Reeling Toward Pride

I think we are all reeling.

Way back in 2004 after we in the US had learned to deal with the aftermath of 2001 and a new kind of changed normality, there was a devastating tsunami in Indonesia that killed 250,000 people in a heartbeat. I was shocked that my parishioners didn’t seem concerned. They were too concerned about stuff, like, you know, post-Christmas sales. It didn’t make sense to me.

I have the same disconcerting cognitive dissonance now. What are we supposed to do? Complain about high food prices, or do something about the fact that you can be killed legally in the US anyplace you go at any time, there is no place that you are safe and six of “the nine” think it’s ok with them. And while we were reeling from that decision came the second half of the one-two punch: now there is no right to the privacy of your own body those “six” have declared that your bodily functions are systems of the state and not yours to manage.

How disgusting is that?

Surprised at my vehemence? Yeah, me too.

But no, I fought in the gay wars in the 1970s so there would be no further need for closetedness only to find millions of 21^st century gay men still marrying women just to hide. I lived through AIDS, not only as a scared young sexual gay man at the beginning but as the only chaplain in a hospital in Harlem who would go to the AIDS “floor” where patients with AIDS were warehoused to keep them away from the white wealthy patients with toenail infections. I watched my “parishioners” on that floor live through stifiing heat (there was no air conditioning in the typical New York 98 degree summer) and there were no custodians, when you walked into the ward you walked through a sewer that just was never cleaned up. I held their hands and prayed with them and managed their deaths with their startled parents and learned what happens when you are too poor to die. And now we are told we have no rights to our own bodies?

Okay, anger is useful if it directs you. But not if it overwhelms you.

We have to remember that the Gospel is a message about love. You see, I keep telling you that isn’t easy. Loving is hard when you are being bull-whipped by the establishment. But, love is critical.

We must love. We have no choice. And the place to begin always is with “love your neighbor as yourself”—begin with loving your self. Your body is your own, God decreed it that way when God created you in God’s own image.

God calls us to strive to be always joined together in the fact of love. Today’s scripture has powerful images of this tougher kind of love. Elisha sticks by his beloved mentor Elijah en route to his passing. Elisha persists as a chariot of fire causes Elijah to ascend in a whirlwind into heaven . Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle and strikes the water of the Jordan river and as he cries “where is God?” the water parts to show Elisha the path to the new dimension.

Paul writes to the Galatians that we were called by Christ to the freedom of a dimension of love, not “as an opportunity for self-indulgence” but through love, being led to walk in a dimension of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control.” These are the instructions for loving self as the fortification for “being servants one of another.” This is the mantle of Christ given to each of us in our creation if only we can shift into its dimension.

In Luke 9 Jesus interacts with people who are consumed with everyday things while the chariot of fire whips up whirlwinds of injustice around them. Jesus says ultimately “no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” But mostly Jesus says again and again “Follow me” and “Go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

So these are our marching orders too. Be angry, yes, but just enough to be catalyzed into the dimension of love. It is going to be our mantle to make sure we live in a world of peace, justice, hope, equality and righteousness. The theme of today’s Pride March in New York City was “Unapologetically Us.” San Francisco’s is “Love will keep us Together.” I’d say that just about sums it up.

Proper 8 Year C 2022 RCL (2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 Voce mea ad Dominum; Galatians 5:1,13-25; Luke 9:51-62)

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Love is Always the Answer

We are living in a very strange time; one might even say a paradoxical time. As I seem to say over and over, there is the constant cognitive dissonance of this beautiful early summer, on the one hand, and the horrific threat of Covid-19, on the other. There is the cognitive dissonance of ongoing demonstrations by millions for equality, on the one hand, and other millions clogging bars and beaches despite the need to distance to avoid the virus, on the other; and the churning of these two dissonant vortices is itself a source of cognitive dissonance. Then, too, there is the threat to social liberty—after decades of work at gaining equality for gay and lesbian people we find that everything we have worked for is threatened, not alone by the usual oppressive forces, but also by the threat of the virus, which requires a different expression of individual liberty to embrace life but at the same time leads to social requirements like stay-at-home orders that are critical to preserve life itself.

But here we are.

I love with all my heart every day, or at least I try.

Do you?

I hope so.

It is the only way. We must all love, meaning we must all give love. Which means we must all feel love. We must all embrace God’s love, feel it in our hearts, and give it to each other with acts of justice and respect and grace and, of course, affection.

Today’s scripture all points to the conclusion—the eternal revelation—that God’s love, which is eternal, is eternally given to us through the small things that make up everyday life. In Genesis (24) we have the end of the saga of Abraham and Sarah, which in turn is the beginning of the saga of Isaac and Rebekah. It is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham in acts that are turning points in human life. God’s love is complete, God’s love is eternally given, and God’s love is the miraculous action of a woman bearing a child, a child growing into adulthood, a woman with a water jar, a blessing, a camel mounted and ridden, a marriage—miracles of everyday things.

Paul (Romans 7) struggles with the everyday paradox of disconnection—sin—aligned with connection—faith. The eternal battle we all take up in every waking moment between the chatter in our heads that occupies our feelings and prevents us from experiencing the love that is all around us, and the very expression of God’s eternal and eternally promised love that is the tonic that fills the soul like water filling a tide pool when we allow ourselves to feel love. Grace again.

Jesus (Matthew 11) interprets the paradoxical clutter of social forces experiencing that same battle over love. Jesus recites a hymn of thanksgiving that god’s promise of eternal love is complete in the epiphany of Christ, he reminds us that love is best embraced by those closest to God’s gracious will, the “infants” of God’s kingdom. We are (as we learned last week too) the “infants” of the kingdom when we quell the noisy paradox and embrace God’s love fully and purely. It is in this embrace of love that we receive the “rest” Jesus offers to all of us who “are carrying heavy burdens.” He tells us to take his yoke—the mantle of love—and from it to learn to be gentle, humble, gracious, affectionate and just.

In other words, take on the yoke of love and you will find rest. The rest Jesus points us toward is the grace of God, the salvation of creation, which is always and only and eternally the embrace of love. Love is always the answer.

For we who are God’s lgbt disciples, for whom our very identity is the expression of love, the job of life is to embrace the love that is within and all around us, to share it with each other, and in so doing to reveal the march of the miracles of love in everyday life. Life each day is a miracle of God’s love.

 

Proper 9 Year A RCL 2020 (Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45: 11-18; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)

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

Realism is the Bedrock of Faith

“How are you doing?”

“How are ‘you’ doing?”

Have you noticed that most if not all live interviews begin with that question these days? It is because there is a kind of delicacy around the idea of letting a person tell you “my beloved is on a ventilator” or “my beloved just died” or “we all are sick” or “we are all afraid.” This is a time where the niceties of human communication, normally so rote, resound with soulful meaning.

We are where in this pandemic? Do you know? When it began I thought it would be for a few weeks, flights would be delayed, concerts postponed. But then it became clear, and I am not mincing words here, that to be in the presence of other humans was to risk painful difficult death. Now, some of our regions are “opening.” What does that mean?

For one thing, it means stores are open, salons are open, medical care is open. But the thing they don’t like to talk about (at least here in the US) is that you still are likely to become ill if you go out there and do those things. And for me and my husband, both 68, and between us, trust me, we have every “pre-existing underlying condition” imaginable, for us, even going to the grocery store is risky business.

So, do you think we are going to go to restaurants? Think again. Do you think we will go back to the gym? Think again.

What about churches? The Episcopal Church is well-connected, even in these times; the clergy are meeting regularly and congregations are meeting regularly and worship is regular—almost all of it in digital form. We discuss the merits of reopening buildings and so far, most congregations are stating a preference for continued social-distancing to preserve everybody’s health. There is no doubt that God is with us in our sheltered places and that we are in unity with one another as we are all in unity with God.

It is a beautiful spring in Oregon; it is about to be summer. I cannot begin to describe the beauty of nature awakening here the last three months or the amazing sequence of creation tending to itself. Every time I wander out in the morning to get my newspaper (The Oregonian is delivered four times a week on paper, which I love … the other three days it’s Ipad time!) I marvel at the sheer beauty of my driveway, let alone my neighborhood, let alone the forest in which we live and the brilliant blue sky canopy … and I know if I drove down to the bottom of the hill to the south I could see Mount Hood in glory.

My goodness, how could such beauty be host to such illness? It sets up something as well-known in my academic discipline of information as it is in psychology—cognitive dissonance—something that makes so little sense the brain has trouble wrapping around it. In information systems cognitive dissonance is known to be the reason most people walk away from a system without even hitting “enter” a second time. The psychological parallel is similar—most of us walk away from cognitive dissonance. Its easier to look up at the sky and the trees again than to contemplate the confusion.

In the Church, today is Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost, the celebration of the Trinity of God, Christ and Holy Spirit. Today’s Gospel is the end of Matthew’s Gospel (28: 16-20) where we find the well-known “Great Commission.” Jesus tells the disciples to “go … make disciples … baptize …teach” and promises that Jesus will be with all disciples always. The essence of this commission is that it is for disciples, who are humans, and all humans have doubt.

You see, doubt is a critical part of faith. Without doubt there can be no faith. Faith is always a moral decision to rely on God, which means relying on each other, in the presence of doubt, which is not lack of faith but is realism.

As communities reopen we ask ourselves, so what? Just because things are open doesn’t mean it is safe to be out there. Just because things are open doesn’t make it safe to fly or gather. The recent uptick in cases is demonstrated to be the result of Mother’s Day and Memorial Day “parties”—both took place before the lockdown was “opened.” The roiling protests, holy and blessed as they are, make it worse, of course, because the protesters likely are spreading the virus which makes it even more dangerous for people like you and me to go to the grocery store. It means it will be even longer before we can reunite with people we love who are miles away.

How is this conundrum like the doubt of the very human disciples? How is it that even after seeing Jesus, touching Jesus, eating with Jesus on the shore … they still do not quite believe? It is because the cognitive dissonance of resurrection is too great for the brain. They see, they grasp, they believe, but they also doubt—there is no alternative because it is in this realism that faith is strongest and most secure.

Faith relies on feelings; feelings rely on human reactions to each other and to creation. It is because they “know” Jesus that the disciples believe. It is in our comprehension by feeling that we find the faith that transcends the doubt of cognitive dissonance.

Realism is the bedrock of faith. The love that is God that comes from and through God is the realism of love that infuses all of life. It is the realism of God’s love that is the foundation of our faith, even in times of dissonance.

So go ahead and question. It’s good for you and for God too. Think of it like a small child asking “why” a thousand times—it just builds up the bond of love between the child and beloved adults. Ask “why.”

But also remember to walk in love, to “go … make disciples … baptize …teach.”

 

Trinity Sunday (Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8 Domine, Dominus noster; 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13; Matthew 28:16-20)

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

Witnesses of God’s Loving Grace

The sun is shining, tulips are brilliant, trees are greening, and actual bunnies are hopping about in our back yard. A few days last week a brilliant Stellar’s jay was hopping about out there too, even pausing now and then on the deck outside my study.

(this one is from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller%27s_jay )

What could be more bucolic?

It is Easter 2020 and much of the world is locked down in pandemic. To save our own lives, indeed to save everyone, we must stay home, avoid each other at all costs—social physical distancing is the only viable norm for most of us. The cognitive dissonance we experience between the beauty of spring and its message of hope and resilience and resurrection, and our learned expectation that this is a time of gathering for families of all sorts—this is at odds with the constant harangue to “stay home, save lives,” “keep six feet apart,” “do not leave your home,” and on and on and on it goes. It is tough for families of all sorts, not the least of which are our lgbt families that often are comprised more by love than by genetics. Many of us find ourselves distanced from people we love, depending on virtual visits for occasional bits of what would be normal intimacy. A pat on the shoulder, a nudge, a hug—all forgone for now.

Of course, it is no mystery that Christians everywhere see in our situation a parallel to Jesus’ disciples hiding in that upper room, doors and windows locked, in fear following His crucifixion. It is easy to imagine that outside those boundaries birds sang and people went about their business. The dichotomy is as remarkable as it is frightening.

Peter’s famous sermon from Acts 10 (34-43) has as its central points two keys—first that “God shows no partiality” and second that we all are witnesses. The two work in unison. All people are created by God in God’s own image and each of us is precious in God’s eyes, as indeed are our families, however constituted but melded always by love. Salvation, which is ours in Christ, is God’s gift, freely given in the form of love to all who can in turn love each other (“anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable … [and] receives forgiveness of sins”). In all things we all are witnesses of God’s loving grace.

The glorious spring is a sign of God’s grace. But so too are the heroes of this time—the healthcare workers struggling around the clock dressed like creatures from science fiction, they are God’s own army. Grocery workers are on the front line of the pandemic every day doing what they can to give us sustenance, chefs are working alone to prepare meals for delivery, delivery people are moving from store to house to store to house among us, even our precious garbage pickup people are out there every day. These all are signs of God’s loving grace. These all are people giving God’s love with every ounce of their being. And we are witnesses of and to the love that these our heroes are giving; in return by honoring them we give them love. It is this building up of love that will bring us to the realization that God’s kingdom already is among us.

In his letter to the Colossians (3: 1-4) Paul writes in revolutionary cosmic language that we must seek the dimension of love (“seek the things … set your minds on things that are above”). He means we must, in our witness, look past the disjointment of social distancing, we must look beyond the depression of isolation, we must look above the disappointment of missing the touch of those we love who are at a distance. Instead we must focus on love, and on the giving of love. Give thanks that we are safe, give thanks that we are safely housed, give thanks that we have sustenance, give thanks that our heroes are out there on the line working to save our lives. Give thanks, and give thanks, and give thanks. This is how we will move into the dimension of love where we will see our salvation revealed with Christ in glory.

And what of John’s Gospel narrative of the resurrection (20: 1-18)? We see Jesus’ family—Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the “other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.” We see them rise from their desolation, we see them invigorated by hope, we see them run, race really. Mary Magdalene on seeing the tombstone removed ran to get Peter and the disciple Jesus loved. They all ran back. They all witnessed—they “saw and believed.” We are witnesses in this revelation of the power of love to shift dimensions for it is their love that is affirmed when they run to see and believe that Jesus’ has been raised from the dead. It is their shift into this new radical dimension of love that brings first joy and then, for Mary Magdalene, relief in the recognition that it is Jesus who is speaking to her. Their faith is proof of the power of their love. It is a sign to us of the power of love that can help us all emerge now from this time of isolation into the light of a new day.

What better time than Easter to give thanks for God’s love that saves?

 

The Sunday of the Resurrection, or Easter Sunday (Acts 10: 34-43; Psalm 118: 1-2. 14-24 Confitemini Domino; Colossians 3: 1-4; John 20:1-18)

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