The Wind, the Dove, the Holy Spirit

Just like that we are back to work. With a theological snap of the fingers time shifts. With a secular roar the uproar we were living through just a few weeks ago comes streaming back. Winter is really here along with atrocious news and astonishing behavior. At least the days are longer now, teasing us with daylight a tiny bit at a time.

Just before Christmas we rejoiced at the advance toward marriage equality (okay, a baby step) taken by the Roman church leader. This week (of course) we learn of “backlash” in various parts of the world. Fortify yourselves my LGBTQ+ readers, we are in for another round it seems. Let me refer to this post from October 2009 (near the date that year of National Coming Out Day in the US and in Philadelphia the date of the OutFest): https://rpsplus.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/jesus-said-feed-my-sheep/

Then again, what better fortification might we hope for than the blessing of “a wind from God” sweeping over the face of creation?

Metaphors are a hallmark of oral culture. In our literate age we have the ability to store and retrieve anything whenever we want it, and so we don’t need to remember it or even to find it remarkable. But in oral culture history relies on the ability of listeners in community to remember and pass along the collective truth. Metaphor makes that more palpable, more operational. In Genesis the appearance of the Holy Spirit is described as “a wind from God” that “swept over the face of the waters” [1:1-5].

Echoed and sung in praise by the psalmist [Psalm 29]: the Holy Spirit is perceived in the powerful splendor of the voice of God that is like thunder on the mighty waters.

[Acts 19:1-7] Paul encounters some disciples in Ephesus. I love this line. What can it mean that Paul, passing through “interior regions” found” some disciples? Of course it is a sign of the universality of the new dimension of love, the door to which opened in the ministry of Jesus. Disciples, people of the good news of the power of God’s love are everywhere! In this story, these loving disciples have not heard about a Holy Spirit. Paul learns it is because they have become followers through the “baptism of John.” Paul lays hands on them in the name of Christ and they receive the Holy Spirit.

[Mark 1:4-11] John, as we see in Mark’s Gospel, proclaims a baptism of repentance “for the forgiveness of sins.” Repentance means literally to “think again.” A baptism of repentance is a formal way of anointing–with the very real water of the very real river–the action of remembering how people have disconnected from each other and therefore also from God.

Like the followers at Ephesus, people receiving “the baptism of John” are identified as having made a very real conscious decision to re-turn to God, to undergo a process of internal renewal to eject whatever within them has disconnected them.

Jesus is baptized by John in Mark’s Gospel, but also, he is in that moment connected directly with God as only he sees the “heavens torn apart” as “the Spirit descend[s] like a dove”—a metaphor for truth—and hears the very real loving voice of God.

We who are God’s heirs, created in God’s own loving image as LGBTQ+ people, have felt the wind of love that sweeps over creation, we have sung the praises of the love God created us to realize, we have seen the dove of truth that tells us the truth that the love we share is God-given, and we eternally receive the Holy Spirit.

1 Epiphany Year B 2015 RCL “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11)

©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Love Propagated

What comes to me today is Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.

It is the first Sunday of the Epiphany, Christmas is past, the New Year has begun, even Congress has calmed down however briefly. The weather is typical for Oregon, some rain now and again, moderate temperatures. According to Farmer’s Almanac the brutally cold December of ice and freezing was the coldest part of this Oregon winter (I hope they’re right; they usually are somehow).

God’s prophecy in Isaiah 42 is that “former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.” The Psalmist sings (29) “God shall give strength to God’s people, God shall give God’s people the blessing of peace.” Peter proclaims (Acts 10) “God shows no partiality,” … and especially that “we are witnesses.” At Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan river (Matthew 3) “the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The reality of the dimension of love into which God called us in our own creation, in God’s own LGBTQ image, is that all things always are being made new, that God shows no partiality, that we who are God’s LGBTQ heirs are witnesses to this constant renewal that God’s love, created in us so that it might be propagated through us in the love we share, makes the single constant in the dimension of love.

All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.

1 Epiphany Year A 2023 RCL “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17)

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

Celebrating Us

I’ve been bringing Amy Schneider into my midrash every week lately. I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of a trans-woman making such an impact in such a regular kind of “normal” American venue. After all, Jeopardy! is watched by millions daily, but is very well-known to be the stomping ground of those who are, shall we say, “mature” (of which I must admit I am)? When I was training to be a hospital chaplain and we were being instructed to make rounds every evening (we were to visit anyone who was to have surgery the next morning) we were told to go eat supper during the 30 minutes Jeopardy! was on television—“nobody will want to talk to you if you interrupt Jeopardy!” we were told! It was true, even the nurses tried not to bother people then.

So it is pretty exciting that it is in this venue that a trans-woman is receiving acceptance, even being honored. Amy has now won over 1 million dollars and joined the exclusive club of long-term winners. Friday I was also a little bit startled (can you be a little bit startled?) to realize one of the other contestants (Sean Sweeney) was a gay man, which is not so unusual, but during the comment period was talking about his husband. Maybe “surprised” is a better word than “startled.” It reminded me (and I know I’ve told this story here someplace) of a time when I was hospitalized briefly (for a few hours, which made us all wonder what they were thinking!) and I had to go three rounds with a nurse about my husband. He had gone to get a cup of tea or something and when I asked her if she had seen him she said pointedly “your FRIEND” is sitting outside in the waiting room. I said “he’s my husband” and she said “your FRIEND” is probably more comfortable out there. And I said “look, we’re married, he’s my husband, it’s the law, get over it!” Interestingly, I didn’t see her again, another nurse took over until I got sprung.

Well, I guess my point is that I was pleasantly surprised to see on regular evening television both a trans-woman champion and a married gay man and nobody batted an eyelash. It made me think about the past centuries of phobia and oppression, the decades of striving for equality, the power summoned by the LGBTQ community to come out and stand up for ourselves insisting on our basic rights as citizens to life and love. And here is how it plays out in the end, on Jeopardy!.

(Another curious point is how little feedback I’ve been getting about Amy and her social witness. One might have expected a larger proportion of readers of t his blog to be excited about this amazing development.)

I’ve been fascinated watching Christmas deconstructed in my neighborhood the past ten days or so. Of course, we kept our outdoor lights on and decorations up until the Feast of the Epiphany, until the twelfth night of Christmas had passed. Many of our neighbors began to take things down the day after Christmas, most of them had everything gone by New Year’s Day. It led me to ponder the true meaning of Christmas, which is not a singular event but an eternity. That is, Christmas is not a one-off event that we remember each year. Rather, Christmas is the epiphany of the incarnation of God as human, it is the reminder to us that it is in every moment that God not only is but also is becoming with us, and that we are called by God’s covenant with us to manifest God’s presence among us through sharing the love God gave us in creation. Indeed, we are called to share the love God gave us by creating us as LGBTQ people of love in God’s own image. We are to celebrate us, and in doing so, build up love in the whole of creation.

God is love, in us God has created a powerhouse of love, through us God has honored our creation in God’s loving image. We are called to fuel that powerhouse of love by building up love, by sharing love, by celebrating love, eternally. We are called to lay aside the distractions of daily living and to embrace the Spirit of God’s love. We are called to walk in love, until we, like those assembled at the baptism of Christ, hear the transformative power of the voice of God saying “with you I am well pleased.”

1 Epiphany Year C 2022 RCL “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22)

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

Seduction*

I guess Christmas is gone. All of the ornaments are put away. When I come downstairs in the morning I’m still a bit surprised not to find the Christmas tree. And ironically, we now have perfect “white Christmas” weather, cold and crisp and “snow lay all around” and so on. About all that’s left now are the memories. And the gifts.

We like to carry on about the gifts, either spending too much emotional energy on them or too much money or, alternatively, worrying too much about how they corrupt the spirit of Christmas. But it seems just about right this year—all of the outward signs of Christmas are gone, but as you move around our house, the gifts, which by now have been completely integrated into the flow of our lives, are visibly present. Our lives are enriched by them, and our hearts are warmed by using them in cognizance of the love that lay behind each.

It reminds me a little bit of the way glbt folk tend to occupy points along a social continuum between being either very gay or what we keep seeing in Craig’s List referred to as straight-acting. Let’s face it people, we’re gay. And we derive not just sexual identity from acknowledging our community, but also a sense of enrichment and warmth. Sort of like those gifts in the season after Christmas. We are all better off for knowing of each others’ presence, and to the extent we are able to participate in the real or virtual glbt communities, we are enriched by the experience. The proverbial “gift that keeps on giving,” I guess.

This gift of course is love. But more than that, it also is fellowship, which is the spiritual expression of love. You don’t have to go to a gay bar or a lesbian dance or the lgbt community center to experience this fellowship. All you have to do is accept yourself as God made you, to know that you are part of this greater spiritual community. Therein lies the gift.

So that brings me to this week’s scripture—because, of course, this is all a metaphor for the gifts of life and love given us by God, and the gifts of unity given us by God through Christ. Before you were even in your mother’s womb God had called you to this glbt life, to exercise your spiritual gifts by making fellowship of love in the human community. God does not require worship from you, rather, God has given you ears to hear God’s call to you. Listen to it in the quickening of your heart, in the warmth in your soul. And then proclaim who you are in the company of the community, for you have been enriched in every way.

I had a good chuckle (maybe I should say “LOL”) looking at this passage from John’s Gospel. Yes, outwardly it is the story of the calling of Jesus’ disciples Andrew and Peter from among the cohort of John the Baptist’s disciples. But look at it again, with the eyes of your gay heart. Jesus is being very coy, which is very seductive. There aren’t many details—for instance, it just says they were “standing” with John—it doesn’t tell us where. Not until the end do we learn it was 4 pm—T-dance time. It says John “exclaims”—now place one hand on one hip, and push, wave the other hand in the air, and “exclaim.” Remind you of anything? The disciples follow Jesus, discretely—or not. The punctuation provides the dramatic pause we need, to imagine the disco music fading out as Jesus turns to ask “what are you looking for?” Go ahead, fill in the rest for yourself.

It is a seduction of sorts. And there are two lessons here for glbt people. First, that the stories about Jesus are not exclusively the province of any band of humans. Rather, they are written so that everyone who encounters them can be drawn in, you and me included, and imagine ourselves, as ourselves, in the scene. Second, and more importantly, is that Jesus asks you and me to enter this seductive dance so that when we respond to his call to “Come and see” we too, will choose to stay.

One more thing. The choice to stay with Jesus is transformative. In the story Jesus gives them new names. In reality the encounter with Jesus transforms everything within us, enriches us in every way as Paul writes. It is just like our post-Christmas encounters with our gifts from those who love us and whom we love, contacts which generate the warmth of love with every encounter. Encounter Jesus, embrace your gay self, “come and see,” and live.

*2nd Sunday after the Epiphany (Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-12, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42)

©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.