Keep thinking*

It is tough to move around. No matter how nice a place your new place is, the change is always problematic. The shifting of culture is really more important than most of us think. We think the US is one country and everything is the same, but we really are a nation of 50 countries, and each one has its own collection of cultures, and they all really are different from each other.

Wisconsin is lovely. We are especially moved, after 30 some years in the Northeast corridor, to see the sky. And especially at night. We can see the moon, and the stars—all of them—against the inky black sky. And now we live on the edge of Lake Michigan, which is one of the world’s largest inland seas—freshwater notwithstanding. Just those things, simple as they sound, are part of the different culture here, and especially are part of our comprehension of this new place where we find ourselves.

I think maybe because I have not worked as a priest much (I am not yet licensed in Milwaukee, and have served only once in Philadelphia since moving in May), I have a kind of secular perspective. I notice how, when I hear church people talk, they sound churchy. And it almost immediately turns me off. There was an interesting article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a week or so ago about how churches are trying to attract young men. We drove past a place last week called “Brew City Church.” We laughed, but I bet they get more young men than anything with a saint in its name. So, I am going to try to make a theological point here without getting churchy. Let’s see how well I do.

To know, in the ancient texts, usually is code for sex. And when it isn’t code for sex, it is metaphor for the kind of melding that happens between souls during sex. Somehow the most human moment we can experience is also crossed with the most holy moment. And when the Old Testament prophets talk about “knowing” God, they mean having that kind of intimate experience with God, knowing God in your soul, and God knowing you in your soul. This is the second Sunday in Advent. Christmas is three weeks away (take that! all you premature marketers!). And God says through the prophet Isaiah that “the earth will be full of the knowledge of God.” Wow. The whole of the earth, every living thing, is destined to know the soul of God.

It means that you should take time in these deliciously dark nights of winter to look inside your own soul, to find God within you. The only sin, remember, is refusing to be one with God.

In this week’s scripture, we have the story of John the Baptist appearing in the wilderness. He eats locusts and honey—ick! And the author of Matthew’s Gospel has him saying some dramatic things. But the most important thing he says is this, which Jesus also will keep saying (a sort of leitmotif in Matthew’s Gospel): “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

So let’s see. Repent means pause and look inward. Re- pent; pent, again. Do it again. Look inward, again, and again, and again. Because the kingdom of heaven not only has come near, it is here, nearby. Only by continually thinking (pent, penser, to think) can you move yourself into God’s dimension. God’s dimension of reality. Only by moving to the dimension where you know God will you find God’s kingdom.

In God’s dimension of reality there is justice. And there is peace. And there is equality for all of God’s creatures. We who are glbt must re-pent until we are truly proud of the souls God has given us to live in. When we have done that we will stop bowing to hetero-hegemony. Then we will see that the blindness society has keeps people from seeing that some people are not replicas but are diverse. Nature is diverse. Humanity is diverse. God’s creation is diverse. We are diverse.

Have a soulful second Sunday in Advent. (Remember, Christmas begins at sundown on Christmas Eve, the 24^th of December. Don’t be saying “happy holiday” to people for six *$&^@ weeks!)

*2 Advent (Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12)

©2013 The Rev.Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.