The prophet’s life*

Greetings from the finally frozen North. It hasn’t snowed in a couple of days, but the temperature right now is 1°F/-17°C.

In the Episcopal Church it is the Second Sunday after the Epiphany. The lessons all revolve around the theme of the light of Christ. We remember Jesus is the light of the World, we pray that we the people might be illumined and shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory. It’s all part of the extended hope of the coming of God among us as Christ–the real meaning of Christmas. Another clear theme in the scripture appointed for today is the idea of the wedding feast; the Gospel lesson is the story of Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding at Cana.

But I kept getting distracted by the first lesson from Isaiah, in which the prophet insists he will not stop prophecying until God has succeeded at the metaphorical marriage of God and God’s people. It is the union of God and humanity that is the eschatalogical outcome of the Christ Event, which ushers salvation into human history. (I know, lots of big words … it means the now and future and eternal unity are the ongoing eternal result of Salvation, which is ours in Christ.)

I kept getting stuck on this prophetic role. I’ve written about this before. LGBT people often have played a prophetic role in the church just by showing up and being seen. The fancy theological term for this is “witness.” Unlike the legal usage, this kind of witness is not what we see, rather it is what everyone else sees when we show up. Much of the remarkable evolution of equality for LGBT folks has come about through just this sort of prophetic witness, whether it means we showed up for church, or to vote, or to be counted in the census, now to get married–all of that is prophetic witness. Like Isaiah, we cannot give up. We have to keep showing up.

This week, famously, the Anglican Primates met to discuss, well, things gay mostly. It seems some of the Primates are unsettled by the advancement of what we see as equality in the lives of LGBT people in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church (the historic face of the Anglican Communion in the United States) has been “suspended” by this body for making marriage equality canonical.

I don’t want to belabor the point, but I know I can’t escape writing about it here. Of course all of the instruments of the messy and disorganized body of Christians known as the Anglican Communion must be carefully considered and all of the people involved must be accorded respect. “Suspension” in this case means no vote in a body that makes no decisions. So that’s one place to begin. The Anglican Communion is just that, a community of Anglicans who share the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the tradition of the reformed Church of England as passed down through the past five hundred years or so. No one person is in charge, no particular body is in charge, the shared tradition involves rather a lot of constant conversation and quite often people disagree with each other. Disagreement is normal in our polity, so this is not unusual. Newspaper reports of the meeting listed a number of other national bodies in the Anglican Communion, most of which are in countries that now also embrace marriage equality. This means that likely, well before the three year suspension is up, most of those other churches will have made the same decision the Episcopal Church has made. Eventually the tide will turn, as the saying goes.

It doesn’t make the prophet’s life any easier. It’s never easy to keep showing up in the face of oppression. We have to count on all of our resources to strengthen our resolve, like Isaiah, to keep showing up and showing up and showing up. Remember this: there is no reasonable theological stance for the oppression of LGBT people. And remember that it was the whole Episcopal Church, gathered in convention, after decades of witness, who decided as a community to embrace revelation.

There has been a lot of quoting this week from within the Episcopal Church of Galatians 3:28 “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

I myself would point us to 2 Corinthians 5:17: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ” And, to the words of Jesus, in Matthew 22:40: Matthew 22:40 “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The Presiding Bishop who is the Primate of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Michael Curry, said “We are part of the Jesus Movement, and the cause of God’s love in this world can never stop and will never be defeated.” here

And so we have to keep on keeping on, showing up, leading the LGBT prophet’s life.

 

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

*2^nd Sunday after the Epiphany (Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10 Dixit injustus; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11)

Be present, be gay*

In Eastertide we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, and the message is reinforced by the world around us as spring bursts forth—everywhere we look we see sunshine and new flowers and new life. What we really celebrate with Easter is the reminder that in God we are given constantly a pathway to new dimensions of life. If we are willing to walk in love, as God wishes us to do, then we will create a kingdom of mutual respect all around us as we go. These are Jesus’ most prominent messages, first that we are to love one another and God as one, and second that we are to be active at all times in doing so.

Being active—doing—is what is called “prophecy.” What, did you think prophecy was predicting some disastrous future? That’s not it at all. In fact, my favorite prophet is Isaiah, who walked naked for three years—THREE YEARS!—to make a point. Go ahead, try it, see how far you get!

The Gospel for this second Sunday of Easter is famous because of the character of “doubting Thomas.” Thomas, at first, does not get the point. It is a good illustration, because Thomas is not there—Thomas is not present—he does not have prophetic experience of the resurrected Jesus. But, Thomas is susceptible, and when he asks for evidence God in the person of the resurrected Jesus provides it. My favorite part of this story is that Jesus has to come back a second time just for Thomas.

And that should be a lesson to us all. We all are God’s children. And we all are saved through Christ Jesus. And Jesus wasn’t just for some folks, but he was for every one of God’s children. Do you need Jesus? Don’t worry, he is going to show up for you too.

God provides what is really needed, but Thomas is an important part of the story, because he is willing to be present to see that the resurrected Jesus is, in fact, God. We can, and must, do the same. We must constantly “go forth in peace.” As gay and lesbian people we must be present, we must be seen, everywhere in society, as the proof of God’s love for all of God’s children. I know we crave equality, and we should have equality in society just as we have equality in creation. But we have to be present in all our gay-ness too. It is nothing less than God’s prophetic call to us, for all of creation.

* 2 Easter (Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31)

©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.