Justice, Love, Salvation

Sometimes you have to take a chance on love.

Sounds like a song lyric, doesn’t it? But it is just the honest truth about God, and creation, and being LGBTQ+ and reality. Love defines us, and if we aren’t willing to take a chance on love then we risk the purgatory of that vacuum dimension where love never is. When we take that chance, when we give just a little bit of love, it comes back a thousand-fold, and we thrive in what the scriptures call heaven on earth, otherwise known as your real life.

God, who is love, always helps us, even if we try just a liitle bit, God helps us to sure footing on God’s foundation of loving-kindness. God is always with us, we are most in God’s grace when we seek to walk in love. The point is, take that chance, let down your wall, love, and you will receive grace a thousand-fold.

When approaching scripture it is always important to understand that it is intended as a form of revelation, and neither as history or as instructions. The story [1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49] about David slaying Goliath in the midst of a pretty unpleasant battle is intended to be revealing because—wait for it: because David who walks on the fundament of the love of God always wins over the vacuum dimension absent love.

The Psalmist [Psalm 9:9-20 Confitebor tibi] sings of God, who is love, whose love is known as justice.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth [2 Corinthians 6:1-13]: that today, now, this moment, with every breath, is the day of salvation. Salvation is now. If we can accept it. If we can walk in love. We must live with wide open hearts, as the hearts of children, open to joy and love.

I remember well my first days in seminary. We were all extremely spiritually hyped up. After all, here we were beginning the real journey to the priesthood. We ate together and worshipped together and learned together and lived together (albeit in our own apartments in the close). A couple of days in I was going to get my mail when I ran into a couple of people from my class. They said “I saw you were out until 8:30 last night then your lights were on” and I was sort of shocked. It suddenly became apparent to me that living in community meant living fully in community.

If you are LGBTQ+ you probably, like I did that day, recoil at the idea of living “in community” because that means living in the prying eyes of judgmental people. So, that was a challenge for me, to accept the love of my new friends and to stop being afraid of their love.

At a couples workshop the leader asked us to introduce ourselves to the group. My husband was sitting on the floor between my legs, and I patted him on the head and introduced him as my puppy, which was a tenderness between us. You should have seen the shocked looks on the faces of all of the heterosexuals in the group. They were stunned I could be so rude; and yet, I thought (and he thought) that I had been perfectly loving. So you see, living a life of love is always a challenge. It isn’t as easy as just having happy thoughts and saying “I love you” or even just “thank you” all the time.

Love is tough work. We who are God’s LGBTQ+ people are, indeed, just folks some of the time, but we also are the real loving people God created us and called us to be, and our lives take shapes that are different from those of other folks. We live integrated into the community, sort of, but also we live in our own ways of loving of which we should be proud and for which we should demand the justice of acceptance.

Love is tough work but it is worth it because love is the only path to salvation.

In Mark’s Gospel [4:35-41] exhausted Jesus gets in the boat with his disciples to escape the crowd by crossing to the other side; he falls asleep even as a storm comes up. They panic, awaken him, and forgetting all about love because they have given themselves over to fear, they reproach him. Weary, but understanding, and loving, he stops the wind. Then he reprimands them gently: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” As Mark tells it, the disciples miss the point, that it was their fear that opened the door to the vacuum of the absence of love.

Faith is trust that the power of love in action fills the void and wipes out that vacuum. Love is the power that saves. Love is the power that brings salvation now. Love is the power known in God’s justice.

We have that very power in the love we share, the love we experience, the joy we bring to each other and to those around us and by extension to the whole of creation. We are called to have pride in our LGTBQ+ lives and the love that defines them.

For Pride 2024 The Episcopal Church has unveiled a new pride shield (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/publicaffairs/episcopal-church-unveils-new-pride-shield-in-celebration-of-lgbtq-inclusion/ ). The shield is an attempt to integrate and celebrate the power of God’s LGBTQ+ people and of God’s love lived out as justice.

The design retains the upper-left blue corner of The Episcopal Church’s shield logo and incorporates elements of the traditional Pride flag as well as the Progress Pride flag and Philadelphia Pride flag. In their use of black, brown, pink, and light-blue diagonal lines, the latter two flags represent intersectional progress in acknowledging people who are often overlooked by the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement: communities of color; the transgender community; and the many thousands harmed by anti-LGBTQ+ policy—from those who lost their lives in the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s, to those still disproportionately impacted today.

In June 2023, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry issued a video message of encouragement to “all of my LGBTQ+ family members,” noting, “I believe deep in my soul that God is always seeking to create a world and a society where all are loved, where justice is done, and where the God-given equality of us all is honored in our relationships, in our social arrangements, and in law.”

Proper 7 Year B RCL 2024 (1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49; Psalm 9:9-20 Confitebor tibi; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41)

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

That Our Joy May Be Complete

The great message of Easter, indeed, the great message of Christianity, is that sin is forgiven for those who have faith in Christ.

To understand this requires multiple levels of comprehension, indeed, even dimensions of reality.

Sin, is disconnection, from God. The main way humans sin—disconnect from God—is to disconnect from each other. The opposite of sin is love. When we have love for one another—the love which is God—then we cannot be disconnected.

Today I heard a commentator on radio say that the problem in the world arises when both sides in a conflict are too hurt to stop hurting. In other words, so long as both sides are too hurt, they are so absent of love that they cannot see their way to a human realization of a way out.

Hurt is hurt; but let us remember the power of forgiveness. Forgiving is not forgetting, it is not forgoing justice, but it is the way to clear away the wall that prevents love. When that wall is raised there is no possibility of grace. The wall must be erased.

This is the essence of Christianity. Forgiveness is ours, by faith, by grace even, if only we can tear down those walls of sin that disconnect us.

Connection is God’s plan for creation. Not just connection, but synchrony, interconnection that is greater than the sum of its parts—otherwise known to us as “love builds up.” Connection, love, glory, blessing.

Both the epistle [1 John 1:1-2:2] and the Gospel reading [John 20:19-31] are from the author of John’s Gospel this week. The message is this: “what was from the beginning” “concerning the word of life,” that “our joy may be complete” when we walk in love. When we walk in love we understand that when sin occurs forgiveness is ours if we ask for it in faith. “Do not doubt but believe.”

Erasing the wall is the hard part. We who are created LGBTQ+  in God’s image learn to live with the powerful love in our souls even in the midst of oppression from all sides. We must erase the walls that separate us from each other—“Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity” [Psalm 133: 1]. If we can tear down those walls, we will see Christ among us and receive his peace.

2 Easter Year B 2024 RCL (Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133 Ecce, quam bonum!; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31)

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

By Grace … Alleluia!

We have tulips. We have daffodils. We have sunshine. We have health. We have love. We have what God has intended for us.

And, we have joy. Joy is the outward expression of happiness, which is the inward expression of grace, which is God’s gift to those who remain connected, connected to each other most of all, which is how we remain connected to God.

Yes, of course, as Peter preaches: “God shows no partiality … anyone who … does what is right is acceptable.” And “everyone who believes in [Jesus Christ] receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” All of us are connected among us and with God through our faith in the one who taught us of the ultimate power of love.

God is love, and love is salvation, because love builds up, love creates, love heals, love sustains, love infuses, love is the greatest power God has given us. We sing [Psalm 118: 14-15] with exultation about our victory, we celebrate our righteousness—read that “right ness”—read that “walking in love.”

By God’s grace Paul writes [1 Corinthians 15:1-11] “I am what I am.” All that we are and whatever we are, we are by God’s grace. Remember, God created us in God’s own image. Next time you look in the mirror remember, you reflect the image of God. LGBTQ+ people, by grace, we are who we are, created LGBTQ+ in the image of God. Amen.

Of, course, today is Easter. Today is the Feast of the Resurrection. Today is the celebration of God’s promise to us—wait, even more, it is the celebration of our faith in God’s promise to us—of eternal life in the dimension of love. All we have to do is get it.

In John’s Gospel [20:1-18] it is early Saturday morning, before sunrise the day after the crucifixion, when Mary Magdalene gets up and goes to the tomb. She is ashamed for not having gone earlier to perform ablutions and tend to the body of Jesus. She is consumed with guilt and her own bad feelings. She therefore does not understand when she arrives to find the tombstone rolled away.

She is shocked. She runs to the disciples; note it is Peter and “the one Jesus loved” who come running. It literally says she ran, and then they ran. It says they ran together–connection. Peter and the disciple Jesus loved see that Jesus is gone. The one Jesus loved is first to believe. Love builds up. Love triumphs. Love conquers all.

But Mary Magdalene stood there weeping. Suddenly two angels appeared to ask her why she was weeping, then Jesus himself asks her.

She does not recognize him.

She thinks he’s a groundskeeper.

But when he calls her by name she shifts dimensions, her emotions fall away, and now she sees, now she knows, now she believes. By grace, she is who she is, in God’s image.

For us, as for Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the disciple Jesus loved, salvation comes in the most difficult moments when we are the most confused. All it asks of us is faith, faith in love. If we love enough, we will enter the dimension where love prevails. This is the message of Easter.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Easter Day Year B RCL 2024 (Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:14-29 Confitemini Domino; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 20:1-18)

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

Keep Awake … Invest your LGBTQ+ Love

It must be winter. Even we have turned on our “Christmas” lights on the outside of the house. The rain is back. Blessed rain. In Oregon we love the rain because it blesses creation, but also because it provides a kind of natural advent for our souls, seven months of quiet and sleep with the sound of creation working its wonders, which are these ancient trees that bless us each day, not to mention snow on the mountains, which also bless us. We are blessed indeed in the PNW. The early lighting of the house is more an Oregonian thing I guess; we have no street lights where we live and winter nights are very very dark; the lights coming on at dusk lend an air of conviviality (most of the neighbors are lighting up now too … sigh, I would say I must feel guilty about it, except that the lights so delight my husband that his joy fills my heart to overflowing).

In these dark nights for the soul, which fortunately are not metaphorically dark, but rather are nights of soul-regeneration time in sleep in the dark with the comforting rhythmic sound of the rain, we learn to give thanks for the opportunity to live in this creation, we gain comprehension of the love that surrounds and infuses and protects us and we are moving eternally into the dimension of hope.

I am at odds with the scripture over the last few weeks. The Old Testament lessons are very warlike, they are very much about God and the “Israelites” and it all hits a little bit too close to reality at the moment. The lesson we are intended to take collectively from this scripture, its revelation in other words, is that, no matter how much we muck up as humans, God’s love is always available to us if only we can remember to turn to it. And that all people are heirs of God’s love.

But, of course, this week in scripture we encounter not Moses, not Joshua, but Deborah as prophet, judge and leader [Judges 4:1-7]. And it is Deborah who leads the people to the victory that God has prepared for them. Which, mind you, despite the text, is the victory of love over the absence of love. If we peer deeply into the text we see the rhythm of God’s people sinning, then suffering, then repenting, then receiving God’s eternal blessing. God’s love was there all along, had they just trusted in it in the first place. It is the oldest story in creation, it is the story of each of us.

Paul, beloved Paul, my leader prophet apostle because he is in pain and disfigured and outcast and yet continually blessed by the God of love .. Paul writes to the Thessalonians [1 Thessalonians 5:1-10] that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” so they must not “fall asleep … but … keep awake and be sober.” He means, God’s reckoning is not a prediction of a distant future; rather it is an interpretation of God’s eternal time … in other words now, in your heart. If you are awake to the workings of love in your own heart then you can put on the “breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”

In Matthew’s Gospel [25:14-30] Jesus is very directly and forthrightly preaching to those who refuse to see the dimension of love. The message is pretty simple: if you invest love, more love will be the result and all will be blessed. If you hide your love and do not share it you will suffer “outer darkness.”

All people are heirs of God’s love, which is always present, always available, always both potential and reality. All people of faith, those who wear the breastplate of God’s healing love and the helmet of the hope of salvation, are, in the act of having faith and walking in love, indeed keeping awake. Keeping awake to the working of love in our hearts. All heirs of God’s love are called to invest their love in order that it might grow and envelope ever more of creation.

And here is God’s call to God’s LGBTQ+ people, created in God’s own image to love, to choose family of love …. we are called indeed to invest our love, to walk with the love God calls us to, to be visible and to be visibly God’s LGBTQ+ loving people in creation.

Keep awake by letting the love in your life be a witness to all of creation.

Proper 28 Year A 2023 RCL (Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30)

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

Ever More Pride

It is high summer in Portland. This weekend is “Portland PRIDE.” There was an (I think successful) attempt to make a difference–a 48-hour drag show–this past weekend. This Sunday there will be a dinner cruise on the Willamette River hosted by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It should be an exciting event all around.

We need to remember the importance of Pride: first, it helps us provide witness that we are here and we are proud, and second, it helps us build up our own pride in our own selves. In fact, that is the main point isn’t it? “Love your neighbor as yourself” begins with having pride in your own self.

We went on a quiet dinner cruise the other night with some friends from college days. The food was great and the views of Portland from the middle of the Willamette River are always going to be stunning. Not to mention it created for us a time to relax and enjoy dinner with people we love.

As we sat down my husband excitedly patted my knee … he had noticed (as had I) a young gay couple being seated at the next table. We smiled and laughed. I said “we looked like that once upon a time.” I suppose they were in their early to mid-20s (just like us when we met 45 years ago). As we were getting ready to leave after the cruise I spotted a couple of bears arm-in-arm, maybe in their early 40s.

So, I thought to myself, our love is not so quiet anymore. Hallelujah! I took comfort in seeing both couples. I wonder whether they saw us. I hope so.

God asks us to “know and understand” how love works, and gives us both the grace and the power to know and to understand that we might continue to walk in love.

There is a long story in Genesis [25:19-34], a continuation of the history of the blessings of Abraham, in this case the blessings of Isaac, whose wife Rebekkah has twins. You can read the story; it has its ups and downs, and I think we are to take from that that even God’s chosen have ups and downs and have to cry a bit and pray a lot. But in the end it all works out. I think the key to the whole story is in Rebekkah’s prayer—she went to inquire of [God] and [God] answered.

There you have it. Ask, and you shall receive.

God gives us the tools we need to be loving people, to let our own lives be “a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path” [Psalm 119:105, 112]. What a concept, eh? That your life should so light up the world?

Sounds like Pride again doesn’t it?

Paul, oh my, Paul. I bear his name (it is my middle name). He tells the truth [Romans 8:1-11]. “There is no condemnation.” Repeat that to yourself, over and over, and let it sink in that there is no condemnation. The law of love, if you can always walk in love, has set you free to lead the life God created especially for you to live. If you can remember always to walk in love, and to reject your animal instinct to isolate yourself, then you have been already given the tools you need to live in the Spirit. And when you live in the Spirit, God dwells in you. And you have “received a spirit of adoption;” you are, indeed, “children of God … heirs.”

Matthew’s Gospel recounts a day of preaching for Jesus [13:1-9, 18-23]. Jesus has to get in a boat because so many people had come to hear his simple message of love. He told stories. He pulled no punches: “let anyone with ears listen.” His parable of the seed is all about faith, and all about the power of the persistence of love, which always wins.

God loves you.

God loves us.

God created us, as we are, in God’s own image.

God wants us to do a special job, which is to show that family comes from love.

May Pride be with us all always.

Proper 10 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23)

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

Trial-and-Error Faith

It rained Friday. It wasn’t supposed to. But, I kept praying “please rain.” And then, to help it along, I got the car washed.

But it rained. It hadn’t rained in 21 days and no rain was forecast for any time soon. And then there it was all night and all day about ½” which is really terrific for my arugula and basil and zinnias and lettuces not to mention the roses which are blooming in abundance.

And there’s another thing: I had heard all my life how impossible it was to have roses, and then I went to a friend’s house about 10 years ago and WHOA! the whole yard was filled with giant rose bushes taller than me and all blooming and blooming … so I got a couple just to see; this was when I was still back in the Midwest.

Then I moved here. Portland. It’s the “rose city,” right? So I planted roses, in pots and in the ground, and what do you know they actually enjoy being in my garden and they keep blooming and blooming.

I always have enjoyed them, but at first I wondered why they just bloomed once and quit.

Then a family crisis led to clipping roses every day to try to bring some joy; and what do you know, they kept blooming and blooming.

So now I clip the flowers and bring them in and we have beautiful vases of roses in our house. And in the gardens they keep on blooming, putting out new feelers and ever more clusters of blossoms.

It seems to me this is an example of faith, especially of the kind of faith that requires trial-and-error, and of course, it is an example of God’s faithfulness in creation.

In Genesis [12:1-9] we have this story about Abram (later he will be called Abraham) answering God’s call. It’s a long story but what I think is critical is that he just keeps going, he keeps trying one thing and then another, and especially at each step he keeps giving thanks. He “built an altar to the Lord” and then “he moved on” and then “he pitched his tent” and “built an altar to the Lord” and on and on he “journeyed on by stages.”

That’s the revelation of scripture about real life, isn’t it? We just journey on by stages. But what was the key for Abram? The key was gratitude, giving thanks, but more importantly being thankful; every time Abram pitched a tent he built an altar and gave thanks.

I’ve experienced a series of little miracles lately … I now laugh when they come because, of course, it gives me such joy, but also because I see how it works even if only in a mirror darkly (as Paul might have said). Some, if not most, have come from my singing praise without even thinking about it, not to mention healthy doses of trial-and-error. So trust me, don’t forget to give thanks and especially to sing your thanks as praise, as Augustine is said to have advised prayer sung is twice prayed.

Play the harp, the psaltery, the lyre, the trumpet, sing a new song, sound a fanfare … of loving kindness, which fills the whole of creation … [Psalm 33]

How funny, it is Paul here [Romans 4:13-25] who reminds us Abram was 100 years old when this story began! But the story is all about inheriting love through righteousness, which is walking in love. And it all rests on faith, which is the faith in knowing that love is the power of the universe, that love works, that love creates, that love gives, that loving creates more loving.

In Matthew 9 [9-13, 18-26] Jesus reminds the crowd that it is not about the establishment, but rather, it is about those who have fallen aside, those who are disconnected, those who need to heal, those who need healing. For Jesus, “healing” is not just about illness of the body, it is about being cast out of the body of Christ. He tells the woman with sores that her faith has made her well. He raises the daughter of the synagogue’s leader by offering love. He takes her by the hand to guide her back into the community.

And so Jesus takes us by the hand. It is a good moment for us to remember that it is we, God’s LGTBQ heirs, who are taken by Jesus’ hand and brought, in loving, into the community of all creation. It is in our pride in the loving selves God has made us in God’s own image, it is in our colorful diversity, it is in drag, in joy, in songs of praise, and indeed in our outcastness, our differentness, our oppression—it is in all these ways and uncounted others that Jesus takes us by the hand and shows us that healing is in the way of love.

Jesus takes us by the hand and reminds us that it is our faith, however trial-and-error it seems, it is our faith sung in songs of praise that makes us well. It is our faith that we are God’s LGBTQ heirs who are called to heal creation with the love that overflows in our hearts.

Proper 5 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 12:1-9; Psalm 33:1-12; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26)

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

From Mercy to Grace through Love

Mercy is that little break you need when just one more thing will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back; mercy is that space of relief you need when you just can’t take it anymore … which is why theologians talk about the quality of mercy … how deep does it need to be, how abiding must it be? The answer is, that stuff doesn’t matter, what matters is that there is, in the end, mercy, for those who are plugged into God

God has promised to all of us, who are made in God’s own image, who are living out the lives God has given us, that God will bless us, if we just remember to stay plugged in, and if we do that, we ourselves will become the blessing, and those who bless us will be blessed and all the earth will be blessed … wow, and it all starts with love in our own hearts (as God created us to be, after all) … love builds up as Paul says.

Faith, unlike what you have heard, is not about following rules. Faith is about what is in your heart. Are you in love with God’s love? It won’t matter what you say outwardly because God who is love will know, from what is truly in your heart. What to do about deeper faith, closer connection? Clear the cobwebs from your mind and your soul and just let your heart love.

And this will be righteousness which is grace lived out, which follows faith as. That’s another way of saying love builds up.

Jesus says, “pay attention.” It is a conundrum for sure how we all are alike and at the same time all completely different. And yet it is eternally true that that *#*$ person over there is a child of creation and an heir of God and is as created in God’s image as you and I are. And so Jesus’ admonition to “pay attention” is a reminder that it is from God that love comes and to God that love goes but only through the complex interlinking synergistic universe of all creation that love flows. In other words, it is in this universal access to God’s love that we all are the same, even in our fabulous uniqueness.

Which is another reason for God’s LGBTQ heirs to ponder faith, mercy, righteousness and grace in Lent. We are God’ specially created people who are identified uniquely by how we love. Building up that love is our job.

2 Lent Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121 Levavi oculos; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17) ©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Prayer, Joy, Faith

We are on a prayer trajectory it seems. Last Sunday I wrote about sustaining, connecting, present prayer. This week the scripture again points us directly to prayer, but this time with an emphasis on the expression of faith.

Is your prayer “lead me, guide me?” This is the prayer God, creation, the universe, the power of love, is looking for. “Lead me, guide me.”

This week my husband and I drove up (okay, we drove to the east) the Columbia Gorge and back so he could have a fun outing and a good sandwich. It was great. Portland and environs were engulfed in smoke from a wildfire in Washington State, but the Gorge was clear, with marine winds sweeping up the river. The big water of the Columbia River is soothing all by itself in its power and majesty. My husband ate an enormous bratwurst. I bought a whole salmon from the good folks under the Bridge of the Gods. It was fun, but it also was tender for the love we shared in the quiet moments in the presence of nature. We loved each other even more as we were doing it and yet more still in the evening at home, basking in the joy of the day.

I think we all as LGBTQ people are feeling threatened, for good reason. Those of us who are old enough probably know that LGBTQ people had vast liberation in the early 20^th century but it was all pulled back by oppression from the right wing in the 1930s and that lasted until the 1970s. We all know it could easily happen again.

Whatever else we do in the political world, which is not my mandate here, we must follow the law of love that God gives us. We must have faith expressed in the love we share. Hope must persist in the plans we make. And charity is how we make sure that both faith and hope persist—we must remain in the aura of love, we must constantly “be glad and rejoice.”

LOL there is a lot of scripture this week about rain. Well I can tell you we had months of 100 degree heat, and then we had a week of air quality nightmares with yellow foggy skies, and then God’s rain began and now even my lawn that looked like hay after one night of rain is green again. Hallelujah!

The sky is blue and hope has returned to us in creation.

In Joel 2:23-32 the prophet is led by God to proclaim the relief of rain “[God] has given the early rain for your vindication, [God] has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before.” It is a sign that faith has been rewarded by equilibrium, it is the basis of hope for fertility and growth and of course for love. The psalmist (Psalm 65: 9, 11) responds “you visit the earth and water it abundantly; you make it very plenteous; the river of God is full of water … you drench the furrows and smooth out the ridges; with heavy rain you soften the ground and bless its increase.” At the close of his second letter to Timothy (4:6-8, 16-18) Paul stands firm on his own faith “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Luke 18:9-14 records a parable of Jesus comparing the prayer of the self-righteous to the prayer of a sinner.  Jesus reminds us “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, ….”

“Lead me, guide me” indeed. Pray. Have faith.

The rain will come, the earth will nourish all creation with love.

Above all else have joy. Because joy is the beginning of love, given, which is faith expressed.

Proper 25 Year C 2022 RCL (Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65 Te decet hymnus; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14)

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

Replenishing Love

There was a spectacular show outside my window last night, first the almost still full moon rose over the Douglas firs and moved across the sky, fairly rapidly, and then just as it was disappearing behind another stand of trees Jupiter emerged as though giving chase, and it moved across the sky … good thing I wasn’t asleep yet!

Nature is all around us here in Oregon, there is no escaping its beauty, majesty, magnificence, and yet also there is no escaping our interlocking responsibility for it. The trees and mountains and rivers are, indeed, beautiful, but they also are much more than backdrop to human life. We live among them, we coexist with them, we have responsibility for them as well as for our own selves. It is a real and constant opportunity to experience the Gospel of love in a way that reminds us that it is about much more than just warm feelings. The Gospel of love, the Good News of God in Christ Jesus, is the call to constant faith.

Not that we don’t have daily tests of our faith, just look at the news (or maybe don’t, look at the trees instead ….). I keep writing here that it is a constant challenge to remind ourselves that walking in love is not just about reacting to events around us. Rather, it is about the challenge to remain in a state of grace, a semblance of the beginning of love in our hearts at all moments, so that there always is the opportunity for that love to build up.

Love is faith and faith is love and faith and love must be steadfast. In Hebrews 11:20-40 Paul recounts the history of faith as revealed in the Old Testament texts. But he concludes in 12:1 that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Not only those who walked in love but those in the present who do as well, especially those among us who walk in love, steadfast in faith. We are to follow their example of the love that builds up, thus we are to “lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely” and “run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Words for all people in all times, for sure.

In Luke 12:49-56 Jesus has harsh words for almost everybody, including that he “came to bring fire;” he means he has come to see the flame of love kindled and the detritus of the absence of love swept away like underbrush. The fire Jesus wants to kindle is the fire of raging building love (a purification, a new beginning). It requires work and constant attention.

He ends by cajoling the crowd for their hypocrisy, and asking “why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” It is critically important in this instance to remember that these are Jesus’ words to the crowd in front of him. He is not asking us to interpret the daily news in 2022 as full of omens. Rather, he is excoriating the crowd to understand that it is his presence, his call, his challenge, his epiphany, his baptism and his death and resurrection that are there for them to see. Jesus means their hearts must be open to the new dimension of love, into which he has come to usher humanity.

Of course, scripture is for all time, that is its purpose. Of course, for us the present time is now, but what Jesus means is that the the time for experiencing Jesus’ love is always, in every moment. Jesus calls us to experience the replenishing cleansing fire he brings into our hearts because it is this that opens the way to the new dimension. He means, the time to turn to love always is now.

We are who God’s LGBTQ creation are especially privileged to be called to share the love that defines our identities. We must keep love foremost at the center of our being. We are guides into the dimension of love. The love we share can be the love that cleanses the underbrush, the love that builds up, the love that lights the way.

Proper 15 Year C 2022 RCL (Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1-2,8-18; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56)

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

Alert with Love

We are having a good summer, thanks be to God. The weather is great, the landscape is green, the gardens are rich at last (except for tomatoes, everybody in the Pacific Northwest is having trouble with the tomatoes because of the late rainy spring). In addition to ducking out to the garden for herbs or greens I’m also cutting fresh flowers a few times a week. I feel like Miss Marple heading out the door with my basket and clippers! One evening last week we had a party for ourselves on the patio, it was great fun, lots of good food ending with marshmallows roasted over the fire pit. My husband and I are both healthy, which is great. And, one day I even had a complete run of green lights all the way home. I diligently remembered to say “thank you, thank you, thank you” for each light!

It is the thanks that is the operative thing, after all, it is gratitude that builds love by building good feelings in the heart. It is the remembrance of the source of life and creation that links us not only to God but to one another.

In the opening of Isaiah (1:1, 10-20) God rants (yes, rants!) about the formalities of worship—sacrifices of bulls and goats, clouds of incense, solemn festivals and singing. Of course, the problem is that the people have replaced faithfulness—the remembrance of and gratitude for the source of life—with functions. The worship has become human-centered, the people do those things that make them happy rather than those things that express true gratitude. It is a curiously important lesson now even as it was in Isaiah’s day twenty-nine centuries ago. The psalmist agrees (50:24) “Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me.”

Paul writes about faith and faithfulness in the letter to the Hebrews (11:1016) that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for.” They key is verse 2 “by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” In other words, creation is the product of God’s love, which is sustained by our interconnection with God, with creation and with each other through active love.

In Luke 12 (32-40) Jesus reminds his disciples that “it is [God’s] good pleasure to give you the kingdom” and that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” “Blessed are those” who are alert in the moment of God’s immanence. Let’s take an example—when the supreme court went rogue in June and overturned a constitutional right to bodily integrity we had an option to be angry, to spiral deeper and deeper into despair, to be consumed by our anger. But we also had an option to love each other even more, to love our independence even more, to love our connection with God even more, and to fortify ourselves with God’s love. This is what Jesus means by “be alert”—he means by all means acknowledge reality but do not let the absence of love consume you.

It is our job as LGBTQ people not only to love but to demonstrate our love to the world around us. Thanks be to God we have an entire summer of pride around the world. We parade in all of our human glory, we sing and we dance, but we remember to give thanks for who we have been made to be in God’s own image. And we show in our grasped hands and in parades everywhere the power of building up creation, of inhabiting God’s kingdom, with just a little bit of love.

Proper 14 Year C 2022 RCL (Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24 Deus deorum; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40)

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