For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law*

I always shudder a little bit when these readings from Nehemiah come up because of that place-name “Water Gate.” I’m of the generation that watched a president resign–the first time that had ever happened–and the whole scandal was so associated with a building named after this famous Water Gate that we have an entire genre of “gates” now: [your scapegoat]-gate.

Curiously, or interestingly, the reading from Nehemiah points us precisely toward the sorts of crises that might lead to upsets. In the story (Nehemiah 8: 1 ff.) Nehemiah has brought the actual text of the Ten Commandments out to read them to the crowd assembled. They’re all in awe of the God who has sent them such a gift, although they haven’t heard the “rules” yet. And when Nehemiah reads the crowd breaks down and sobs uncontrollably “For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.” We are led to believe they are sobbing in awe of their awesome God, but let’s face it, the real reason they’re sobbing probably had to do with their sudden realization that they had broken every rule in the book. If these were the rules they were … ummm, let’s use doomed here.

Or maybe they were sobbing because they knew they were going to have to give up their power and authority. And here is where I bring the story home always to the present day. We all spent a lot of energy last week being upset by the Anglican Primates and the decision at the conclusion of their meeting regarding the Episcopal Church. All week long we have been showered with official pastoral responses by almost every bishop in the Episcopal Church and many from Canada and other Anglican churches as well. But in the end it mostly all comes down to the point we find ourselves sharing with Nehemiah. Someone needs to read the two commandments, those that constitute Christianity, to those bishops from other parts of the world who seek to continue oppression of glbt people. Because my friends, there is nothing in scripture to properly account for their “conclusion” that glbt people are sinful by nature. I could rehearse all of the arguments here but I don’t need to do that, we did that decades ago. If you want, hunt back in my archives for references to the scholarly work that brings all of the proof-texts to bear. There is nothing in Christ that condemns homosexuals or homosexuality. It is a made-up position, derived from deliberate misinterpretation of Old Testament texts. In fact, there is nothing in the Old Testament that condemns homosexuals or homosexuality. There are stories about David and Jonathan and Ruth and Naomi, for example, and other examples of revelation of God’s creation of all people in God’s image, gay straight or otherwise.

So that brings us to the weepers at the Water Gate. They realized their plight, because it was not just that they had sinned and not only that they had sinned but it was really that they kept doing it on purpose. And their sin was to oppress their neighbors. Christ gave us two commandments: love God, and love each other. And Christ told us to remember that the two really were the same thing, that to love each other is to love God and to love God fully means loving each other fully. Jesus also told his disciples that whenever they went to a place to bring the Holy Spirit and they weren’t accepted they were to shake the dust off their feet and move on to another place.

So my friends, remember this: those who seek to oppress us do not need to be convinced by Scripture that they are wrong, they know they are wrong, they are doing this on purpose. They have nearly lost the fight to restrict holiness to white males, and only by continuing to oppress the weak among them can they continue to maintain power over females and non-heterosexual males. I’ve written this before (this seems to be becoming a refrain for me): the theology is not new and they’re all familiar with it. In the same way that the Roman curia knows there is no necessity to prevent the ordination of women other than as a means of control; women were among Jesus’ disciples and appear all through the New Testament as founders of the new church.

Jesus constantly reminded people that the kingdom of God had already come near, the problem was for them to put aside their self-centeredness and open their hearts to the universality of God’s creation. This is still the promise of salvation, that in Christ God has given us all that we need to be at one with God and with all of God’s creation. All we have to do is stop oppressing, stop stigmatizing, stop obsessing about self and open our hearts to the movement of a loving God whose creation encompasses all people. Even gay people.

©2016 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

3 Epiphany (Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a; Luke 4:14-21)

 

Spiritual charger*

God says “I have called you by name, you are mine.” It’s an awesome concept (to revist a badly misused term) that somehow everyone of us is called by name by God. I’ve always wondered whether cats really understand their names, or whether they just respond to a tone of voice used by their human companions. Several times over the course of my life I have met people whose name I just could not remember no matter what I tried. In a couple of cases I finally let myself memorize them by the phrase “A whose name is B” and that worked. I guess it works because it allows me to remember the key stuck in my brain and from there to connect to the actual name.

The scripture for today is all about the baptism of Jesus. As I wrote last year, it seems a little odd that the baby wise men were just visiting last Wednesday is now 30-some years old and wandering in the desert where he can come across John the Baptizer. But, that’s scripture for you. I like to take these occasions to remind us that sequential time is a human interpretation of God’s spacetime, which is a single continuum. Maybe last Wednesday really was thirty years ago! (Okay, I know better …. I’m just pondering things here.)

Two of my closest friends got engaged this week, Tuesday to be exact, and it got announced Thursday if I recall correctly. I enjoyed watching their Facebook feeds go berserk with congatulatory messages. Each message included their names. Names are important because calling someone by name is an acknowledgment of the power of God within. When we call someone directly by name we connect with the soul that was called by name by God.

As a priest I have presided at weddings and baptisms. The liturgies for these sacraments are lengthy and complex. But the key moments are the naming of the people and the invocation of Father-Son-And Holy Spirit. It is like connecting electrodes so the power can arc through the connection. For all the words I might have uttered at any of these events, the moments I remember are those electric moments when the power of naming a person baptized, or the power of naming two persons married sets the power of the Holy Spirit arcing about, connecting them and god and me and everyone present to all past and future in a heartbeat.

It is just one reason lgbt people can rejoice for full inclusion in the church as married individuals. It is one way of connecting the power from the moment of baptism with the power of the moment of marriage. It is one way of understanding the ontological shift—the change in being—that takes place when two become one literally in God’s sight and in the sight of God’s people.

I was crossing a street in downtown Toronto the other day when I passed a woman and two young men as the woman said “all the gay people are getting married now.” I chuckled a little bit. Of course we are, I thought. Now that we understand the power of entering into a sacrament together.

I can’t end of course without reminding us all that that’s the same power of entering the sacrament of the Eucharist together, which too few of us do often enough. It’s all a matter of plugging into God’s spiritual charger in order to remain always connected through the power of the Holy Spirit shared among us.

Peace be with you.

©2016 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

*1 Epiphany (Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22)

 

A Christmas kiss*

This time of year is so full of rich symbolism … the decorations, the smell of greens, the candlelight, the smiles, the warmth of mulled wine, and of course, sweet embrace. All of these things enrich our lives, and yet all of them also serve as reminders of the pure sweetness of Christmastide, when we try to recapture the innocence of love and trust that we had as children waiting for Santa Claus.

How sweet.

And yet, how do we, as gay Christians, use that emotional power to remind us that Christmas is not about giving or getting gifts, not about spiral hams or green bean casseroles … but rather, is about the Word made flesh, who lives among us?

The collect for this week is one of my favorites: “Stir up your power O Lord, and with great might come among us … we are sorely hindered by our sins.” It is a request to God to stir things up! And boy, if there ever was a description of this time of year I think that’s it. From Thanksgiving through the New Year, all of us are stirred up big time. And with great power. What we fail to recognize, often, is that that power is God, who is among us. And, that we are sorely hindered by our habit of deliberately disconnecting from God.

And so the carols and the lights and the hugs and the cards and the sweet moments are all reminders for us of the power of simple respectful love, which is the love with which God created each of us in God’s image, and which is the love we all share.

This lesson from 1 Thessalonians is one of my favorites of all time, of all scripture even (1 Thess 5:16) “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” What better advice could one ask for? Rejoice always? Well, isn’t that why we are called gay? Because this is our job in society, to show the others how to rejoice (intrigued by that? see Toby Johnson’s Gay Spirituality: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness). Pray without ceasing? Yes, of course, because to pray is to be deliberately connected to God. Pray my buddies, pray. Pray that you hear God calling you, pray that you stay connected tightly to God. Pray that God rejoices with you and your gay family and your gay friends. And above all, give thanks. Sometimes this is the hard part; because you have to think pretty seriously about what God has given you, for which you are grateful. But your gratitude, even as a blip in the back of your head, is a connection with God. And connection with God is the erasure of sin. All you have to do my friends is be the terrific glbt folks God has made you to be, and once in awhile give thanks for it.

Have you ever thought about that? “What if I’d been born straight?” … He he, do you react “oh ick!”? Then, please, give thanks to God for the gay you that you are. And while you’re at it give someone you love a surprise kiss. And rejoice!

*3 Advent (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28)
©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Love is the sign*

Love is such a powerful emotion. When we fall in love we give ourselves over completely to the other. We don’t even think about it, we just do it, because somewhere in our soul we sense it is right to do. I remember when I fell in love with Brad, the first time, and I remember when I fell in love with Brad the second time, and I remember the other times too, because they are imprinted on my soul. The power of raw love is enough to move mountains.

What we forget, we 21st century people, we technological marvels, is that God is that powerful love. Anytime we are truly in a loving relationship it is because God is the glue that has put us there. God is the potter and we are the clay (Isaiah 64), we are the work of God’s hand. Then again, we have to be careful that we are experiencing love, and not just lust, and not just neediness. That’s why I pointed out that I have fallen in love with my husband more than once. Love grows, love deepens, love matures, love resonates—all of that takes place in relationship. Loving God, and gaining knowledge of God’s love for you, is like that too. It isn’t all warm fuzzies—it takes time, it needs to grow, to mature, to deepen, to resonate.

I like to tell people sometimes how, when I go off on vacation and lose my daily ritual, I sometimes forget to pray. Always, when I do that, God comes calling. Usually God comes calling in a kind of sweet, joking way; I will be enjoying a sunrise, or the ocean, or just a quiet coffee, and there will be a sudden nagging in the back of my brain, and I know it is God saying “okay buddy, where are you, I miss you.” I always laugh. God likes it when you laugh. Because it means your love for God is real enough.

Of course, we who are glbt people know all about love, because the society in which we live has chosen to define us culturally by that love. I’ve just returned to the US from two weeks in Belgium and The Netherlands. The culture there is different; people are just people there, and people who love are celebrated for the richness of their experience. It is refreshing to see. But I digress … Love is powerful, that’s the point where I began. Look at the whole of the reading from Isaiah for today (Isaiah 64: 1-9). It is as surely a love letter as any I ever have seen; God’s people, in love, are hurting because God has turned away from them “You were angry, we sinned, because you hid yourself we transgressed … you have hidden your face from us ….” The pain is crystal clear, it is the cry of a lover in distress. You see, even in loving God, there is relationship, and relationship always is sticky because it requires as much attention to other as to self, more maybe.

Jesus said “keep awake.” I think he meant, “be real.” We are gay people who have been put here on earth to love each other, but also to show the rest of the world what love can look like. We must keep loving each other, in all of the ways our gay culture has created, because those are signs to the rest of the world of the power of God’s love. We must never turn our backs on God, and the best way to remain always connected to God is to remain always in a state of love with one another. Remember that Jesus has told us that to love your neighbor as yourself is the same as to love God with all of your being.

So it is now the first Sunday of Advent, the season of preparation. It is time to put away the turkey platter, and take advantage of the cool dusky evenings to think and pray and feel closer to God. It is time to plan gifts to warm the hearts of those whom we love. It is time to rethink how it is that we feed not just our families but our communities as well. It is time to reflect on love as God’s most powerful gift. Jesus said “when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.” He means, when we truly love, really love, deeply love … those are the signs that the kingdom is with us and God is near.

1st Sunday of Advent (Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37)
©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.culture, society, reflection

The power of lgbt prayer*

I suppose it’s a rare week when gay people can look not to scripture, but instead to the prayer of the week (ok, its official name is “collect of the day”) for enlightenment, but there it is: “receive the prayers of your people who call upon you” and “grant that they may know what they ought to do” and “have grace and power to accomplish them.” Sounds like marriage equality to me.

Whoa! Did that seem like a surprise? Well, it shouldn’t. That is the power of prayer. I watched a strange episode of Bill Maher’s show the other night where he equated prayer with talking to your hair dryer. It just goes to show you he hasn’t experienced the power of being plugged into God. Still, most Christians on our side of the boat (by which I mean Episcopalians) don’t really believe in prayer. They think it’s just one of those things that have to listen embarrassed while people at church talk about it, and then they can go home and have a beer and forget about it. But, my friends, prayer works. And always in surprising ways.

In seminary I had an experience with a group of seminarians, meeting with a mentor who said just that to us: “I suppose none of you really believe in prayer.” She was right, none of us did. She told us to march out and pray for something and come back next week and report. Whoa! We were all bowled over. (That means it worked.) So, this collect up there, about praying to God (here’s a paraphrase): “ring, ring, here I am, hello are you there? Hi, ‘sup? Hey this marriage thing we need help. Ok, thanks.” Well, it worked didn’t it?

Now, before I say another gay thing, I want any and everybody reading this to pray for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, right away (both—you pray right away, and they raise it right away). I don’t have enough to lose it all in 1000% inflation panic.

I’ll leave it to my colleagues in pulpits to explain the Gospel for today (it’s the parable of the sower of wheat). Although I have to say I love the commentary “Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there.” Isn’t that wonderful? Just imagine!

Paul says “you are not in the flesh you are in the Spirit” and he means God is in you and you are in God. Sort of like my iPhone is always plugged into my iMac and the force (!) flows between them. Actually, it’s exactly like that. God is always flowing through you as life-force. You can choose to work with it, or to ignore it, or to oppose it. When Paul says “if you live according to the flesh you will die” he means if you ignore the force that is within you you will have the kind of gray life that deteriorating biological entities face. When he says “if you cry ‘Abba father’” he means when you get it that the jolt of the force that is God is flowing within you you ‘ll realize the circuit is complete, and the life within you will propel you ever onward.

(Yes, I’m skirting, flirting, with Gnosticism, but ever so gently.)

So okay folks, the idea is this: be who God made you to be. Not passively, but actively, fully, plugged in and glowing brightly like a string of gay Christmas lights. That is your destiny. That is your call as gay and lesbian people, to light up the drab life of the dreary world around you. Let your prayers change the world. And let the love of God, the love that is God, flow fully within you. Feel love, and express the love you feel. That’s about it.

(Oh, right, just like seeds sown in good soil, that bear fruit.)

*Proper 10 (Genesis 25:19-34, Psalm 119:105-112, Romans 8:9-17, Matthew 13:1-9,18-23)
©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.