Gentle sun

There is gentle sun playing across the deck outside my study this morning. I experience it as comforting, maybe because it brings with it a sense of calm. It is end-of-summer warm in Oregon with the gentle breeze giving motion to the greenscape as the sun kisses the new flowers I’ve somehow managed to tease from the few plants I’ve had time to acquire since we arrived here. They seem to enjoy the environment as much as I enjoy them. It is more than a metaphor, isn’t it? I give them love by loving them when I look at them in the morning or look for them in the evening dusk. I nurture them with my affection, but also with water and occasional plant food, but mostly with the gentle sun and gentle breeze they enjoy out there. They return my affection with blossoms that not only give me pleasure but signal their health and strength, perhaps metaphors for my own.

To give love is why God created us and put us here. God is, after all, love. The fabled unity of God’s church showing forth power is in reality, the giving of love by all of us, the sharing of God among us, however awkwardly ineptly we manage it—what matters is that we try. By merely remembering to have affection inwardly, we can manifest outwardly the presence of God among us. This is what Jesus meant when he so often said “the kingdom has come near.”

We continued this week to acclimate ourselves to this new environment. We had a terrifying afternoon at the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles (affectionately known as the DMV, of course). We set off too late in the day because our morning contractors had spent longer than we anticipated. We drove and drove and drove for what seemed like hours (it was probably 15 minutes) down hills and across rivers toward some mysterious address. When we got there the place was packed (of course) with a long line of people standing right in the middle, but a prominent sign pointed an arrow at a machine that said “take a number for service.” I took a number but noticed it was hundreds more than the latest number on the lighted sign above the long line of people. We sat down and wondered whether we shouldn’t just go home and wait for another day. It reminded me of a sort of cross between waiting for a so-called “delayed” flight, and sitting in the vast auditorium at the University of Chicago many years ago waiting for the beginning of the dreaded German exam. Maybe you can see why I was terrified.

Something prompted a guy in front of us to explain they had called fifty numbers at once and those were the people in the line. A moment later the last person in the line was helped and they resumed calling the numbers in sequence. As often happens, most of the people had left so it actually went so quickly that I stood up to make sure I wouldn’t miss my number because of my creaky knees. And, once we got to the “window,” the lady was charming and helped us with all of the things we needed done all at once. In less than 30 minutes we’d registered the car and both passed the “knowledge” test (a minor miracle in itself) and were on our way with temporary licenses in hand. We laughed all the way home joking when we saw double yellow lines and laughing out loud when we came to one of the infamous double-roundabouts. It was three days later, though, before either of us dared say something along the lines of “we won’t have to do that again.” Oh well, nothing like culture shock mingled with the vagaries of test anxiety.

But what struck me was the loving way our new friend helped us, even nurtured us, through the process with a gentle smile, a quick walk out to the car with me to check a couple of things, and managing the pile of documents we had brought with us. Of course, she gave love in her nurturing care. And one realizes she must do this all day long every day, giving love and nurturing hundreds of people, all of whom are excited, worried, needy and frightened all at once. I briefly had the thought that it was a terrific metaphor for church.

In the scripture appointed for today we hear the story of the call of the prophet Jeremiah (1:3-10), who resisted (of course) because of his fear or anxiety that overwhelmed the presence of God’s love until God reminded him not to be afraid, because God had put God’s words into his mouth, giving him the power to build and plant with love. The letter to the Hebrews (12:18-29) talks about what theologians call “theophany”—the realization of the presence of God—which often is accompanied by terror, fear and anxiety, until the actual presence of love is manifest. We are reminded that, although the world at large “shakes,” still that which remains, God’s love shared among us, cannot be shaken. In Luke’s Gospel (13:10-17) Jesus heals on the sabbath and is reprimanded for it. He reminds the crowd that the sabbath, God’s day, is for healing, which after all is the unification of creation in God’s love. To heal is to share love, which is to honor God.

I was impressed that our helper at DMV never batted an eyebrow at two “mature” married men. She just helped our family get settled. It was an enormously healing event for us. Dignity, witness, love—these are the essence of healing, but especially significant for the lgbt children of God. A sort of everyday theophany like the gentle sun.

Proper 16 (Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17)

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