Awe and Wonder

Miracles do happen. Usually, maybe even mostly, unexpectedly, they are pretty much under the radar, unnoticed kinds of things. Just “suddenly” one day you realize something has shifted. Of course, it didn’t shift suddenly, it shifted gradually as you moved into God’s dimension of love where synchrony can happen—what was “sudden” was your awareness. Most of us wander around in a fog (or at least, in a cloudy mist that seems to keep us from noticing the presence of God) most of the time.

That’s why people pray after a natural disaster—like “#*&! I forgot to pray before but please help me now.”

The good news about that is that God was paying attention all along. But the really good news is that once you are plugged in you can take off in a big way “lift off for the dimension of love!”

In the Acts of the Apostles [2:42-47] we learn of thousands who come for baptism and renewal. “Those who had been baptized devoted themselves ….” The main point is this: “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done … day by day [God] added to their numbers.”

So, do you see the miracles in your life? Do you see every smile from someone in pain as a miracle? Do you understand that every morning when you awaken it is a miracle? Do you see the “signs and wonders” like, the tulips you planted in October are beautifully red and yellow and purple now? Do you see that each day you hug your honey and know that love in a real way is a gift, awe, wonder?

Love is the pathway into God’s dimension of love; active love, giving love, feeling love, being love, this is how we enter into the presence of God. Psalm 23: “you spread a table before me … my cup is running over.” All of this “in the presence those who trouble me [i.e., of everyday life].” That sounds about right, no?

Peter wants his disciples to take charge. (How ever must it have been for a disciple of Christ to wake up one day and be “in charge” of the new disciples? It must have been equal parts terrifying and humbling and catalyzing.) Peter says “It is a credit to you if… you endure pain while suffering .. to this you have been called.” So, this is our call as LGBTQ disciples, discerning the awe and wonder of life in the dimension of love. God has spread the table with its cup running over right here in the midst of everyday life. This is discipleship for us isnt’ it? We know we are the beloved LGBTQ children of God. And yetwe endure every day the pain of ostracism, of being persecuted, hidden, punished for being who we are created by God to be.

In John’s Gospel [10:1-10] Jesus tells this confusing story about sheep and gates; what he is trying to communicate in terms that were colloquial but also metaphorical in his own day was: there is only the path of love, pretending is not loving, only by walking in love do those who love know each other, there is only love and not love. Love is God because God is love, and Jesus is God, therefore Jesus is love, and love is the only gate into the dimension of love, into heaven, which is all around you and within you if only you can find it.

And there is our miracle, there is our awe and wonder, right here under our noses, in everyday life. That is the message of Eastertide.

4 Easter Year A 2023 RCL (Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10-1-10) ©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

We all are Witnesses

Easter-tide, thank goodness, is a time of refreshment, rejuvenation, reorientation to life without holidays –a kind of opening of the way of normalcy. With any luck the weather will get better and soon spring sun will be the norm instead of a rare surprise. My tulips are beautiful on the rare occasion when there is enough sun for them to open up! This sense of return to normal is, I think, a major aspect of faith. It is easy enough to get whipped up by holiday hype, it is another thing to walk in love, to live the love that God asks us to live into. God asks us to understand in resurrection the idea that there is always renewal where there always is love in action. Resurrection is within us.

So it is that like Peter (Acts 2) and the other disciples, we are witnesses—[Acts 2:32] “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”  Yes, Peter means that he and the disciples were witnesses of the risen Jesus. But he also means that all of us, you and me, if we have faith, if we live into our covenant with God that we love our neighbors as ourselves—we are witnesses of resurrection.

In this, then, is our joy. In the leaves popping out on stems that remind us spring is coming and life is abundant and that there is always renewal. This is our joy in the smiles and hugs of loved ones, in the greeting by the nice lady at the supermarket, in the sweet sound of a familiar voice—in a hundred moments in each day is the proof that resurrection is within us, that God has raised us up too, that our joy is complete in the fullness of the path God has pointed out for us, the doorway into the dimension of love [Psalm 16:11].

In his first epistle [1 Peter 1:3-9] Peter speaks of hope, of that sense of trust that is the essence of faith that our inheritance of love is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” It is this hope that is the catalyst for Easter joy, the sense of renewal, or if I may, of salvation, which is “more precious than gold” because like all of life it has been “tested by fire.” We know that resurrection is within us if we can keep our feet on the path into the dimension of love.

John’s Gospel account of the risen Jesus’ visit to the upper room [John 20:19-31] leads usually to the focus on Thomas, whose “doubt” is revealed not only as very human but also as very intimate. Whatever Thomas’ failings, however momentary, the love he shares with Jesus is so powerful that the risen Christ comes to him to say “Do not doubt but believe.”

Jesus ends the story with the pronouncement “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Thus belief completes the circle of faith, the route back to love, the sure way to the dimension of love.

And so even we, the LGBTQ Thomases of our own time, we who are oppressed and outcast and reviled and distrusted even in our own “enlightened” day, we still believe, because we know the power of the love we have been given in our creation in God’s own image as inheritors of God’s love, as gatekeepers of God’s dimension of love. We know that resurrection is within us because we experience it every day, every moment, in the love we share. We all are witnesses. We all are blessed.

Second Sunday of Easter Year A 2023 RCL (Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31)

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

Awe and Abundance

So how’s it going? Still locked down? I find that I am living in a kind of weird space—who remembers Twilight Zone?—I get tired of washing down delivered packages and groceries (although I can see that the delivery people are mostly not gloved or masked). When I have to shop I want to forget to stay 10 feet from everybody, especially when I see people I know and like, and I don’t like to remember that the groceries I just paid $200 for are maybe lethal. I want to forget that the consequences of forgetting are very real. When did normal life become lethal? When did it become dangerous to forget? Welcome to life in the pandemic.

It is spring out there in the real world–did you see Venus at its brightest in the western sky this past week? Here in Oregon tulips have been brilliant, the sky is crystal clear, the tree pollen is denser than ever, and now rhododendrons and roses are blooming. How can such a beautiful world be such a twilight zone?

It is Eastertide in the church—specifically it is the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Scripture appointed for these days has moved beyond post-resurrection appearances and is more focused on critical theological points—specifically today we have images of sheep and shepherd, which is ultimately the message of love shared by God, with God, and among God’s creatures. This is the true message of the Gospel—God’s love is the substance of God’s kingdom and we all already dwell there, where love generates life, where life leads to more love, where all of us created in God’s own image are eternally electrified by God’s love flowing through us and among us—this salvation is the gift of Resurrection if only we can grasp it. When we can grasp it, true awe overwhelms us.

The Acts of the Apostles (2:42-47) tells us of the first believers, not just the disciples but all those who were coming to believe in the light of Jesus’ resurrection, to all those who “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship [and] to the breaking of bread and the prayers,” that “awe came upon everyone.” This awe is what happens when the power of love is discovered. And reflected here is the simple truth that it is day by day that people learn to walk in love, to give love, to experience the awe of love. We also learn that these folks, living in the euphoria of love (which, after all, is what “awe” means), “were together …,” “spent much time together …, “broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God.” Sounds nice, doesn’t it? What would we give to break bread together again?

At the end of the Gospel story (John 10: 1-10) Jesus says “I came that they may have life and live it abundantly.” “They” are the sheep, those who have passed through the gate that is Jesus himself, those who have entered into the dimension of God’s love. Us in other words, if we have grasped God’s gift. Jesus says abundance means salvation. How is that meaningful for us? What is the abundance we experience now in this pandemic? Abundance is the nurture we offer each other. Abundance is in the phone calls and Skypes and Zooms and Facetimes with old friends and relatives and neighbors—especially neighbors—we are new in our neighborhood but we have been touched by the smiles and waves from neighbors we’ve only barely met and cards from neighbors we hadn’t had time to meet before the lockdown. Abundance is in the love we offer each other and in the love we accept—especially in the love we accept—from each other.

It is God’s love, the most awesome gift ever, that is the Resurrection message for us now. This was the gate that God opened to us through Christ. This is the place of abundance that is our salvation. This is the awe of the sustenance of love even in a pandemic, even in a twilight of confusing signs, even in all the ways in which people who love each other are together in our separation.

For LGBT people it is a time of enlightenment. It is astonishing to see how many of us are reaching out to each other. It is awe inspiring how fully our lgbt families are functioning at a high level of love and care in the community. It is a time for those of us whose God-created LGBT lives forged in love are being called to heal the world with our love.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

 

4 Easter (Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10)

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