Smile, Hug, Laugh, and Rejoice

We are surrounded by love, we are the creatures of love, we are born to love, the greatest gift given to us is the power to love.

It is half-way through Advent, Christmas is coming. This week we broke out our Christmas stuff and started slowly decorating. We usually don’t get it all done until a day or two before, but that’s ok. It’s our version of that whole Advent expectation thing.

Like everybody else we are beginning to learn how to live through the pandemic, as opposed to living alongside it or hiding from it. The best thing for us is a beloved friend who now is able to be with us from time to time. After a separation of a year and a half it is nice to be together, loving each other, again, even if the travel is complicated and the things we can do together are limited. Still, we all have learned to revel in the love that surrounds us, to manifest the love inside us, to share the love among us.

We are meant to remember always to “rejoice and exult with all” our heart (Zephaniah 3:14). To smile and hug and laugh, to share, to be filled with the “peace … which surpasses all  understanding” (Philippians 4:7), even just sitting by the fire, walking in the rain.

If we can remember to remember, if we can keep our minds focused on our role in creation, which is to love, we will reap the inestimable joys offered to us by a grateful creator (Canticle 9; Isaiah 12:3), like drawing water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation.

In Luke’s Gospel (3:7-18) we see John the Baptizer preaching repentance and baptizing the crowds of seekers who quiz him. We see his anger. We see their expectation. And then we learn the prophecy of the “one who is more powerful than” John, who “will baptize … with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Jesus, of course, who is God, who is love, will baptize with the Holy Spirit, which is love, which is the very fire of creation.

Expectation is powerful stuff. But not as powerful as the love we are called as the LGBTQ heirs of creation to bring to the table. Expect, of course. But love, revel, smile hug and laugh, and rejoice.

3 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9: The First Song of Isaiah (Ecce Deus  Isaiah 12:2-6); Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18)

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

Expectation, Hope, Love

Advent is the season of expectation, the prelude to the manifestation of hope. It is a very sweet time. It is when we carry love in our hearts—love for the people we are sending cards to, love for the people we are buying gifts for, love for the guests we are or will be cooking for—and all of that love spills over in smiles for the grocery cashier, the fish monger, the cheesemonger, the guys who tie your Christmas tree to the top of your car, and so forth. It is in all of this the perfect example of the way of love. Love at the center of your existence builds up as it radiates outward. Love builds up as radiating beams of love from everyone overlap.

In the US it begins with Thanksgiving, the annual holiday of remembrance combined with a harvest celebration merged with a ritual meal, the purpose of all of which is to build up—you guessed it—love. We carry love in our hearts when we buy the turkey, we radiate love when we donate a turkey, our love overlaps as we share the day itself but even more as we move out into the realm of the approach of Christmas.

In the church Advent is one of the loveliest seasons, we tamp down the ritual excitement and revel instead in expectation and hope. We pray to be freed from “works of darkness” and to be protected by “armor of light.” We remember the prophecies of the coming of Christ, who will teach us to embrace “justice and righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:15). We are reminded by the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) that joy and thanksgiving give rise to the prayer that God will help us to “increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” In Luke’s Gospel (21:25-36) Jesus talks about signs in the skies and in the earth and in the sea and among nations. He tells the parable of the fig tree: “as soon as they sprout leaves you can see … and know” that summer is coming, thus do these signs reveal to us that the kingdom of love is near. Jesus specifically says (34) to “be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down.”

The reality of the prophecy is that the time Jesus foretells, just like the fig tree leafing out each spring, is all around us all of the time. The celestial heavens show us that we are constantly a part of the immensity of creation linked in to and by all things. The seas and waves roar, people faint, and there is always distress among nations. Therefore, the kingdom of love is always near. The moment is not at some uncertain point in the future, for, remember, there is no such thing as linear time, all time has already happened. The kingdom of love already is here.

The question is, can we enter into the dimension where it rules creation with justice and righteousness? Can we find the way of love? Of course we can. All we have to do is extend the love we feel, the expectation and hope, the radiant beams of love.

LGBTQ people live in the moment Jesus foretells in perpetuity. We always live in an environment born of oppression, brined in the experience of minority, on the border between the works of darkness and the armor of light. We are the heirs of the kingdom of love designated in our creation in God’s own image as people who love. We are called to carry love in our hearts, to let that love spill over and radiate all around us, to overlap the love we have been given, to build up with love that fabulous armor of light.

Amy Schneider—a trans woman is still champion on Jeopardy a week later. Pete Buttigieg—a gay man—is US. Secretary of Transportation. My husband is still eating leftover turkey.

Be hopeful, be expectant, and love.

1 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36)

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