Welcome, Pride

Happy Pride. Again.

Try to be happy, try to have pride. I know it is kind of tough these days to hang onto good feelings as we see daily that we are becoming again a persecuted minority.

But let’s hang onto the fact that it is sweet to be LGBTQ. God created us deliberately and with purpose as God’s LGBTQ people in God’s own image … never forget that, and never stop being proud of the LGBTQ person God created you to be. And remember you are called by God to be who you are!

This week there were a number of uh-oh moments for us … a seminarian at Nashotah House (https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2023/06/30/document-reveals-nashotah-house-rescinded-seminarians-acceptance-because-he-was-gay-married/ ) an actual accredited seminary for candidates to ordination in the Episcopal Church,! was turned out for being a “married” gay man. The reason was “traditional [sic] Christian beliefs.” This means, they think being “gay” and “married” means you are having lots of hot sex. It also means they are really wrong about Christianity and homosexuality. And then there is the woman who claims she is a Christian and so cannot make a wedding website for a gay couple, although as it turns out, it was a straight man who didn’t actually ask her to do anything, who she cited in her lawsuit (https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/colorado-web-designer-court-filings/index.html ). This person seems very confused about many things, but it is clear that her “Christian beliefs” also are not correct.

Back decades ago when I was ordained, and when I began writing a column for the Philadelphia Gay News which morphed into this blog, I tried to lay out the facts (check this out if you want: https://rpsplus.wordpress.com/2009/10/ ). Here, to bolster us, is a reminder that in the Old Testament, which we as Christians read because it is the revelation of God’s acts in the world, the two most revealing and profound love stories are those between David and Jonathan, and Ruth and Orpah. And, as we see in today’s scripture, the New Testament, which is the scripture of Christianity, reminds us that “the law” has passed away and that we are saved from sin by grace.

Okay, that’s an outline, but you know what? This is not news to theologians. Every theologian for centuries has known this. The only reason some so-called “Christian churches” keep this up is for the same reason they insist (again incorrectly) that women can’t be leaders. It is to preserve the hegemony of white heterosexual males.

Yes, God tests us and yet God also provides [Genesis 22:1-14]. If you are in a loving relationship then you know that this is true. End of story.

Pride is not just about feeling good, it is about giving thanks for the lives we have been given. It is about rejoicing in life. It is about singing with joy in thanksgiving [Psalm 13].

Ok , here we go with the Christian truth [Romans 6:12-23]: Remember: “sin” isn’t about eating chocolate or even having hot sex; sin is about disconnection. If you disconnect yourself from the love of others you have allowed the absence of love to prevail in your life; if you disconnect yourself from the love of others you also disconnect yourself from the love of God. It is a circle of love. You are called to engage it. Don’t let go of it, don’t break the circle of love, that is the only sin, and that is the sin that God became human in Jesus to free us from.

And here [Matthew 10:40-42] is the absolute truth: “welcome” is the whole Gospel. “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

Be proud of who you are.

Be proud of the love you share.

Be attentive to the ways in which you allow yourself to be disconnected or to break the circle of love.

Sing praises for the proud loving life you have been given.

And welcome everyone.

Proper 8 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 22:1-14; Psalm 13 Usquequo, Domine?; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10: 40-42)

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

Exponential Love

There is a lot of talk lately about the mental health effects of the pandemic. I keep encountering the idea that the isolation is somehow underneath everything from road rage to political divisiveness. It is certainly the case that we miss our friends, and especially all the hugs we used to rely on. It also is true that just the absence of simple proximity—everything from chatting with the guy with whom you’re sharing picking potatoes from a bin to actual office (staff, faculty, whatever) meetings, to large otherwise seemingly impersonal gatherings like sports, concerts or movies—is underlying our increasing failure to understand that despite our differences we all are in the world together.

I think there is a good case to be made here. And I think it is one way of redefining the notion of sin. Sin is disconnectedness—being disconnected from God, which is what happens when we are disconnected from each other, and vice versa because when we are disconnected from each other we are essentially disconnected from God. I often have preached about sin by saying it has nothing to do per se with eating chocolate or physical intimacy or any of the other lists of things that are supposedly sinful. No particular thing in and of itself is sinful unless in takes place in the context of disconnection. And that disconnection is always the manifestation of the absence of love. As usual, love is the answer.

So we ask this week that we might be set free from disconnection. In fact, we pray that we might receive relief. The one thing we need the most is relief from the fear and anxiety caused by the pandemic. But a close second is that we need relief from the isolation and disconnectedness that are the collateral damage from the pandemic. Where might we get relief? I was pleasantly surprised this past week to discover relief coming at me from several directions. The one thing they all had in common was that I thanked someone who gave me good news. The relief, the connection, came when I gave thanks. Because giving thanks is manifesting love.

Isaiah 40: 26 reminds us that our connection with God is eternal “He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name … not one is missing.” It is a comfort, perhaps a relief, to remember (to try to remember) that God is eternally connected to each of us by the love that knows every atom in creation. It is up to us to keep that connection not only alive but to help it flourish by the constant flow of love among us.

Paul reminds us too (1 Corinthians 9:23) that the Gospel of Christ, the good news of salvation is all about love, love as a flowing stream, love as a two-way street, love as the greatest equalizing reward. We give each other love in order that we might build up greater love in which we all might share. We love so that we all might share in the blessing of loving.

In Mark’s Gospel (1:29-39) Jesus heals first Simon’s mother-in-law, then everyone from the city who was sick or possessed with demons and then went on to neighboring towns to proclaim the message there. It is an example of the building up of love exponentially by the manifestation of loving. Healing, especially in the Jesus narrative is not just about the absence of symptoms. Rather, it is about being able to rejoin the community, to once again become one with the community. What Jesus does is to remove the vacuum caused by the absence of love so that loving connectedness might be restored. And it is in this act that we see the recognition of God, who knows every atom in creation by name, who calls us eternally to restore and refresh and nourish the exponential power of love.

We in the LGBTQ community know this truth all too well. The simple reality of our social stance is that we are “diverse” or “different” from everyone else—a unique form of social isolation. The pandemic has contributed not only to the further deepening of chasms separating people but also to the loss of our own LGBTQ sense of community. Our “watering holes,” that in reality for decades or more have really been social centers, have disappeared along with parades and street fairs and even hot dogs on the beach. Yet it is we, those who are identified by the love we create and experience and share, it is we who are uniquely qualified to call creation back into the flow of love.

We are called, even in this time of pandemic isolation to continually reconnect, to remember that simply by thanking each other we manifest love. We are called to remember that it is up to everyone who is known intimately, everyone who is numbered and called by name by God, to manifest the blessings of exponential love.

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Year B 2021 RCL (Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39)

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

Joy

We’ve been working like proverbial maniacs on our home. We are doing the kinds of little things that make you crazy until they’re done, but on the other hand, are too small to hire anybody to help with. We did just have a friend visit for a week, and he worked pretty hard inside and outside, to get roses planted, weeds cleared, shrubs pruned etc., etc., before the traditional rain started. We just made it, the rain started yesterday. If I remember correctly from college days, it will now rain more or less constantly until April. Or May even. That’s why, of course, the Portland area is so lusciously green.

Inside we were doing a combination of adapting our new house into our home and fixing things the movers broke. We were pretty exhausted. The other day it was hot and sunny so we ran outside to spray paint some metal furniture and both overdid it. I woke up in the night with warm feet, and when I got up I could see my feet were striped (!) from the sun on my sandals.

We even worked late nights several days in a row to rebuild the benchwork for one of my train layouts (the O-gauge toy train layout … the HO-gauge model train layout will have to wait for now).

And then our friend’s visit was over and I drove him to the airport. As we left the house the morning grey began to lift, and after I dropped him off I had a stunning drive back through the trees as the sun intensified. Combined with the magical music on the radio I was brought nearly to tears with the joy not only of being back in a place that I love, but also with the radiance of creation that is so close in this environment. In the house I could see that we had restored a sense of “home,” so important for anybody but very near for folks who have just moved. For both the joy of my sense of the beauty of this environment and the comfort of home I gave thanks, in prayer, out loud even …. To top it all off, my new license plates came in the mail; as one friend put it, now we’re really citizens of Oregon!

We forget how important it is to experience joy. So often we are so busy being busy that we forget to think about simple things, the old “forest for the trees” metaphor. We work and work and work and drive and drive and drive and make lists and make new lists and plan and plan and … whew! we forget to look up at the skyline and give thanks for being, and for being here. We forget that love is that feeling of joy in our souls we experience when we walk into a place that feels like home. When we forget to experience joy we cut ourselves off from love. And when we are cut off from love we are cut off from God.

This is the very essence of “sin”—cutting ourselves off from God. Often we do it by cutting ourselves off from each other. Just as often we simply cut ourselves off altogether.

In 1 Timothy Paul writes that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” But he goes on to say that Christ “might display the utmost patience.” It’s a good thing! But what it means is that God became incarnate in Christ to remind us to pay attention—to pay attention to our inner selves, to pay attention to our place in creation, to pay attention to each other. In these ways we restore our connection to God. Christ’s patience, God’s patience, is visible in those stunning moments when we realize we are right with creation and we give thanks.

Is there a message for lgbt people here? Of course, it is the message of my last few posts—that belonging is nurturing, that being free of the strain of defensive living opens gates of joy, that living fully into our role as created lgbt beings is as close as we can get to unity with God. It is in this perfect unity that love and life can flourish. It is this reunion, this return, this reconnection that Jesus means when says in Luke 15:10 “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.”

 

Proper 19 (Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28); Psalm 14 Dixit insipiens; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

©2019 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Necklace? No, the cross of Christ*

I have been having lots of interesting intersections with the healthcare people in Wisconsin. This isn’t going to be a complaint, they’re great and they do a wonderful job. But, I just wanted to tell you that for something like nearly four decades I have worn a crucifix around my neck. Actually, in Philadelphia, if you are Italian (as I am), it is required by social convention.

Whenever I had to get an X-ray or such in Philadelphia, the technician would gingerly say “lets move your crucifix out of the way” and move it to one side or the other. But here, they always say, “oh what a pretty necklace, you’ll have to take off your necklace.”

Boy do I feel put down as  a sissy boy when they say that.

Also, boy, do I feel put down as a Christian, and a priest, when they say that, although I also wonder what is so culturally different that it might lead to such a divergence of response and reaction.

Matthew’s  Gospel reading this week begins: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” I think that’s enough. The rest is just midrash. And the examples in the story in Matthew do not speak to 21^st century sin in a direct way. We cannot imagine how wanting some bread is a sin. But, of course, that is not what the text intends. It intends to tell us that, people who lust, judge. Is the bread God has given you not good enough? That is a judgment on your part. If so, you have made yourself into a little god. And that is sin.

It is both thrilling and frightening to watch the spread of the marriage equality movement in the US, of course, almost two decades after it began the Netherlands and Canada. I hope the U.S. finds the right path, meaning, I hope we win this civil rights battle. And I wish ardently that gay people would understand that the sins here are two: first that the heterosexism leads to a facade of normativity. The second is that we fail to understand the cultural divergence of this dynamic, not entirely like my experience with my crucifix. God asks us to love one another. God means, we should understand when our neighbors have got it wrong. Here is our own potential for sin, if we judge instead of understand.

Jesus died, and rose again, so you and I could see that this is the pattern of life, and that in the end God is always with us, and we already always are saved, meaning we always will be in the eternity with God. Nothing matters in this equation except faith. You know, faith is not such a mystery, it is just a matter of learning the keys to open the door to the proper dimension.

Have a Holy Lent my friends. Pray, for the equality of all humankind.

1  Lent (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

©2104 The Rev. Dr. RIchard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Reconnected*

Life’s storms swirl around us. Last Sunday was peaceful and sunny and cool in Milwaukee—LGBT Pride was kissed by the sun and blessed by God. The week saw torrential rains more than once, and those caused lots of delayed travel, and that caused lots of gnashing of teeth. Drama. Life is full of drama even in the best of times.

Lots of drama this week in the scripture. In Luke 7:50 Jesus says to the woman (identified as “a woman in the city, who was a sinner”) who has been bathing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair: “50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Jesus uses words like these at the end of most of his healing events. It points out the action inherent in healing, which is to bring peace into a chaotic void. Like a metaphorical thunderstorm, the things in life that keep us back hound us with battering winds and driving rain and distract us with noise and lightening and frighten us with seemingly unrestrainable power—how ever will I survive this?—we ask ourselves in the midst of it. And then, when it has passed, there is peace, stillness, and in that stillness is the knowledge of the presence of God and the certainty that we are not just in the presence of God but that we are indeed together with God. Jesus’ words also literally point the hearer (in this case, the woman, the Pharisees, and us) in a new direction, in the “way” of peace. The phrase “go in peace” is an instruction, but also literal direction for new life. She is literally reconnected with God; now she is instructed to turn in the direction of connectedness.

Ah, then there’s that word: sin. We are first told that the woman is a sinner, and then we hear Jesus announce that her sins are forgiven. We have to remember always that sin is separateness from God. Jesus is not telling the woman that he has forgotten her past. He is announcing her present, togetherness with Him, in which there cannot be separateness from God because Jesus is God. The Pharisees in the story act surprised, in fact they are playing their part as bigots well! They continue to look down on the woman, and, indeed, on Jesus, not grasping that God is in their midst. And so that is the contrast. The woman is without sin because she is with Jesus. The Pharisees remain mired in sin because their bigotry prevents seeing that God is right there with them. The difference between sin and togetherness with God is ours to create, ours to perceive. Apart from God we find ourselves tossed and turned in the maelstroms of life and together with God we go in peace. The difference is ours because it is only we who can separate ourselves from God.

We separate ourselves from God whenever we seek to make ourselves Godlike by making our priorities most important. In the Old Testament lesson Ahab who has not just the presence of God but the favor of God to be a king to God’s people—Ahab falls into the vortex of selfishness and rearranges lives to suit his own will, actually taking the life of Naboth so that he, Ahab, can have Naboth’s fine vineyard. What is the sin here? The sin here is putting God aside with the action of playing God. We do the same whenever we seek advantage over another of God’s creatures.

In Galatians Paul writes that “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” He means that he has put aside his tendency to sin, to separateness, and is now at one with God because Christ, who is God, lives in him. He has been crucified with Christ because the action of dying to sin is wrenching. It might mean putting aside treasured desires, it might mean yielding pride and what used to be called vainglory in order to weather the storm and come back to center, to that place where your faith has saved you and you now can go in peace.

For GLBT people it sometimes seems like all of life is one long storm, one long and lonely maelstrom. The false prophets cause the whole world to swirl with our condemnation. But it is they who have no faith, who have separated themselves from God, and obviously, it is they who have no peace. If we stand firm in the knowledge of God’s love for us, and in the certainty of God’s love in creating us just as we are in order to love just as we do, the it is we whose faith saves us. It is we who are connected, and eternally reconnected as children of God.

Go in peace.

*Proper 6 (1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a; Psalm 5:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3)

©2013 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

God, intimacy, sin*

I often tell people who take the time to talk with me that I sometimes despair of ever being able to explain the Gospel.

I see what the larger church has done—they have made it so simple an idiot can process it, but, of course, in so doing they also have taken away any humanity in the process. There is no list of sins. Some churches have lists, because it helps them oppress people. But God has no such list. Sex, chocolate—when used to create joy, are not inherently sinful. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise—they’re wrong.

So here we have the prophet Jeremiah, speaking to a people who have broken every law, and furthermore suffered the consequences. And through his voice God says “they shall all know me.” Do you get what that means? To “know” someone is to share intimacy. So God is saying, all of God’s people, who are truly faithful, will share intimacy with God. And then God says “I will remember their sin no more”—do you remember that sin means being disconnected from God? If one shares intimacy with God, then one cannot by definition, know sin.

Here is God saying that God is with us in every breath, every intimate moment—yes, go ahead and let your mind fill in that blank—and therefore, because we are one with God, we cannot be disconnected from God.

But, of course, the choice is ours. We can choose to share closeness with God, or we can turn our backs.

We who are gay know the intimacy of our God. After all, we are made gay in God’s image so that we can spread joy through all of humanity. Our job, is to embrace the intimacy God has given us with each other, so that in so doing we enhance the intimacy of all humanity with God. Just as God, through Jeremiah, told us to do.

5 Lent (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Foolish wisdom*

There is (for me) always a sort of tension between the enormity of God’s love and the enormity of humankind’s inability to cope with God’s love. This, of course, is the very definition of “sin,” which means being apart from God. Many faith traditions, assuming people are not bright enough to figure this out for themselves, promulgate lists of “sins” and tell people not to do those things. This is wrong, this is foolish wisdom; the only true sin is what you do that separates you from God.

Ponder that for a moment. What do you do that separates you from God? I know what I do. I get something like a fury in my soul in which I become self-righteous. I know that I am right and everyone around me is wrong. I long for retribution. This is sin. This is sin because I have put myself first among others; it is sin because I have made myself the judge; and it is sin because in doing these first two things I have completely forgotten about God. And I have forgotten about God by forgetting about those around me. Yet, how are we to put such a thing on a list? It is easier to say eating meat is a sin or having sex is a sin or making money is a sin and to be done with it. Of course, none of these is sinful in or of itself; it is only in the intentions of your heart and soul that sin, separateness from God, can take place.

GLBT people are weary of the whole notion of sin. We are accused of being sinful just by the very nature of our being. All of us at some time or another have run into self-righteous (there’s that word again) folk who quote at us from the Bible to convince us of our “sin.” And yet, there is nowhere in the Bible such a passage; rather there are pieces of texts that are taken out of context for the purpose of oppression. That is sin, regardless of the text, because oppression is sin.

In today’s Gospel Jesus flies into a just such a rage, excoriating the money changers with a handmade whip. It was just the kind of rage I described, the sort that only a human on the edge can have. And yet, because it was human Jesus, it was also the divine excoriation of evil from God’s own temple, both in the reality of the money-changers in the story and in the metaphor of Jesus’ own body as the temple of God. And in the midst of it all Jesus says to make an end of sin and in its place he will build the glory of God. That would be you and me, my friends, for in our lives as children of God we embody the very glory of God. Psalm 19 verse 1 says “1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.” And in 1 Corinthians Paul writes that God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, hence those lists of sin, and in its place God has equated faith with God’s own glory. For those who believe are saved.

God is merciful to those who keep trying, to those who purge sin and embrace belief. Love God and love one another my friends; that is what God who is merciful and full of compassion asks of us.

*3 Lent (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 Coeli enarrant; Romans 7:13-25; John 2:13-22)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Right-eous-ness: Sin, Passion, Holy Week, Faith*

Well, there it all is, right there in the title.

But as usual, I digress. There is, as you know, more or less constant babble in “church-land” about this thing called “sin,” and GLBT people are no strangers to the word. We are told that the love we share is ‘sin,’ or even ‘abomination;’ or we are told that if only we would be chaste (that is, give up most of our reason for living) we would be acceptable as sinners overcoming their sin.

Nonsense.

There is only one “sin” and that is to be separate from God. To “sin” is to separate yourself from the intimate love of the one who created you and whose love for you is so vast that nothing can overwhelm it, not even. That is the message of what theologians call the “Christ-event,” which is shorthand for the life, ministry, trial, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the anointed one. He came to save us by teaching us, exactly, how to stop being people of sin, so we could more fully be the people of God.

Probably the most prevalent form of sin is playing God. We all do it and we all do it all the time. It seems like it must be part of the human condition, to judge. We judge and judge and judge. And yet we are not the judge. God is the judge; indeed, God is the only judge. “He talks too much.” “She would be okay if only she dressed better.” “I get so tired of putting up with people like that.” “Get out of my way.” “I get to go first.” Did you know that was judging? It is, because even to have the thought places you in your own head above the other. This was Jesus’ message, that none of us is above another; only God is above all. “Don’t ask/don’t tell.” “Homosexuals are intrinsically disordered.” “Marriage is between a man and a woman.” That is judging too. And it is equally hurtful. All of this judging seeks to place the ‘judge’ in a position of power, and to place the ‘judged’ in a position of inferiority. And that is painful, no matter the circumstances, when you are the one who is being judged.

What is so hard about “love your neighbor as yourself?” Well it requires real sacrifice. What if you really are angry or weary or beaten down? Well, those are not excuses. Loving each other means leaving behind those emotions (notice I did not say not to experience them, I said to leave them behind). It means at every turn to think about what you are doing. No amount of giving up chocolate for Lent can suffice for the powerful action of examining your own motives at every turn and remembering always to uphold the dignity of every human. Every human.

Paul wrote this: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself.” This is the message of Holy Week, this is the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The end of sin, once for all, if only we can learn to walk in love, walk in faith, walk in righteousness. Do you understand that word—righteousness? Try taking it apart. What is “right”? What is “being right” (righteous)? What is “faith (right-eous-ness)”? It is all about being right with God. As Jesus taught us.

Indeed, let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus. Humble yourself in the face of God’s love, empty yourself of foolish, selfish pride, rid your life of the sin of making yourself God. Remember God’s love for you. God made you in God’s own image. Especially if you are gay, remember, God made you in God’s own image. And God is always with you. Think about it–that’s what it means to have faith.

Palm Sunday (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31: 9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14- 27:66).

©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

How to Run an Airline*

In order to be faithful to my blog and my bloggers and my commitment to myself to engage the scripture each week I’ll take a shot at this. But I’d just better begin by saying I’m exhausted. I was in Seattle all week at a conference, and am just barely home. I always think it sort of humorous when I’m conference-going that the world goes on around me. The rest of the time, you see, I’m at the center of the universe. Hmmmm … and if you believe that let’s talk about that bridge in Brooklyn. Okay, still there’s little opportunity to engage the news in the usual ways when your work and life routine is up for grabs. So let’s just acknowledge that there was a revolution in Egypt this week.

But maybe there’s a hook here after all. I was thinking (again sort of bemusedly) about how hard I have to work to get home from a trip, especially via air (but it used to be like this on the train as well). It takes all of my emotional energy to keep the plane in the air, to keep the airline running on schedule, to generate enough emotional energy to make the people around me sit still and not put their seatbacks down in my lap and so on. It wears me out! And this is what Ecclesiasticus points to, and what Jesus also is teaching, in today’s scripture. (Remember, Jesus is never teaching about the actual thing in his story—never; his examples are supposed to make you think deeply, so you’ll internalize what he has said, and change.) Ecclesiasticus says you make your own choices in life, God has given you both fire and water and you get to pick which one you want to live with. And all of the dichotomies Jesus raises are examples.

It all goes back to the real meaning of sin, which is to cut yourself off from God. (And don’t go finishing the phrase by adding “by doing X” because that is exactly my point. There is no list of naughties that are “sins” that you can just tick off on your list to make yourself a good boy! Or girl!) Cutting yourself off from God means turning off the part of your soul that listens quietly to God’s voice, that plugs into the gently powerful energy that is God’s creating love. And since it is by sharing God’s creating loving energy with each other that we prove we are connected with God, when we cut the circuit—when we are in sin—then we usually have cut ourselves off from each other as well. In fact it’s the first sign. And that, as Ecclesiasticus says, is all up to us. Every one of Jesus’ examples is such a thing. Jesus doesn’t say you shouldn’t ever have a disagreement. He says if you consume yourself with anger you have already shut the door on God. And so on. Paul says the same thing in two ways in 1 Corinthians. He says don’t argue about whether you belong to him or to Apollos (another early evangelist)—you are missing the point, because you belong to God. Grow up, Paul says, get ready for solid food. Stop demanding selfishness (this is what Paul means by “in the flesh”) like a spoiled brat and learn to deal with your fellows as an adult joint heir of God’s kingdom.

There’s nothing explicitly gay here this week … jetlag got me I guess. I could do some Philadelphia-bashing. I could say I was in Seattle all week, and while I didn’t think it was the best place I’d ever been, I did discover some really nice people. Nobody I encountered was mean. I found a gay bar for cocktails one evening and although my back hurt too much to relax, everybody was very friendly. And I found a really nice gay restaurant, where I managed in two days to become practically a regular, just because everyone was really friendly. (You figure out why this is Philly-bashing.)

I can say I shouldn’t have spent all day yesterday running the airline and all of my fellow passengers. That’s the true lesson of this scripture. Let God be God. Love each other. And the rest will fall into place on its own.

*6th Sunday after the Epiphany (Ecclesiasticus 15:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37)

©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.