Making Room for Love

I now declare it officially Christmas; Advent has ended, the expectation is fulfilled. Go ahead, light up your lights, power up the Christmas tree, knock yourself out with Christmas music.

The solstice is imminent, soon there will be more daylight than dusk in our days, soon love will blossom.

The Jeopardy professor’s tournament is over, Amy Schneider, trans-glorious champion will be back tomorrow.

Love will blossom this week, its power growing day by day until we reach Christmas Eve on Friday night and then Christmas itself on Saturday. We will sing “Joy to the World” and we will feast and we will hug and kiss. We will exchange gifts, because they are symbols of our love. My husband put all the ornaments on our enormous tree himself last weekend, and yesterday eagerly piled wrapped presents under it, his smile ebullient, his joy permeating the whole house. It made me love him even more, if you can imagine such a thing. Love builds up. We are so blessed.

It’s Christmas. Christmas is all about making room for love. God has prepared a mansion of love in which God has called us to dwell. God has prepared the path for love into our hearts and from our hearts into the world, a synergy of love building up joy and peace and righteousness and justice. Our souls proclaim God’s greatness and our spirits rejoice. In God’s love we are blessed, and with God’s love we bless each other.

The pandemic surges again, but this time we are prepared, we know how to take care of ourselves, we will not let even this suppress the love God has called us to live into, to share, to build up.

Go ahead, embrace joy.

4 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15 Magnificat Luke 1:46-55; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55))

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

It must be Christmas*

It must be Christmas because: a) everyone keeps saying happy holiday to me; and, b) it keeps snowing, and snowing, and snowing.

And school is over at last. Time for rest, time for peace. Last night was the longest night of the year; the night in which we sleep, deeply, to prepare, to purify, to be ready for the coming of innocence into our hearts. The solstice is upon us indeed.

Thus this is the moment of the coming of light. From this moment forward the light increases, not just in real terms in the daylight, but in our hearts and souls as well, as the warmth of this season, nurtured with God’s love, grows into fulfillment of God’s kingdom, in and through us. What more can I say?

It is not anybody’s generic “holiday.” It is going to be Christmas.

God just wants all of us to be one. Decorate, light, give, rejoice.

*4 Advent (Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25)

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

Reconnected*

Life’s storms swirl around us. Last Sunday was peaceful and sunny and cool in Milwaukee—LGBT Pride was kissed by the sun and blessed by God. The week saw torrential rains more than once, and those caused lots of delayed travel, and that caused lots of gnashing of teeth. Drama. Life is full of drama even in the best of times.

Lots of drama this week in the scripture. In Luke 7:50 Jesus says to the woman (identified as “a woman in the city, who was a sinner”) who has been bathing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair: “50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Jesus uses words like these at the end of most of his healing events. It points out the action inherent in healing, which is to bring peace into a chaotic void. Like a metaphorical thunderstorm, the things in life that keep us back hound us with battering winds and driving rain and distract us with noise and lightening and frighten us with seemingly unrestrainable power—how ever will I survive this?—we ask ourselves in the midst of it. And then, when it has passed, there is peace, stillness, and in that stillness is the knowledge of the presence of God and the certainty that we are not just in the presence of God but that we are indeed together with God. Jesus’ words also literally point the hearer (in this case, the woman, the Pharisees, and us) in a new direction, in the “way” of peace. The phrase “go in peace” is an instruction, but also literal direction for new life. She is literally reconnected with God; now she is instructed to turn in the direction of connectedness.

Ah, then there’s that word: sin. We are first told that the woman is a sinner, and then we hear Jesus announce that her sins are forgiven. We have to remember always that sin is separateness from God. Jesus is not telling the woman that he has forgotten her past. He is announcing her present, togetherness with Him, in which there cannot be separateness from God because Jesus is God. The Pharisees in the story act surprised, in fact they are playing their part as bigots well! They continue to look down on the woman, and, indeed, on Jesus, not grasping that God is in their midst. And so that is the contrast. The woman is without sin because she is with Jesus. The Pharisees remain mired in sin because their bigotry prevents seeing that God is right there with them. The difference between sin and togetherness with God is ours to create, ours to perceive. Apart from God we find ourselves tossed and turned in the maelstroms of life and together with God we go in peace. The difference is ours because it is only we who can separate ourselves from God.

We separate ourselves from God whenever we seek to make ourselves Godlike by making our priorities most important. In the Old Testament lesson Ahab who has not just the presence of God but the favor of God to be a king to God’s people—Ahab falls into the vortex of selfishness and rearranges lives to suit his own will, actually taking the life of Naboth so that he, Ahab, can have Naboth’s fine vineyard. What is the sin here? The sin here is putting God aside with the action of playing God. We do the same whenever we seek advantage over another of God’s creatures.

In Galatians Paul writes that “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” He means that he has put aside his tendency to sin, to separateness, and is now at one with God because Christ, who is God, lives in him. He has been crucified with Christ because the action of dying to sin is wrenching. It might mean putting aside treasured desires, it might mean yielding pride and what used to be called vainglory in order to weather the storm and come back to center, to that place where your faith has saved you and you now can go in peace.

For GLBT people it sometimes seems like all of life is one long storm, one long and lonely maelstrom. The false prophets cause the whole world to swirl with our condemnation. But it is they who have no faith, who have separated themselves from God, and obviously, it is they who have no peace. If we stand firm in the knowledge of God’s love for us, and in the certainty of God’s love in creating us just as we are in order to love just as we do, the it is we whose faith saves us. It is we who are connected, and eternally reconnected as children of God.

Go in peace.

*Proper 6 (1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a; Psalm 5:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3)

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

We rarely want to hear the truth*

I guess if you’ve been living through some of this year’s weather events, or last year’s, you’ll resonate with the idea that somehow something weird is going on. Let’s face it, global warming, which was a potential future about which we were warned, is here. It isn’t pleasant already, and this is just the beginning. Wait until we have whole months of temperatures over 100 with no rain ….

Well, we were warned, and we were well warned. And yet according to my newspaper some huge proportion of Americans still don’t believe it. Somehow, it seems people rarely want to hear the truth.

Maybe it’s just stubbornness. I mean, if I keep doing what I’ve always done, it ought to work eventually, right? Except, of course, if it never has been working. That isn’t going to change. Ergo, we don’t like to hear the truth, because it nearly always comes with a big dose of change.

So, why don’t we like to hear the truth? Because we don’t like change. That, I think, must be some sort of defense mechanism in our animal creation wherein we are programmed to do the same things over and over as second nature. Sort of like we get this “fight or flight” response that was useful when we needed to run from dinosaurs but turns out to be unhelpful when it comes up during office hours.

Yet, God always tells us the truth. God is always telling us the truth about our own reality in God’s own kingdom. As we read in Amos this week, God has set a plumb-line among God’s people …. Have you ever used a plumb-line? I have. It’s very useful, especially in determining exact level in carpentry. So I’m sure God also finds it very useful; if the plumb is swinging left to right it is scribing an arc along which God should expect to find all faithful people. Notice, I did not say all faithful people were stuck to the plumb; rather, I said they all should be along the arc it inscribes. That’s how God’s kingdom works of course, it takes everyone, each in a different spot, to create the balance that pulls it all together.

The Psalmist says this week (one of my favorite lines): “mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Wow. Mercy and truth meet, and righteousness and peace kiss …. Well, it means, where truth is told mercy can be plentiful, and in that union of the two, the openness to change produces a merging, a kiss, if you will, of peace which is the peace that passes all understanding in unity with God.

It means, “listen to God, who is telling you the truth, and be open to change” and in your mere openness, comes the kiss of peace with unity with God.

As the letter to the church at Ephesus reminds us, we all are the blameless children of God, destined for adoption, redeemed throught Christ, and lavished with the riches of God’s grace.

What can I say to my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters this week? We rarely want to hear the truth. We do not want to accept change. The church has begun to offer us marriage—are you getting married? Or are you clinging to the idea that “marriage is for straight people”? You should get married, to show how wrong an idea that is. I did. It changed my life forever. Marriage is different. And marriage is part of the riches of God’s grace. Take it, let it change you.

And so on, with lgbt equality everywhere and in every moment. Press for it, do not argue with straight people about it, because equality is your right as a child of God. And when it becomes available seize it.

God wants nothing less from you. Listen when God speaks to you.

*Proper 10 (Amos 7:7-15; Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29)

©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

God’s kiss*

It’s Advent (I almost want to add, “at last”). We had friends over for dinner the other night. It was a lovely evening. At one point, while I was out in the kitchen cooking, I heard them ask Brad about whether we would get a tree for Christmas. The question seemed to come up because we don’t have any decorations going on yet.

Of course we don’t! We’re good Anglicans. Christmas begins at sundown on the 24th of December. Harumph, harumph!

When I got back in the room I told them all, fondly, of how while I was in seminary at Chelsea Square in 1995, we had our collective parents visit us for Christmas. And of how, the Advent Police (which was just a joke!) would prevent excessive decoration before the 4th Sunday in Advent. Still, I think it is important. My neighbor across the street has had Christmas ornaments out since mid-October. Last year when I finally strung Christmas lights during Advent 4, she came over and cried about how great it was I put up lights. I’m glad she likes them. I’ll do it again this year. But not until it is time.

God’s time is not my time or your time, but it is our time. Because in God’s good time all is revealed. I remember only barely an excruciating letter telling me that, although I clearly was called to the priesthood, I would have to wait a bit. That was God’s time catching up with my time. And it was right. And here we are two decades later. I am God’s priest in Christ’s church. And it all is good, in God’s good time.

So we have to just catch on to that. For us, gay folk, we have to sort of bear down, as they say, about how slowly our rights are being made permanent in the US. Not to beat a drum, but my friends, if you would move to Canada, or the Netherlands, or Belgium or Spain, you would be protected under the constitution as a gay citizen, you would be permitted to marry, and not treated as a criminal when your partner died. And you would have the right to live and love, as it says in the psalm “righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

I wish. I can’t wait.

Well it isn’t time for Christmas lights yet. It is Advent. It is time for darkness in the evening, for getting used to the different schedule of the sun. It is time for contemplation as cold approaches. It is time for careful planning about what we will do for our families in the new year. This is the purpose and the meaning of Advent. And, of course, also, to be still, to listen for the voice that cries out, to know that for God a day is like a thousand years. To know that God is not slow about God’s promise, to know that waiting with God is the path God has chosen for us.

I love Peter’s letter (2 Peter 3:8 ff.); it is from the heart. Do not fear, do not fold up, while you wait, “strive to be found at peace; regard the patience of Christ as salvation.” It means to persevere my friends, persevere mostly in love. Love, love, love. That is how to prepare for God’s good time.

God’s kiss … think about that. How sweet is the kiss you know from the one you love? And yet, how complex is the love you share that greets that kiss? Think about that when you think about how God’s kiss can happen, when righteousness and peace kiss each other? What will that look like in your life? Righteousness means being right with God, peace means being right with each other. As we know from Jesus, both are the same, we cannot be right with God unless we are right with each other, and we cannot be right with each other until we understand that to do so is to be right with God. Righteousness, peace, indeed must kiss each other.

There is another way to look at this kiss, as well. In many cultures a kiss is a greeting. Is this kiss, God’s kiss, a beginning? Advent my friends is “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” who will “baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Take time, God’s time, to be ready.

2 Advent (Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8)
©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.