Testify With Your Smile to the Light

When I started seminary one of the professors kept telling us to memorize the Psalter. We all thought she was nuts, of course. But then, over time, as we prayed the psalms not just daily but many times daily we began to understand them as hymns of faith and grace. One of the tests future priests go through is a period of hospital chaplaincy where you meet life and death head on. There we were reminded repeatedly of the power of the Psalter. It was the best way to soothe, it was the best way to feel soothed. Well, it turned out our professor was right.

Psalm 126:1 “When God restored our fortunes then were we like those who dream.”

Indeed. This is maybe the first time in my life that Advent has seemed grounded in reality to me. It is as though we descend deeper each day into the autumnal darkness metaphorically as well as in nature. The pandemic grows more powerful even as our ability to cope with isolation and deprivation and borderline (or not so borderline) despair weakens. And yet we dare to hope. We dare to smile at each other and say “this will all be over one day.” And into this moment comes the soothing of the growth of hope that the season of Advent brings. When has buying a Christmas tree or a wreath been a greater sign of faith and hope? When have the masked smiles of tree sellers and the expressions of “Happy Holidays” been sweeter? Dare we dream? Dare we look forward to a moment of restoration? Verse 6 of this psalm has the answer: “Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy.” Indeed.

The purpose of the season of Advent is the expectation. It is even the purpose of the culture of Santa Claus, to teach not only little children but everyone else too what it means to expect, but to expect not only miracles but also reality. Through this experience we learn to know that what we expect is the annual rebirth of joy in our hearts, and that the joy must arrive in the midst of reality. It is where we learn to dream, to greet each other with a smile, to pray for the moment when we will reap joyous songs.

When I was a boy WWII and the Great Depression were still very real memories for my parents and grandparents. We were taught that our joy was important to hold onto, that our love for each other was critical. I was surprised to inherit recipes from my maternal grandmother that were full of substitutions necessitated by shortages and hard times. I am strengthened now by grace from my grandmother to face our own pandemic-substitutions, to see that we have the best Christmas we can manage in lockdown.

Paul gave the church at Thessalonika a straightforward set of instructions. These are (1 Thessalonians 5:16): “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” It is as tough a list in these times as any I suppose. I have found it both more necessary and more critical to pray without ceasing through this time. I have found rejoicing in the simplest places, especially in my interactions with the beauty of the world around me. It is in these small glimpses of joy that my heart is opened and I can truly give thanks. And it is in giving thanks that I find the strength to greet the dawn, to smile through my mask, to appreciate the simple gifts of a society that is trying to learn to walk in love through the midst of this valley of the shadow of death.

Is there a special message for LGBTQ people in this mid-Advent time? Only that we must remember that we are God’s children who are created to love, that to love is our identity, that the love we have to give is critical.

Christmas is coming. Christmas brings the light. We are to testify to the light as we experience it in our hearts. Rejoice, pray, give thanks, and testify with your smile to the light.

3 Advent Year B 2020 RCL (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28)

©2020 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

As we are One

People I meet in the “real” world often are shocked to learn I am a priest. Usually, then, the first thing they say is “I try to read the Bible.” I always say, “Oh please don’t do that.” I know there is this idea out there somewhere that the Bible (btw, from the Greek for “book”) is a non-fiction work written by God. But, oh my … where do I start?

Well, first, God doesn’t write.

More importantly, the Bible is a collection of edited texts of oral histories most of which were written down thousands of years ago.

My first day in seminary I asked the professor who would become my favorite, because he always told me the truth, “why do we read a text that stopped thousands of years ago.” He smiled (how many thousands of times had he answered that question?). Then he said, “because it is the complete revelation of God’s action in the world.” He didn’t say how that day, but he did teach me over three years, to read the revelation as though it were alive today.

So, let’s just take a look at what we have this week.

From 1 Peter (4:1): “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.”

Peter is writing to the early church about persecution. But, how clearly does this passage speak to us now? How frightening and worrisome is this time we live in, in which, at least in theory, every person out there might carry death? How unsettling is it to be separated from people we love with only faint hope that we might be able to travel to one another again? Peter, in words taught to him by Christ, responds “Do not be afraid” and “trust in the righteousness of glory to come.”

From Acts 1:6-14: “When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying … constantly devoting themselves to prayer.”

What better definition do we need for “shelter in place and pray”?

From 1 Peter 5:6-11: “Humble yourselves …. Cast all your anxiety on [God], because [God] cares for you …. steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace … will … restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.”

Pray for strength, pray to give thanks for health, pray to give thanks for little things like toilet paper and chickpeas reappearing in markets, pray to give your anxiety to God, pray with thanksgiving for the love God has shown you in creation.

From Psalm 68: 8-10: “The earth shook, and the skies poured down rain, at the presence of God …. You sent a gracious rain, O God, upon your inheritance; you refreshed the land when it was weary. Your people found their home in it.

Theophany—the revelation of the presence of God among us—is both the fulsome recognition of God in nature, God in every breath, God in every heart, God in every breeze or drop of rain or every ray of sun, as well as the relief that follows the rain. It is how we find our “home.”

Where are we now in this pandemic? Ten weeks in, five months in? Time and space have melded for all of us sheltering in place, as it did for Christ’s disciples in that upper room, leaving us closer to God and each other, ever deeper in prayer and in love. How much more our dependence of technology has shifted from the isolation of heads buried in phones to the constant chatter of Zooms and Skypes and Facetimes, the “gracious rain” of our time. How much has this ordeal brought lgbt people closer to long desired social integration? In times like this everyone is in it together.

At the climax of Jesus’ ascension his prayer is for this time as for all time: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Amen.

 

The Seventh Sunday Of Easter (Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John 17:1-11)

©2020 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.