Prepare the Way of Love

The sun is shining today in the Willamette Valley. When I went outside to get my newspaper this morning the sky was hazy with fog but the sun’s rays were pointing brilliantly in a fan shape through the stately Douglas firs all around. It was heavenly.

This past week we had arborists here. We had an old silver maple that had slowly been dropping its branches on our house and our neighbors’ backyards over the past year and a half. It took months to figure out what to do and finally get someone here to do it, but this week the tree was trimmed. Now there is a lot of fresh firewood in our woodshed and there is no possibility any branches will fall on anything. It is that last bit that I am noticing each morning as I look out where the cracked branches used to be. I had grown so accustomed to worrying about when they might fall that I find it difficult to remember, now, that that problem is resolved. We are prepared for ice storms and winter winds, whenever they might come.

Preparation means change, and change means both working past the former reality and accepting the new.

Advent is a season of preparation. We are called to look inward, to work past former realities, to generate new realities and to accept the change.

Love is the path to the dimension where change is not just accepted but embraced, cheered with joy, accepted with grace—dare I say (?) it is the dimension where change is loved.

Love, of course, is the “robe of righteousness that comes from God” (Baruch 5:2), the “diadem of the glory of the Everlasting.” It is the love of creation making those heavenly rays of sun shine through the trees to remind us not only that we are all part of something larger than us but also that we and all of creation are loved. It is the love that comes to us in this way that is the robe of righteousness and the diadem of glory. It is the love to which we are called that is the manifestation of our blessing. This call to love, that our love might “overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight” (Philippians 1:9), is the affirmation of the certainty that we are called to love. It is our sign as LGBTQ people that we are called as God’s loving children who are defined by the love we share, to love.

We are called to “prepare the way” (Luke 3:4).

We are called to embrace the love in our hearts as the instrument of change, of new reality, of preparation. Why, it is just like the new reality that Amy Schneider, a trans woman, is still an on-going champion of Jeopardy. The brilliance of her smile shows that love that fuels her. Her gentle embrace of her identity, her proud posture in the world, is a sign to all of us that we, too, can find the dimension of love.

Prepare the way indeed.

2 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Baruch 5:1-9; Canticle 16; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6)

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

Learning to Embrace Love

Learning is a tough slog. I guess that’s an American expression—another version might be “a tough row to hoe,” which means, “I’m doing this thing, it’s really difficult, but I’m getting there.”

Learning is more than simply acquiring knowledge, although that certainly is a big part of it. It requires putting the new knowledge to use, and that often means some kind of necessary change. In academics it means increasing the ability to create syntheses, to generate new knowledge. In life it’s even tougher, because the changes we have to make require introspection and shifting priorities, letting go of old ways and practicing new ways of being. Like I said, it can be a tough slog.

But, of course, a tough slog is a good slog, if at the end you have new knowledge or even a new life.

In the famous story of Adam and Eve in the garden (Genesis 3: 5) the serpent challenges Eve to eat the forbidden fruit so she and Adam may become wise “like God, knowing good and evil.” Of course, acquiring this knowledge—learning—changes everything. For millenia theologians have debated about this battle, but I think the point is that the learning revealed a new truth from which there was no going back. Learning can be tough precisely because change is forever.

The best way to live through and recover from any life-changing experience, of course, is to embrace love with every ounce of your being. Remember that love is the experience and giving of the energy of God that creates and transforms reality. Feel love, embrace love, and give love, to live.

In Matthew’s Gospel (4:1-11) we follow Jesus’ temptation. Not unlike the patter in the Genesis story we see a back and forth between Jesus and “the tempter.” Eventually Jesus triumphs and the tempter is vanquished with these words: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” And then it says “and suddenly the angels came and waited on him.”

This classic battle between the presence of love represented by God and God’s angels, on the one hand, and the absence of love represented by the temptation to embrace only self, on the other, reveals the simple truth that in all of life we have a choice between the swamp devoid of love that is of our own creation and the garden of love that is always there, if only we can learn always to choose it. Ah, if only we can learn—gain knowledge, grow, change.

The simple synthesis of these stories is this. To gain knowledge is to be empowered, enlightened by the revelation of truth, and to be utterly changed. This kind of change requires learning to embrace love, because it is in the giving of love that we best worship our creator and all of creation.

 

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

©2020 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Shifting realities, an example

As I said in yesterday’s post, I’m changing the title of this blog.

On one hand I think it’s too bad, because I rather liked the irony of basing the title on Jesus’ commandment to “feed my sheep.”

But when I discovered an unmentionable right-wing politician had used the same words as title of a book, I knew I had to change it (no, I won’t name him or his book!).

And maybe, in so doing, I’m demonstrating the new title. We as Christians must always be willing and able to shift our focus so as to see God’s constantly shifting new reality. So, here we go …. enjoy the ride!