2024).

Greece is alive, LGBTQ+ people in Greece are “quick,” the rainbow—the sign of God’s covenant—blesses creation.

Psalm 25[3-9] has us sing the truth that love is love, God is love, we who are created in God’s image, are love. Compassion, everlasting, faithfulness, all have to do with love. And this love is love in action, the love that creates, the love that saves, the love that rescues, the love that sustains.

Peter explains [1 Peter 3:18-22] that indeed, “God waited patiently in the days of Noah.” God gave us baptism, a washing clean from sin, in clear running water of the Holy Spirit, as a sign of the covenant God made with Noah’s people and the creatures of the ark, that forever more God would sustain creation. Jesus, God incarnate, had to be baptized to show us how to remain forever humble in creation.

Mark’s Gospel [1:9-13] continues, or if you prefer, begins, the narrative of God’s saving action in creation through the ministry of Jesus, which begins with his baptism by John in the Jordan river. God’s Spirit in one fell swoop announces Jesus’ divinity and then drives him out into “the wilderness” of temptation.

Of course, temptation is all around us. We tend to read this story and try to imagine what might have tempted Jesus (and in other Gospel narratives examples are supplied) but the primary temptation in creation is the urge to avoid love. We are tempted not to walk in love, because it is easier to go with the flow, it is easier to think only of our own interior needs and not to blind ourselves to the beauty of the “quick,” the alive, the glory, the evidence of God’s covenant visible when we walk in love.

The story also tells us that while Jesus was in the wilderness “the angels waited on him” and indeed, angels do wait upon us, even in our own self-imposed wilderness.

In Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock and Roll [PBS American Masters 6/2/2023] we meet one of the angels that accompanied Little Richard—Sir Lady Java, a trans activist, singer, and angel who befriended Little Richard for decades. Sir Lady Java’s insightfully holy comment in is: “Being yourself is the hardest thing to be.” All of us who are God’s LGBTQ+ children know this all too well. Indeed, we know the temptation all to well. But I bet we know who our angels are, too.

Jesus returns from his time in the wilderness “quick” alive “proclaiming the good news” and “saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”

All we have to do to see it is to walk in love into the dimension where we all are alive in the covenant of God’s love.

First Sunday in Lent Year B 20242 RCL (Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9 Ad te, Domine, levavi; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15)

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

LGBTQ Army of the Cross of Christ

We have reached the Sunday of the Passion. Which is to say, the Sunday that ends Lent (well sort of, still no meat until after Good Friday!) and begins Holy Week. Where are we today, on the Sunday of the Passion?

I am in love with my husband, and in love with my life, and in love with our home.

My Oregon elderberry plants, which somehow made it through the winter, are now almost 3” tall. I think that’s a miracle. I can’t wait for ten years from now when they will have those lovely red berries all winter.

Darcelle XV, the famous Portland drag queen, passed last week. It was momentous for Portlandia, to whom she was really a folk idol; to the LGBTQ community she was a hero. Curiously,all Portland was celebrating her rich life just as our homophobic siblings in red states were trying to outlaw drag.

The tulip festival, which is a magnificent display of tulips in the shadows of Mounts Hood, St. Helens and Jefferson, is delayed (like my garden, where I have a few crocus and a single daffodil blooming, but I can see buds forming elsewhere) because it has been so cold and yipes!, it keeps snowing (albeit, it doesn’t stick here on the floor of the Willamette Valley; no telling what it’s like at the tulip farm, which is at a higher elevation).

Still, Easter is knocking at our doorstep. We have reached the Sunday of the Passion via a riotous journey. We have come through war, climate change, train derailments, eternal politics, attacks on trans people and drag queens, inflation … a pandemic even.

One might say we have come mercifully to the Sunday of the Passion.

When Jesus reached the outskirts of Jerusalem [Matthew 22:1-11] he sent his disciples to find a donkey he could ride into the city. They not only found him a donkey, they lined the streets with their cloaks and those of the crowd that gathered to honor Him.

The Psalmist [118:19-22, 28-29] gave thanks for the gates of righteousness, which always are open, for the opportunity to give thanks to God who always answers, for the opportunity to be the cornerstone of faith.

Like the followers of Isaiah [50:4-9a], we have heard the call of God: “Let us stand up together.” We, the queers of the world, must stand up to the fearful who would see us “erased.” We are not alone, most of God’s other children love us and support us. We need only stand up to be counted, to be victorious, to walk in the way of love and share in resurrection.

And we must share in the meal Jesus gave us to eat 2000 years ago [Matthew 26:26-27], and which we, like gazillions of God’s children, partake of daily ever since … give thanks, take, eat, give thanks, take, drink. This is God’s covenant with us, eternity is now.

And then have a look at the end of this story: who is gathered there at the foot of the cross [Matthew 26:54-57]? The centurion, terrified, many women,weeping, and a rich man from outland. Outcasts all, standing up together. These, like us, are the army of the cross of Christ.

We, indeed, are the LGBTQ army of the cross of Christ.

Palm Sunday (Sunday of the Passion) Year A RCL 2023: Liturgy of the Palms (Matthew 21:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29); The Liturgy of the Word (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14- 27:66)

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

Nobody can Erase Love

What an amazing Lenten roller coaster we seem to have leapt onto all of a sudden. No need to urge us to introspection, we have plenty of reason coming from our friends on the—erm, “right?” From pandemic to insurrection to persecution of trans folks to homophobia masking as some sort of parental wisdom to making “don’t say gay” permanent for all ages. It seems if we let them, our phobic “siblings”—and don’t be misled for a moment, this all stems from internalized fear of self—want to erase LGBTQ, just one swipe and “all gone.”

Well, sorry, no. We cannot be erased. We are not punching bags or whipping [persons] or chose your own metaphor, but not even Lent can bring us to sit back and wait for our own erasure. We are God’s LGBTQ children, created in God’s own LGBTQ image, called by God to be visibly LGBTQ in the world to show the world the power of love as it is manifest in our diverse identities. We cannot be erased. Pick somebody else to bully. God is on our side.

God has a compact with us. It goes something like this [Ezekiel 37:14]: we are the operative characters in this reality drama, so we have been given everything ew need, and there are no ifs-ands-or-buts the truth is the truth. We only can fail if we fail to remain connected to each other, which is how we remain connected to God, who has given us everything we need.

Yes, it’s a circle; let the circle be always unbroken. God’s own spirit is within us, we who are God’s LGBTQ children, and God has called us to live fully into the lives God has created for us so that we might be a witness to the power of God’s love.

Psalm 130 verse 2 says if God noted what was done amiss who could stand?” and verse 5 is a chorus about how our souls wait for God more than “watchmen for the morning.” We wait for God … well, yes, but not really because God is already here with us. It is our own selves we wait for, we wait for our own selves to shift into God’s dimension of love, to get firmly on God’s loving frequency. And once we do, nothing can stop the power of God’s love within us.

Ostracism, mysogeny, racism … they all are part of the same set of “fears” that try to outlaw us because of who we are and how we love. They are the hallmarks of what has been done, what is being done “amiss.” Who then can stand?

It seems some folks are trying to outlaw us; to erase us.

Because God dwells in every one of us, love dwells in every one of us [Romans 8:11], in every moment. Embrace God’s spirit within us, embrace LGBTQ love.

The story about Lazarus [John 11: 1-45] is very beautiful. It has been a huge part of my formation as a priest. It is about the very human Jesus weeping … why? Because his beloved Lazarus has died. But more … because they didn’t call him in time, because Lazarus didn’t need to die but they didn’t pay attention in time, because now that they have called him they still don’t quite get it.

The story has the kernels of the reality of God. God always listens. We need forever to be giving thanks because that opens the channel. It is the absence of love that bound Lazarus. Jesus prayed: “Lazarus, come out” and then, “unbind him, and let him go.”

How many of us know that trope? How many of us have had to face being unbound and let go. I still remember the joy of that moment when I finally “let go” of the things that bound me. I still celebrate that joy. I still revel in that joy. That love has sustained me ever since I was unbound and found the pathway into God’s dimension of love.

Nobody can erase love. Nobody can erase the love that dwells within us, which is the spirit God gave us, in the land God has created as ours.

5 Lent Year A 2023 RCL (Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45)

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

We Receive as We Give

Yesterday was my birthday … what a concept! Once upon a time I thought of them as sort of checkmarks on a list; but then I (briefly) had a boyfriend who thought his birthday was a national holiday so I learned to think of it that way a little bit, but then again as I grew more “mature” I just learned to think of them as hallmarks of respect for a life well-lived; then … well, LOL that many decades would take awhile to narrate … these days they are more like accomplishments as in “oh! I made it, again!.”

And there you have it, joy, and love of life, which is love, is the true bread that gives life to the world. We receive as we give.

I love the story in 1 Samuel [16:1-13] about the anointing of David; really it is about God seeking David among his brothers. Of course, he is the least among them so far as they are concerned, but as a gay man through and through I can’t get past the part about God looked for the one who was “ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome.” See! What makes you think God hasn’t got gay bones? What makes you doubt that God has created you and me in God’s own image? The truth is more nuanced, of course, and that is that God is all always and that in the scripture each of us can find a recognizable reflection of our own reality. The trick is that the majority community of oppressors has suppressed those passages that reveal the LGBTQ place in creation. (In fact, more radical reading can reveal more of this reality, but even I am sometimes intimidated into suppressing what my eyes see and my reality reveals as God’s gift.)

Goodness and mercy … joy … love … dwell in God’s love for ever [Psalm23]. And whether we count as “ruddy and handsome and with beautiful eyes” we all are God’s LGBTQ children of light [Ephesians 5:9], because what is in our hearts is what God gave us, all that is good and right and true.

We are graced with this very long story from John’s Gospel [9:1-41] about the blind man given sight by Jesus. I think the point for us to take is that the verbs are instructive action verbs: Jesus says “go,” and telling the story, the man says “I went” and “washed” and “received.”  It reminds us that love is not passive. It reminds us that there always is forward action in God’s love. It reminds us that we always have a part to play, God’s love is not passive, no love is passive, love is to be had, held, and given in whole. To be healed, to be constantly renewed and made whole, like the man in the story, we have to “go” and “do” to “receive.”

The love we share is the love we receive. The love we receive is the love we are called to give in return.

4 Lent Year A 2023 RCL (1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23 Dominus regit me; Ephesians 5: 8-14; John 9:1-41)

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

Of Beans and Drag Queens: Massah and Meribah Indeed

Ahhh, Lent …. Well, year after year I wonder what am I supposed to say. Maybe something like “eat beans and choke on them? Give up sex and chocolate for Jesus?” (Btw, I’m a lifelong vegetarian, I love beans.)

Well, no. That’s not what Lent is about.

For one thing, it isn’t a season of punishment, it is a season of penitence, which means “thinking about things.”

And then there is the part about giving something up, which is by no means a requirement of Christianity despite what anybody tells you. It is a custom born of attempts to simplify the explanation of the Christ event (including, on this point, the 40 days in the wilderness). But, these days I am sick and tired of people “simplifying” for me. Which is short-hand for saying I am sick and tired of being talked down to just because I’m over 30 (way over as it turns out but hey!). But, I digress, the point of “giving something up” isn’t to give something up, but rather to create a daily, recurrent remembrance that you are walking symbolically, metaphorically, and in reality in your own life, with Christ through the 40 days in the wilderness. There are a zillion ways to do that without giving up anything essential. And, you shouldn’t give up something that’s bad for you, because, hey, you should give that up anyway, doing it now has nothing to do with walking with Christ.

It has been a difficult week for LGBTQ people in the US. Drag queens are being vilified by fearful people. This is a pretty old story too. And we have to keep standing up to them. Over and over and over, because someone has to teach them that God loves people loving people. Just look at all of our same-sex marriages, strong and loving, nourishing and nurturing, like bedrock. My own a lifetime of love realized in every moment.

What does that tell us about love? That it isn’t easy, that it takes perspicacity, that it takes walking the walk, that it takes time, and patience, and swallowing your pride because your love is more important. And these are the lessons Jesus is constantly trying to teach to his disciples. These are the lessons we must grasp to walk in love, to walk with Christ, in love.

Massah and Meribah (“ordeal” and “contention”) are what Moses calls the place where the folks keep testing God by constantly complaining [Exodus 17:1-7]–fearful people stirring up the absence of love. Complaining is easy enough to do, and it feels good. But it is destructive. Simple enough: choose love, not fear or spite, and you will receive love in return.

God’s love is already within us, we were born with it as a seed in our hearts; when we first look at our birthgiver and cry we are expressing that love [Romans 5:1-11]. And this is the love that we grow up with, live with, learn to extend to God’s creatures who come across our path. And this is our justification, by faith, our peace, our grace, our glory.

Glory is in the heart, in the soul, in the darkness of the lonely nights, in the times when we choose hope instead of fear, in the moments when we choose to reach out with a smile even when it hurts. Glory is ours, because we are God’s [John 4:5-42].

AND NOW MY FRIENDS IT IS TIME ONCE AGAIN for us to stand up for ourselves. We cannot let homophobia or fearful people end the freedom that we have worked for decades to bring to our trans siblings, we cannot let anger and fear of self end the liberty and love God has called us to bring to the world through our own self-expression. We cannot let backward fear turn our LGBTQ lives into a new Massah and Meribah, ordeal and contention. We cannot test God in this way.

What could be more innocent than Drag story hour? And why should we be vilified for refining an art form and showing children how to love?

So, give love. Smile; really, in your heart.

And with that smile on your lips and in your heart fight back any way you can.

Now Is The Time. What else could God ask of us in Lent?.

1 Come, let us sing to the LORD; * let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving * and raise a loud shout to him with psalms. [Psalm 95]

3 Lent Year A 2023 RCL (Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95 Venite, exultemus; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42)

©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.