Choosing Love

After a much too “interesting” spring we were happy to settle into a normal-ish summer and a downright gorgeous fall. We have been thrilled at the color of the fall leaves, which despite the February exploding tree ice storm and the June heat dome managed to be brilliant. It helped I suppose that it began raining in mid-September and hasn’t really let up yet.

One part of a return to normal-ish-ity has been working on the house. We had spent last winter updating appliances and so I wanted to next update the lighting in the kitchen. I managed to find some excellent and not too expensive fixtures, which I acquired awhile back. But I was having trouble getting an electrician. Our regular electrician apparently was suddenly overwhelmed. Mercifully, that situation has now been resolved. But along the way I found an ad for an electrician-ish person and placed a call to see whether we might make that work. After a couple of days of texting back and forth he finally arrived to “look over the job.” I showed him the pile of fixtures in their boxes, I showed him where access to the attic was, I showed which fixtures would replace which and he seemed to be making mental notes about the job. He told me he could start in a couple of days, and we discussed scheduling and then he asked something about my “wife.” When I told him I had a husband he suddenly needed to be somewhere else. Shortly after he left I received a text saying he declined the job because of scheduling difficulties. Sure, he did.

This sort of thing happens all the time to LGBTQ people. It always is a surprise and it always hurts. During the time we lived in Wisconsin it took three years to get a deck and a fence built in the backyard—every contractor who came over would poke around and then I’d get an estimate for ten times what the cost should be. It was only after we miraculously found a gay contractor that we got it all built quickly for a suitable price.

I also have the experience that when I tell my straight friends about it they don’t believe me. “Maybe he was just busy” they’ll say. Right …

Miraculously that day (there’s that word again) I had to go pick up my husband, and en route on the radio I encountered the Oregon Public Broadcasting show “Think Out Loud,” which was running an interview about “Oregon Bias Response Hotline Expands with new Funding” (https://www.opb.org/article/2021/10/27/oregon-bias-response-hotline-expands-with-new-funding/ ). What struck me during the interview was a comment to the effect that nobody is expecting to encounter bias, usually you’re going along having a nice day and then “boom” it hits.

Well, after recounting this story a couple of times to gay friends I decided to contact the response line and submit a formal complaint. At least it will get us counted.

God’s greatest gift to creation is the power to love. It is the universal power of creation. If we love we win, if we do not love, we can create chaos. We cannot control events, but we can control how we love.

When we are having a nice day and “boom” hits us, it is a critical moment—if we choose to be angry, if we choose to feel vengeful, that is natural, but it is not helpful. The way out is to choose to love. Not to choose to love the circumstances, but rather, to choose to love whatever is loving in life and creation. My husband rescued the afternoon by loving the red and yellow and orange leaves on our way home. My heart was filled with love for him and for his ability to appreciate beauty.

In Margaret Guenther’s book Holy Listening (Cowley, 1992) the starkest moment for me was when she mentioned all of the thousands of mothers comforting children in box cars en route to Auschwitz by patting shoulders and rocking and saying “it’s all ok, all will be well, I love you.” That was choosing love.

Scripture this week gives us the story of Ruth and Orpah and great love which is not only chosen but built—love builds up (Ruth 1:16-17): “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die–there will I be buried.  May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!.” God is love and love is God and the psalmist reminds us that love sets us free and opens our eyes. Love lifts us up. Love sustains (Psalm 146: 7-8).

So, those mothers in those box cars were lifted up and sustained, even though their reality was falling apart.

In Mark 12:28-34, when Jesus is challenged about commandments he replies with the only truth: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” When the scribe who had challenged Jesus turns to love, Jesus says (34): “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

As I have written many times, as Jesus reminds us, God’s kingdom is already here in that dimension we cannot always quite seem to enter. But when we can love the door is opened, and we can walk through into the dimension of reality where love is all there is.

Proper 26 Year B 2021 RCL (Ruth 1:1-18; Psalm 146 Lauda, anima mea; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34)

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