Logical Families of Love

Summer has almost come to Oregon. Our roses are blooming; no wonder Portland was long ago declared “Rose City”–roses absolutely love the climate here. Their beauty attracts not only the wonder and love of humans, who, in loving them, build up love, but also, of course, bees … every time I go out to clip flowers I get to mingle with bees buzzing merrily around. It is God’s creation, which is intended to be a synchrony, and when things work in sync, life is filled with love.

Amazing love.

Glorious love.

Grace, which is the gift of love.

The love that dwells in our hearts, which leads us to sing thanks and praise, is the pathway to eternal life [Psalm 138].

We live in a complex multiverse. In one dimension you and I are God’s graced, gifted, LGBTQ+ people, living lives of love, giving love with every breath, building up love. It is critical that we continue to build up love, so that the dimension in which we live is filled up with love and has no room for a void.

Wisdom is experienced love in action, the very voice of love. That void I mentioned above can occur in other dimensions where love is not so prevalent, such that there is space for fear to intrude; fear rejects wisdom [1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)].

Grace is love realized in action [2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1]. Grace expands to more and more people as love builds up. As grace abounds, thanks abound, and more love is built up. Love, which is eternal, cannot be seen but renews “our inner nature … day by day … we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” which is the firmament of love.

Jesus builds an edifice on love, on walking in love, on love realized which is grace, on experienced love which is wisdom. Mark’s Gospel [3:20-35], which is pretty straight-forward in its narrative, tells it like it is: “The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat.” Wow. That’s love for sure.

As Jesus goes love builds up and the people who realize the power of that love crowd around him. In Mark’s Gospel the dimension of love in which Jesus is operating is distinguished from others by an inside-outside continuum. We learn that Jesus’ biological family, “standing outside,” live in fear that obscures wisdom and grace. Jesus, inside the dimension of God’s love, reminds the crowd that it is those who walk in love who are really family.

I suppose it is inevitable to talk about logical or found or chosen family here. It is Pride month after all. We owe the term “logical family” to Armistead Maupin, who used it to describe families like those portrayed in the series Tales of the City. In Logical Family: A Memoir (HarperCollins, 2017) he wrote:

Sooner or later, though, no matter where in the world we live, we must join the diaspora, venturing beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us. We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives.

Logical family is the gathering of those we love, who love, us, with whom we journey through our lives.

Let me show you some pictures.

This is my biological family gathered on the occasion of my ordination as a priest in 1998 (June 13, 1998, Trinity Memorial Church, Philadelphia):

It’s a pretty typical American family. That’s my brother with his hand on my shoulder and my Dad (his father, my step-father), then my husband to my right (your left) and his father, that’s his mother peaking over my mother’s shoulder, seated is my Dad’s wife, all the way to the left are my aunt and her husband and two cousins and one cousin’s wife and son. Some of us are related biologically, all of us are related through love. Many in this picture dwell with God now, but the love that binds us is eternal.

It is more difficult to portray my logical family, there are so many parts of it! First is a picture of our closest friends on the occasion of the blessing of our relationship in Urbana, Illlinois in 1986 (that’s us in the middle, our best friends Tom on the left and Harry on the right):

Here is a picture of more logical family gathered the evening before my ordination as deacon (June 21, 1997):

If you look closely you will see that the same two guys from 1986 (Tom and Harry) are in the photo from 1997, along with new friends, and my brother and my mother (lower right) (I’ve just been presented with the stole that will be given to me in ordination, which Tom is holding out of the frame).

This is some of our family of love, this is an example of the family we live eternally with in God’s dimension of love.

What does your family look like? Just look around you to see, to know, to receive grace and wisdom from those who occupy God’s dimension of love with you.

Proper 5 Year B 2024 RCL (1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15); Psalm 138; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35)

©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.

From Triumph to Triumph of Love and Grace

Triumph takes many forms. We read this scripture for the Liturgy of the Palms [Mark 11:1-11]  about parades on donkeys through streets lined with followers. What about the hug you give your beloved every morning? Isn’t that, too, triumph? I think it is. In every moment in which you are able to love and be loved … hug your beloved; give your neighbors a plate of cookies; smile at the grocery cashier who took the trouble to smile at you … those are life’s triumphs. We are meant to treasure them.

Because it is God’s purpose in creation that we should live from triumph to triumph, from hug to hug, from cookies to smiles. And we are asked to give thanks as we go, because, as we see, love builds up.

We walk with Christ each day. We walk the way of creation, life is full of stumbles and steep cliffs and as we negotiate them, and survive them, and celebrate our triumphs with pure love, we are walking with Christ.

In the Liturgy of the Word for Palm Sunday [Mark 14:1-15:47] we walk the way of the cross. Have you ever wondered about the other people in this story, those with no names, or those we’ve never encountered before? There are bystanders and crowds and helpers all along the way. But in this story two things stand out for me, the young man following Jesus who ran away [Mark 14:51], and the women looking on from a distance … who used to follow Jesus [Mark 15:40 ff.]. I think this is where we are visible in the narrative of the way of the cross. These precious, loving people who are for whatever reason less than full members of society in their own day, these folks are made alive—literally healed—in the ministry of Jesus.

We who are God’s LGBTQ+ created people, we who populate that dimension in God’s multiverse, we are those people healed by his love. We are the fountain of love God has built up, from triumph to triumph, to provide the grace from which salvation springs.

Palm Sunday Year B RCL 2024 (The Liturgy of the Palms: Mark 11:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; The Liturgy of the Word: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16 In te, Domine, speravi; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1-15:47) ©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Love Blooming into Eternity

Daffodils are blooming.

Tulips are next.

The rhythm of life is always visible.

I love life.

I love my husband.

I surely love God.

Life is messy by nature for sure, which is what makes it “unruly” (to quote this week’s collect). It is one thing to believe in love and another thing entirely to keep love uppermost as you go through the day dealing with dropping your keys, stubbing your toe, forgetting to pick up tomatoes on the way home, dealing with traffic, and on and on and on. We ask to be granted “grace,” which is love unbounded and freely given, because if we can achieve a state of grace then our hearts will be fixed on the place where love prevails.

God’s law is love. God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah [32:31-34] that love has been written on our hearts, in other words, God has made it a part of our created nature. An inscription for eternity. So we will know that when we love we are naturally the people of God.

The Psalmist [51:1-13] sings a prayer for mercy according to God’s “loving kindness” and “great compassion.” Cleanse us from disconnection by washing away unruliness; create a clean heart that will make my spirit love until joy sustains me.

The epistle to the Hebrews [5:5-10] connects Christ to the Old Testament stories of creation by reminding us that God has created Christ a “priest forever.” A priest is one who accepts responsibility for mediating God and humanity. One accepts the responsibility both from God and from one’s peers. The job is richly rewarding, on the one hand, and constantly challenging on the other. Although on the face of it there are lots of potlucks and plumbing repairs and learning to fire up the oil burner, mostly, the job is to lead, spiritually.

That’s it, to lead, spiritually. Christ “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,” linking through eternity to the people of creation. In other words, all is all, all time is all at once, and God is just God. Paeans to God notwithstanding, God is not a mighty warrior or a royal prince or anything else other than what people need God to be.

And we need more than ever for God to be love.

In John’s Gospel [12:20-33] Jesus reveals the truth of love and connection and all creation. A grain of wheat falls on the earth, it germinates, in that it ceases to be a grain of wheat, becoming a plant that bears fruit that nourishes creation. We must likewise let our lives be open to the path of creation that makes us ever flexible for love. The Jesus tells the crowd: “Now is the judgment;” now is the time.

Now is always the time. Now is always connected to all eternity. The daffodils bloom in spring; but in between they are hard at work for next time creating new life, multiplying and generating more beauty. Love builds up.

A piece I saw this week in a gay venue said that now is the time for LGBTQ+ people to celebrate ourselves. Our community created in God’s own image of love, is incredibly loving.

I posted a picture this week of my hellebore, which I planted 3 years ago and which only now, at last, has bloomed. The loving response from other queer gardeners has been not only overwhelming but profound in its love. Love builds up.

Let us bloom like the hellebores and the daffodils and tulips, let us show our love shining forth in the universe, and then let us use that love to multiply and regenerate and to sustain connection with each other, with God, with creation, into eternity.

Happy Lent.  

5 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Jeremiah 31:31-34;; Psalm 51:1-13 Miserere mei, Deus; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33)

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

We Are What God Made Us

“For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” [Ephesians 2:10]

The greatest love story ever told is yours. Because you are what God has made you, prepared for love.

I know this because I know it is the truth of my life. The love my husband and I share saves us over and over and over and over. Love wins. But you have to let it.

And that, too, is the message of the Gospel. Love wins. If you let it.

There are a metaphors galore in this week’s scripture, it is the fourth Sunday in Lent after all, we should really be down there digging deep into our process of re-penting—rethinking and remembering the power of love.

In Numbers [21:4-9] the wanderers are angry and weary. In their weariness they turn inward and stop loving disconnecting themselves from each other and thus from God. Absent God’s love they become vulnerable. But they repent and reconnect and the love shared with God saves them.

In Psalm 107 [:1-3, 17-22] the Psalmist sings the story of the angry wanderers losing sight of their faith.

In the letter to the church at Ephesus [Ephesians 2:1-10] Paul gives a midrash on the same story, pointing out the punch line that salvation is by grace through faith … translation: love wins, but you have to let it.

In John’s Gospel [3:14-21} Jesus preaches about the true meaning of his impending Crucifixion and Resurrection. The point is, again, that love wins, but you have to get out of the way and let it.

Those who believe in the Son of Man, therefore believe in the power of walking in love, and therefore remain connected. Those who love life come to the light. Their salvation is now “realized” when they let it be within them.

What does that say to LGBTQ+ people?

Paul says “We are what [God] has made us.”

Jesus says “those who do what is true come to the light.”

Paul concludes “salvation is by grace through faith.”

4 Lent Year B RCL 2024 (Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21) ©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Microhabitats of Love

Microhabitats can be fascinating. It is time for Japanese Camellias to bloom in Oregon. My neighbor’s, which is about 100 meters away from my study window, has been blooming for two weeks. Mine just started blooming this week; as I drive around I see some blooming, some just budding. What makes the difference?

Well, sometimes they’re called microhabitats, small spaces that have microclimates. I know, for example, that the roses and Japanese Maple east of my house are in a protected environment and the sun’s warmth is amplified there. But in my west garden under pretty serious tree canopy, the same plants are weeks behind. Fascinating.

But then, how is it we comprehend that, but we cannot comprehend that we live in a multidimensional universe, where some of us live in a universe of love? All at once.

God, who is love, which is the power of creation, which is the force of the universe, took human form in Jesus, to teach us how to move into and thrive in the dimension of love.

Abram, encounters God, and is transformed [Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16]. Encounter with God causes what theologians call an “ontological shift;” being itself changes. You might have experienced this–my own experiences of ontological shift include my marriage and my ordinations. Everything looks the same, but everything is different too. In the story, Abram’s body is changed from elderly to vibrant, his name is changed because his being is now suffused with love, his wife is also transformed, which further transforms his ontological reality. In the aftermath of the encounter Abraham receives from God a covenant of love fulfilled.

On the face of it, the story is about how God “changes” Abram and Sarai into Abraham and Sarah. But that misses the point. In reality—one might even say in truth—Abram and Sarai were walking in love where they encountered God as they moved into the eternal dimension of love.

The Psalmist rejoices with praise [Psalm 22:22-30]. Love, God, is open to every petition. Love, God, fulfills, fills, satisifies. Love, God, sustains the heart, the heart sustains love in synchrony, love builds up.

Paul’s own midrash on Abraham [Romans 4:13-25] is focused on the promise of the covenant of love eternal, which comes through the experience of faith, which is lived experience of love. It was Abraham and Sarah’s life of loving that drew them closer to the realization of their encounter with God. In other words, love builds up, love is attracted to love, love rests on grace which is love received, faith builds as love builds as lived experience. Love, walking in love, is living rightly. “Therefore … faith was reckoned … as righteousness.”

In Mark’s Gospel [8:31-38] Jesus has quite directly told the disciples the details of the journey toward crucifixion and resurrection on which he, Jesus, and they, have embarked. Peter rebukes Jesus for saying such things. Peter lets his feelings overwhelm him. Jesus calls out the absence of love; he says to get the absence of love behind him. Jesus makes the difficult proclamation “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” To cling to self, to things, to hunker down is to shut out love, which is to lose life itself. It is a tough lesson to learn that those who give up whatever love requires thereby enter the dimension of salvation in which love transforms everything.

LGBTQ+ people often live in microhabitats subject to microclimates. We live deeply into the love we share, which is the love that defines us, which is the love with which we are created in God’s own image. We cling fiercely to our security. We celebrate our love. We have been called to walk in the dimension of love, to be transformed by love, to be the visible evidence of the power of love. We are called to lead the building up of love that has the power to transform our microhabitats into the grace and power of the dimension of love. We are called to show how to receive from God a covenant of love fulfilled.

2 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30 Deus, Deus meus; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38)

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

Rejoice, Dance, Sing, Love

I have a priest-friend (like me, a gay man) who likes to say that people need ritual. It is a topic that comes up in Anglicanism with regard to the level of ritual employed in worship. Some churches are highly formal about their ritual and others eschew it altogether—except, in those places they always replace it with some ritual of their own. Maybe there is no Great Litany in Procession, but there is likely to be a procession of flowers, or a circle of hand-holding, or some other formality that arises as a community expression of joy.

The same is true in the secular world. If you want an obvious example just look at the Olympic Games. Not only is there a highly stylized ritual procession of athletes—the “opening” ceremony—but there also is ceremony before, during and after each event, from the introduction of the athletes, to the formality of the competition, to the medal award ceremony. It is a formal way of the community giving thanks and rejoicing.

I have been fortunate in my ministry to be involved in ritual from the beginning. I was ordained on a Saturday morning, served at my first mass the next morning, and the morning after that found myself processing into the General Convention of the Episcopal Church with a zillion (ok, maybe 30 or so) other clergy to music by Handel. What could be more grand? I remember the moment because the exhilaration was profound. Later in my ministry I was blessed to serve at a church where the organist was so terrific that, as I mounted the steps into the pulpit to preach, the improvised music had just enough of some music that was individually profound (for me, often the strains of the hymn “General Seminary”) to get me to the point of tears as I reached the lectern. The beauty of it was that it moved me into soul-space from which my sermons then could proceed unfettered by ego (or traffic noise from outside).

In my secular life I was most profoundly moved I think in the gay discos of the 1970s. I loved to dance, I loved the music, for sure. But what was profound was the joy, the happiness, the smiles, the singing along with the dance. The energy on the dance floor was profoundly a ritual of rejoicing, of thanksgiving, of love freely given, of justice even if just for a moment. There are lots of other examples too, of course. What about the ritual of the drag show? Costume, ceremony, formal stylized events—it was my great and profound privilege to be a good friend of Madame Michelle DuBarry, Toronto’s famous drag queen and Empress VI and XXVI of the Imperial Court of Toronto. And, we can’t forget Pride and its parades. The whole point is a ritual of community rejoicing and, well, pride!

It seems the ritual of joy is a responsibility of LGBTQ+ life. It is not just an expression, it is a calling, to create a dimension of love and rejoicing that lifts the whole community.

In Advent as we experience the changing seasons around us and are reminded of the solemnity of the Christmas experience we also are called on this Sunday to step back a bit and rejoice, to give thanks, to experience love in community. Gaudete Sunday it is called (or Rose Sunday, if you will). We light the rose candle on the Advent wreath, rose vestments appear, we give thanks for grace and mercy. We know that grace is love freely given, that mercy is justice freely given, that love and justice are the same thing, because justice is love in action. And in the relief of the rose vestments and the lighting of the rose candle we know from the ritual of rejoicing that Christmas is coming. We know that love has indeed come to help and deliver us.

Isaiah [61:1-4, 8-11] prophesies that God’s good news takes the form of being “clothed with the garments of salvation … the robe of righteousness.” A ritual metaphor of righteousness, which is right-living, walking in love. The robe of righteousness is the glory of love worn as adornment. Creation’s glory springs up with thanksgiving, as the earth brings forth its shoots, as the rose candle symbolizes hope. The Psalmist [126] responds in praise. “Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.” Praise is joy expressed with the body, laughter, shouts, happiness endorphins are released physically; it is something God gave us in creation. We are intended to be joyous, to stir up love. We are called to rejoice.

Paul reminds us [1 Thessalonians 5:16-28] to “rejoice always, [to] pray without ceasing.” Part of joy is prayer, remembering to give thanks to God; remembering to feed the Spirit with joyousness; remembering to use joy to feed the body—no wonder we create ritual.

John’s Gospel [1:6-8, 19-28] tells us (as Mark did last week) about John the Baptist, who “came as a witness to testify to the light.” John quotes Isaiah when he says “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’” We all are called to witness to love, to testify to the joy God has given us. The wilderness is the noise of the world. Our voices of joy call love into our presence, making clear the pathway for the coming of God into our midst. It is in the rejoicing to which we have been called that we find the pathway into the dimension of love.

3 Advent Year B 2023 RCL (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28)

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

Great is Grace, the Embodiment of Love

We had a mini-vacation this week. We just went up the river (LOL, we went up the Columbia Gorge) for a few days to escape. Curiously the heat dome followed us, so we were pretty much stuck inside. It was ok, the Gorge is beautiful at any time, truly one of earth’s natural wonders. There is no question why it was (and still is) for so many people for millenia, sacred territory. It is at once life-giving (water, sky, fish, trees, etc.) and a bit terrifying because of its immensity. It wasn’t always navigable and it is easy now to see why making it so was such a major feat of human engineering.

As vacation is meant to be, it was a time of grace, a time of respite, a time for healing.

Grace … that’s that thing that catches you from falling, that stops you from bad thoughts, that holds you up in difficult moments … that is grace. We receive grace constantly from the love we give; this is the relationship we have with God, who is love. When we love then we receive, it is as simple as that. If we want the grace to continue we must give thanks constantly, eternally.

Well, last week we saw Joseph stripped of his dream coat and sold into slavery. And I said to stay tuned. Because here we are in the next chapter (Genesis 45:1-15). Famine has ravaged the land and so, like so many refugees we see in constant movement today, Joseph’s brothers have gone to Egypt looking for food and work. And somehow or other they have been ushered into the court of who else but Joseph, who now is “Lord of [Pharoah’s] house and ruler over all the land of Egypt [45:8].” Joseph has become a leader of prominence because he has saved millions from famine. And now he promises his brothers, if only they will send his love to his father, that he will guarantee their future too.

Let us not miss the point that the reason Joseph was disliked by his brothers was not just because he was the “son of Jacob’s old age” but because he was one of us. Why else would they call him a “dreamer” and attack him and throw him in a pit and sell him to itinerant merchants? And now the dreamer has become the embodiment of love; he has saved the people from famine. And he says to his brothers “see, this was God’s plan all along” …

And that is grace.

in Romans 11 {1-2a] Paul establishes his credentials as descendant of Jacob’s brother Benjamin, and thus of Abraham. And in an oblique reference to the story of Jacob [11:29] “God has not rejected [God’s] people whom [God] foreknew.” And thus, like Jacob, who received grace and was enabled to dispense love to create enduring grace, we see that even for us God’s gifts are without question; God’s gifts are irrevocable; God’s gifts are eternal for all who can make the loving shift into the dimension of God’s love.

In Matthew’s Gospel [15:10-28] Jesus preaches—“Listen and understand”—that the dietary laws are not of God (“it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person”); rather, “it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” And what, then, comes out of the mouth that defiles? Hate, oppression, rejection, disconnection, caste, class, arrogance—“what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.” This is why grace requires personal vigilance, personal attention, personal action, in every moment, to cleanse your heart to keep it focused outwardly on love.

To make his case ever more clear Matthew tells us the story of Jesus going away into a “foreign” region where he is approached by a woman who is essentially an outcast. She prays for mercy, for healing for her daughter. And we see Jesus struggle with his own heart until her faith breaks through. Grace.

As Anglicans we cannot miss that this is one of the sources of the prayer of humble access, a  much beloved text of the English reformation:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

It was an amazing creation of the English reformation, that we might learn to pray not to trust in our own righteousness, but that, as Jesus demonstrated, we learn to trust instead in God’s mercy.

Great is your faith if you just believe in love. If you believe in love you walk in love. If you walk in love you will experience grace.

Proper 15 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 45: 1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28)

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

Pride, Prevailing Grace

We are in Pride month, we are on the eve of “Juneteenth” … is it a coincidence that celebrations of liberation coincide?

They are the evidence of grace, which is the work of God’s love in and among us. Grace always prevails.

The hard part is that “prevail” part … unfortunately, it means there often are struggles. Pride is about LGBTQ people saying we are proud of who we are and more importantly, we are ready to proclaim our creation as people created in God’s image. Juneteenth, well, it is a celebration of the end of the enslavement of people in the United States, but as we know, it was the end of the beginning … we could hardly say that black people have equality in the US today. Just as we could barely choke it out that some of us queers are sort of equal a little bit sometimes.

But look at what God asks of us—to “proclaim with boldness the truth” and to “minister justice with compassion” [collect for Proper 6].

God appeared to Abraham “as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day” [Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)]. Theophany at high noon while you’re sitting on the front stoop? Not only does Abraham not realize this is God, God does nothing but appear and the sit down in the shade of the tree.

God drops in and waits for hospitality. What a concept!

Abraham begs pardon of the visitors and throws open his home and his larder. The whole household rushes to make a meal–they bake cakes, they roast a calf, they even make cheese! and then they stand by while they partake of hospitality.

And then grace prevails. Then, God says that Abraham, who is 100 and his wife Sarah who also is 100 will have a baby. And they do!

I love this story. At first Sarah hides, then she laughs, then she sings with joy. Abraham did not recognize God, but did the right thing anyway. How much does that sound like real life? How much does that sound like a pride parade? Laughter, song, tears of joy, and grace … not to mention the heat of the day.

We are called to follow the examples of Abraham and Sarah, to be hospitable—to walk in love—and to “offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving” [Psalm 116:11, 10-17], to sing praises to God and to creation.

Paul [Romans 5:1-8] reminds us that it takes perseverance. That although grace prevails, it is not without the hard work of walking in love that we realize grace. Paul writes that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint” because we are after all made of love at the core.

Sounds like Pride to me again. I am (erm) “mature” enough to remember when it was a crime to be me, to remember when I dare not express my love in public, to have known the joy of both dancing queens and marriage equality. I am wise enough to know that this fight has been fought over and over and over and that we must not now give in to the voices that would oppress and suppress us. We must walk in love, offer hospitality even in the heat of the day, and sing praises to God. We must march with joy and pride. Most of all we must persevere.

And grace will prevail.

Jesus goes on a campaign from town to town and he sees that the need is immense so he ordains his disciples to act as well in his name, to heal, to cure, to bless [Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)]. He gives them quite specific instructions, which, as we can see, match the actions of Abraham in the unknown presence of God.

And here is the sum for today: it is in hospitality that we will find that God is in our presence. When we open our hearts to the possibility of love we can see that God is with us always and that grace has indeed prevailed.

And, finally, is Jesus’ perfect advice about those who will not receive God .. shake the dust off your feet and move on … and when you find a welcome sing praises and give thanks.

Proper 6 Year A 2023 RCL (Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7); Psalm 116:1, 10-17 Dilexi, quoniam; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23))

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