Pride for Pentecost

Today is the Feast of Pentecost, the celebration of the receipt and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the “first fruits” [Romans 8:23] of salvation.

We wait, as in all of life, with hope in our hearts, for the fulfillment of love [Romans 8:25].

In churches we wear red to symbolize the fire of the Holy Spirit, but also its power. We read the story from Acts 2:1-11 about the first Pentecost, we try to recreate it with singing and by reading in different languages. We focus on the “amazed and perplexed” [Acts 2:12] part of the story.

But, do we follow the signs all around us? Do we know when the Holy Spirit is with us?

We get carried away by the part about the wind and the fire; those are Old Testament cues for the presence of God’s Spirit. Let’s look at the story again.

“They were all together in one place,” in a house, it says, and they were sitting. They made a lot of noise, babble we might say, talking each in their own way, rather like an airport departure lounge, eh?

They were filled with the Holy Spirit, all of them, each according to their own ability, experiencing God’s deeds of power, rather like a wedding dinner, eh?

Or a parish supper? Or an LGBTQ+ community center potluck? A Pride festival?

The crowd was perplexed, some of them sneered.

Maybe like a Pride festival? In fact, if you want to experience pretty much the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a crowd of loving people gathered together in one place each experiencing God’s love according to their own ability, expressing their love aloud each talking in their own way … go to any Pride festival.

There you will see the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit, the Advocate [John 16:7], to dwell among those who believe in the promise of the power of God’s love, to empower those who live fully into their own created being, to uplift those who walk in love.

There you will see and hear the whole creation “groaning in labor pains” [Romans 8:22] in anticipation of salvation, which is the fulfillment of God’s love.

God’s Spirit resting in the hearts of those who love will indeed receive the “Spirit of truth …” and be guided into all truth [John 16:13], which is that glory is love and love is glory.

Amen.  

The Day Of Pentecost: Whitsunday 2024 Year B RCL (Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15)

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

Pray. Love is Endemic.

Love surpasses all understanding. How is that? If you know the power of love; not sentimental warm feelings, but truth, justice, righteousness—the things that define God’s love–then you know that love surpasses all understanding. God pours love into our hearts so that we might give love out through our own love of life building it up until the whole of creation sings with joy.

As indeed it is doing right now. The rhododendrons are blooming gloriously, shortly it will be warm enough to plant vegetables for the summer, the peonies are swelling to blossom, after some dry spells the spring rain is gloriously back in Oregon giving us the opportunity for short drives in the rain, for in-between sunny day glimpses of Mount Hood glistening with new snow. Love is endemic.

There are two broad categories of prayer, or maybe I should say, approaches to prayer. Kataphatic prayer is the kind we find in liturgies, precise words repeated over and over in specific patterns. Apophatic prayer is the kind used in “centering” prayer, in which there is no content, only the job of being still and listening for what God brings (here is a tutorial).

I have always been more attracted to kataphatic prayer. Indeed, I find it apophatic in its repetitive nature. That is, as the prayer is recited over and over, consciousness shifts from the foreground to the back, where indeed there is silence, and room for God to enter in. But that’s just me I guess.

I thought of this when I saw this week’s story from Acts [10:44-48] where it says “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.” LOL, his kataphatic voice lulled them into apophatic presence. They were lulled into a trance by Peter’s voice and in the trance the Holy Spirit occupied their hearts. The listeners were converted by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Fascinatingly, the story ends by telling us they invited Peter to stick around for awhile.

But there also is a story here about the spiritual welcoming of those were were outcast. The crowd Peter was preaching to was a mix of insiders and outcast; the insiders were “astounded” that the outcasts could get it, not just that they heard and understood but that they received the Holy Spirit.

It reminded me of church conventions, where of necessity everyone is together in one place and in worship the divisions must cease. It is in such arenas that LGBTQ+ people are at their most powerful just by their presence, especially their visible presence among the faithful. Sing a new song, indeed [Psalm 98]. This past week after decades of division our United Methodist kin, in convention, used the joy and love in their hearts to bring LGTBQ+ people into full membership. The insiders embraced the formerly outcast and all of the faithful received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

John’s first epistle of love [1 John 5:1-6] continues to explain how all of us who know God’s love must be (as there can be no other possibility) children of God. We know God’s love because we know love as we know gravity. We know love as we know rain and sun and hugs and tears. We know love because we are love because we are people of love.

In John’s Gospel [15:9-17] Jesus tells his disciples about the transcendence of love: “As [God] has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Joy must be in us for us to make love complete. But God’s love brings us such joy that we have the capacity to make more love. Love builds up. If we love one another creation will bring everything we need.

Let us embrace the Holy Spirit, rejoice in inclusiveness, and pray however we can for peace in the Holy Land.

6 Easter Year B 2024 RCL (Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98 Cantate Domino; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17)

©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.