Exponential Love

There is a lot of talk lately about the mental health effects of the pandemic. I keep encountering the idea that the isolation is somehow underneath everything from road rage to political divisiveness. It is certainly the case that we miss our friends, and especially all the hugs we used to rely on. It also is true that just the absence of simple proximity—everything from chatting with the guy with whom you’re sharing picking potatoes from a bin to actual office (staff, faculty, whatever) meetings, to large otherwise seemingly impersonal gatherings like sports, concerts or movies—is underlying our increasing failure to understand that despite our differences we all are in the world together.

I think there is a good case to be made here. And I think it is one way of redefining the notion of sin. Sin is disconnectedness—being disconnected from God, which is what happens when we are disconnected from each other, and vice versa because when we are disconnected from each other we are essentially disconnected from God. I often have preached about sin by saying it has nothing to do per se with eating chocolate or physical intimacy or any of the other lists of things that are supposedly sinful. No particular thing in and of itself is sinful unless in takes place in the context of disconnection. And that disconnection is always the manifestation of the absence of love. As usual, love is the answer.

So we ask this week that we might be set free from disconnection. In fact, we pray that we might receive relief. The one thing we need the most is relief from the fear and anxiety caused by the pandemic. But a close second is that we need relief from the isolation and disconnectedness that are the collateral damage from the pandemic. Where might we get relief? I was pleasantly surprised this past week to discover relief coming at me from several directions. The one thing they all had in common was that I thanked someone who gave me good news. The relief, the connection, came when I gave thanks. Because giving thanks is manifesting love.

Isaiah 40: 26 reminds us that our connection with God is eternal “He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name … not one is missing.” It is a comfort, perhaps a relief, to remember (to try to remember) that God is eternally connected to each of us by the love that knows every atom in creation. It is up to us to keep that connection not only alive but to help it flourish by the constant flow of love among us.

Paul reminds us too (1 Corinthians 9:23) that the Gospel of Christ, the good news of salvation is all about love, love as a flowing stream, love as a two-way street, love as the greatest equalizing reward. We give each other love in order that we might build up greater love in which we all might share. We love so that we all might share in the blessing of loving.

In Mark’s Gospel (1:29-39) Jesus heals first Simon’s mother-in-law, then everyone from the city who was sick or possessed with demons and then went on to neighboring towns to proclaim the message there. It is an example of the building up of love exponentially by the manifestation of loving. Healing, especially in the Jesus narrative is not just about the absence of symptoms. Rather, it is about being able to rejoin the community, to once again become one with the community. What Jesus does is to remove the vacuum caused by the absence of love so that loving connectedness might be restored. And it is in this act that we see the recognition of God, who knows every atom in creation by name, who calls us eternally to restore and refresh and nourish the exponential power of love.

We in the LGBTQ community know this truth all too well. The simple reality of our social stance is that we are “diverse” or “different” from everyone else—a unique form of social isolation. The pandemic has contributed not only to the further deepening of chasms separating people but also to the loss of our own LGBTQ sense of community. Our “watering holes,” that in reality for decades or more have really been social centers, have disappeared along with parades and street fairs and even hot dogs on the beach. Yet it is we, those who are identified by the love we create and experience and share, it is we who are uniquely qualified to call creation back into the flow of love.

We are called, even in this time of pandemic isolation to continually reconnect, to remember that simply by thanking each other we manifest love. We are called to remember that it is up to everyone who is known intimately, everyone who is numbered and called by name by God, to manifest the blessings of exponential love.

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Year B 2021 RCL (Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39)

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

Joy

We’ve been working like proverbial maniacs on our home. We are doing the kinds of little things that make you crazy until they’re done, but on the other hand, are too small to hire anybody to help with. We did just have a friend visit for a week, and he worked pretty hard inside and outside, to get roses planted, weeds cleared, shrubs pruned etc., etc., before the traditional rain started. We just made it, the rain started yesterday. If I remember correctly from college days, it will now rain more or less constantly until April. Or May even. That’s why, of course, the Portland area is so lusciously green.

Inside we were doing a combination of adapting our new house into our home and fixing things the movers broke. We were pretty exhausted. The other day it was hot and sunny so we ran outside to spray paint some metal furniture and both overdid it. I woke up in the night with warm feet, and when I got up I could see my feet were striped (!) from the sun on my sandals.

We even worked late nights several days in a row to rebuild the benchwork for one of my train layouts (the O-gauge toy train layout … the HO-gauge model train layout will have to wait for now).

And then our friend’s visit was over and I drove him to the airport. As we left the house the morning grey began to lift, and after I dropped him off I had a stunning drive back through the trees as the sun intensified. Combined with the magical music on the radio I was brought nearly to tears with the joy not only of being back in a place that I love, but also with the radiance of creation that is so close in this environment. In the house I could see that we had restored a sense of “home,” so important for anybody but very near for folks who have just moved. For both the joy of my sense of the beauty of this environment and the comfort of home I gave thanks, in prayer, out loud even …. To top it all off, my new license plates came in the mail; as one friend put it, now we’re really citizens of Oregon!

We forget how important it is to experience joy. So often we are so busy being busy that we forget to think about simple things, the old “forest for the trees” metaphor. We work and work and work and drive and drive and drive and make lists and make new lists and plan and plan and … whew! we forget to look up at the skyline and give thanks for being, and for being here. We forget that love is that feeling of joy in our souls we experience when we walk into a place that feels like home. When we forget to experience joy we cut ourselves off from love. And when we are cut off from love we are cut off from God.

This is the very essence of “sin”—cutting ourselves off from God. Often we do it by cutting ourselves off from each other. Just as often we simply cut ourselves off altogether.

In 1 Timothy Paul writes that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” But he goes on to say that Christ “might display the utmost patience.” It’s a good thing! But what it means is that God became incarnate in Christ to remind us to pay attention—to pay attention to our inner selves, to pay attention to our place in creation, to pay attention to each other. In these ways we restore our connection to God. Christ’s patience, God’s patience, is visible in those stunning moments when we realize we are right with creation and we give thanks.

Is there a message for lgbt people here? Of course, it is the message of my last few posts—that belonging is nurturing, that being free of the strain of defensive living opens gates of joy, that living fully into our role as created lgbt beings is as close as we can get to unity with God. It is in this perfect unity that love and life can flourish. It is this reunion, this return, this reconnection that Jesus means when says in Luke 15:10 “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.”

 

Proper 19 (Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28); Psalm 14 Dixit insipiens; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

©2019 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

God, intimacy, sin*

I often tell people who take the time to talk with me that I sometimes despair of ever being able to explain the Gospel.

I see what the larger church has done—they have made it so simple an idiot can process it, but, of course, in so doing they also have taken away any humanity in the process. There is no list of sins. Some churches have lists, because it helps them oppress people. But God has no such list. Sex, chocolate—when used to create joy, are not inherently sinful. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise—they’re wrong.

So here we have the prophet Jeremiah, speaking to a people who have broken every law, and furthermore suffered the consequences. And through his voice God says “they shall all know me.” Do you get what that means? To “know” someone is to share intimacy. So God is saying, all of God’s people, who are truly faithful, will share intimacy with God. And then God says “I will remember their sin no more”—do you remember that sin means being disconnected from God? If one shares intimacy with God, then one cannot by definition, know sin.

Here is God saying that God is with us in every breath, every intimate moment—yes, go ahead and let your mind fill in that blank—and therefore, because we are one with God, we cannot be disconnected from God.

But, of course, the choice is ours. We can choose to share closeness with God, or we can turn our backs.

We who are gay know the intimacy of our God. After all, we are made gay in God’s image so that we can spread joy through all of humanity. Our job, is to embrace the intimacy God has given us with each other, so that in so doing we enhance the intimacy of all humanity with God. Just as God, through Jeremiah, told us to do.

5 Lent (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-13; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Foolish wisdom*

There is (for me) always a sort of tension between the enormity of God’s love and the enormity of humankind’s inability to cope with God’s love. This, of course, is the very definition of “sin,” which means being apart from God. Many faith traditions, assuming people are not bright enough to figure this out for themselves, promulgate lists of “sins” and tell people not to do those things. This is wrong, this is foolish wisdom; the only true sin is what you do that separates you from God.

Ponder that for a moment. What do you do that separates you from God? I know what I do. I get something like a fury in my soul in which I become self-righteous. I know that I am right and everyone around me is wrong. I long for retribution. This is sin. This is sin because I have put myself first among others; it is sin because I have made myself the judge; and it is sin because in doing these first two things I have completely forgotten about God. And I have forgotten about God by forgetting about those around me. Yet, how are we to put such a thing on a list? It is easier to say eating meat is a sin or having sex is a sin or making money is a sin and to be done with it. Of course, none of these is sinful in or of itself; it is only in the intentions of your heart and soul that sin, separateness from God, can take place.

GLBT people are weary of the whole notion of sin. We are accused of being sinful just by the very nature of our being. All of us at some time or another have run into self-righteous (there’s that word again) folk who quote at us from the Bible to convince us of our “sin.” And yet, there is nowhere in the Bible such a passage; rather there are pieces of texts that are taken out of context for the purpose of oppression. That is sin, regardless of the text, because oppression is sin.

In today’s Gospel Jesus flies into a just such a rage, excoriating the money changers with a handmade whip. It was just the kind of rage I described, the sort that only a human on the edge can have. And yet, because it was human Jesus, it was also the divine excoriation of evil from God’s own temple, both in the reality of the money-changers in the story and in the metaphor of Jesus’ own body as the temple of God. And in the midst of it all Jesus says to make an end of sin and in its place he will build the glory of God. That would be you and me, my friends, for in our lives as children of God we embody the very glory of God. Psalm 19 verse 1 says “1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.” And in 1 Corinthians Paul writes that God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, hence those lists of sin, and in its place God has equated faith with God’s own glory. For those who believe are saved.

God is merciful to those who keep trying, to those who purge sin and embrace belief. Love God and love one another my friends; that is what God who is merciful and full of compassion asks of us.

*3 Lent (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 Coeli enarrant; Romans 7:13-25; John 2:13-22)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Right-eous-ness: Sin, Passion, Holy Week, Faith*

Well, there it all is, right there in the title.

But as usual, I digress. There is, as you know, more or less constant babble in “church-land” about this thing called “sin,” and GLBT people are no strangers to the word. We are told that the love we share is ‘sin,’ or even ‘abomination;’ or we are told that if only we would be chaste (that is, give up most of our reason for living) we would be acceptable as sinners overcoming their sin.

Nonsense.

There is only one “sin” and that is to be separate from God. To “sin” is to separate yourself from the intimate love of the one who created you and whose love for you is so vast that nothing can overwhelm it, not even. That is the message of what theologians call the “Christ-event,” which is shorthand for the life, ministry, trial, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the anointed one. He came to save us by teaching us, exactly, how to stop being people of sin, so we could more fully be the people of God.

Probably the most prevalent form of sin is playing God. We all do it and we all do it all the time. It seems like it must be part of the human condition, to judge. We judge and judge and judge. And yet we are not the judge. God is the judge; indeed, God is the only judge. “He talks too much.” “She would be okay if only she dressed better.” “I get so tired of putting up with people like that.” “Get out of my way.” “I get to go first.” Did you know that was judging? It is, because even to have the thought places you in your own head above the other. This was Jesus’ message, that none of us is above another; only God is above all. “Don’t ask/don’t tell.” “Homosexuals are intrinsically disordered.” “Marriage is between a man and a woman.” That is judging too. And it is equally hurtful. All of this judging seeks to place the ‘judge’ in a position of power, and to place the ‘judged’ in a position of inferiority. And that is painful, no matter the circumstances, when you are the one who is being judged.

What is so hard about “love your neighbor as yourself?” Well it requires real sacrifice. What if you really are angry or weary or beaten down? Well, those are not excuses. Loving each other means leaving behind those emotions (notice I did not say not to experience them, I said to leave them behind). It means at every turn to think about what you are doing. No amount of giving up chocolate for Lent can suffice for the powerful action of examining your own motives at every turn and remembering always to uphold the dignity of every human. Every human.

Paul wrote this: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself.” This is the message of Holy Week, this is the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The end of sin, once for all, if only we can learn to walk in love, walk in faith, walk in righteousness. Do you understand that word—righteousness? Try taking it apart. What is “right”? What is “being right” (righteous)? What is “faith (right-eous-ness)”? It is all about being right with God. As Jesus taught us.

Indeed, let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus. Humble yourself in the face of God’s love, empty yourself of foolish, selfish pride, rid your life of the sin of making yourself God. Remember God’s love for you. God made you in God’s own image. Especially if you are gay, remember, God made you in God’s own image. And God is always with you. Think about it–that’s what it means to have faith.

Palm Sunday (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31: 9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14- 27:66).

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

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore*

It certainly has been a bizarre week. We began the week pre-occupied with Libya, and too few of us are paying attention to the coming total meltdown of the US economy, and we ended the week with earthquake, Tsunami, and now nuclear meltdowns in Japan. Certainly the stories from Japan are of what people like to call “biblical” proportions … I heard at one point that both an entire ferry and an entire train were missing.

The collect for this week, the first Sunday in Lent, reminds us that God knows our weaknesses.  It’s a good place to start.

Wednesday, as I was pulling out of the driveway to go celebrate the 6pm Ash Wednesday mass, I was almost killed. It’s always a potentially dangerous pullout; and lately, to his consternation, I’ve been making Brad buckle up before I back out. That’s because people with Jersey plates tend to think they’re in a Disneyland parking lot and barrel down the street at about 70. And that’s just what happened. I backed out enough to close the garage door, stopped, looked behind me to be sure no vehicle was on the street, and then I started to back out. And just then here it came, a blue Mini-Cooper, going about 70. I slammed on my brakes. It shook whoever it was up, because when I subsequently backed out and paused to be sure the garage door was locked, they had stopped  up the block. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to photograph the license plate.

Well, the point of this is that I went on to church and walked through mass as though I wasn’t in shock. People kept greeting me and saying “how are you” and I kept saying   “fine” but in my head I was saying “I was almost killed just now.” And, four days later I haven’t had the nerve to take my car out of the garage again. It’s the sort of thing that, together with too much work-stress, and earthquakes and Tsunamis, and revolutions and economic crises is just enough to put you out of sorts.

And that’s the message of Lent, isn’t it? Not being out of sorts. No, the Lenten message is about life as real-life; if we pray for chocolate God won’t magically give us chocolate. The world is the world, and creation is creation, and humanity is humanity, and God is always with us. But sometimes, in the meantime, in real life, things look kind of bleak.

I love the psalm this week—“I acknowledged my sin to you … then you forgave me the guilt of my sin.” Not “you forgave me my sin” but “you forgave me the guilt.” You see, and please write this down—sin is not a  naughty thing you do, sin is a way of living apart from God. And there really is no way for God to forgive you that, because God has nothing to do with it. God knows your weakness. If you choose to live apart from God, then that’s your decision. Where God can help, is with the guilt you feel about your decision. Do you want to come back into God’s fold? All you have to do is open your heart. And the guilt you feel, which overpowers you, is forgiven. Now the way is clear to plug in again to the richness of being a part of God, and a part of God’s creation, which is how we play our part in God’s kingdom.

The Gospel reading is about Jesus and Satan arguing in the desert. Did you think that was a historical report? Or did you get it, that this is about you, and about God, and about the forces that draw you away from God? Good. See, you’re learning. Now, what about those forces that draw you away from God? They’re all within you.  That’s why it always is your choice about whether to walk with God, to walk in love, or to put God to the test by walking in your own creation. Worship Satan who is within you, or worship God, and angels will attend you.

How do I connect all of this to any sort of reality? Well, go back to the beginning. Life always is tough. And in any moment we can choose to dwell in the hell of our own making, or to dwell in the heaven God has prepared for us. Did I do the right thing Wednesday night by keeping what happened to myself? I hope so. For if I hadn’t, I might have missed the opportunity to dwell in the celestial banquet hall, to feed God’s sheep,  to lay hands on them and draw God near to them in prayer. And in so doing to open my own self to the nearness of God.

As you know if you’ve been here before, I often have to ask myself what any of this says to gay folks–and here it is: for God who made us in God’s image we are just folks. Being gay is as much a state of mind as it is a way of being in the world. We can be people of creation who lift up creation with our love, or we can be “those other folks,” defined by how straight folks perceive us as different. If we let our own being be defined by others, that is a sort of sin, because it is letting our own minds cut us off from the loving folks God made us to be and wants us to be. So, for us the trick is to be gay, to go about life living and loving, and not to be defined in our own souls as different. Maybe Lenten discipline is a good thing then, for looking inward and scouring the dusty corners of our souls, the better to let the light of God’s love shine in.

Well, the real world is real, and man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Ask God to forgive you your guilt. And then my friends, remember we’re not only not in Kansas any more, we’re not in Eden any more either.

*First Sunday in Lent (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

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

How to Run an Airline*

In order to be faithful to my blog and my bloggers and my commitment to myself to engage the scripture each week I’ll take a shot at this. But I’d just better begin by saying I’m exhausted. I was in Seattle all week at a conference, and am just barely home. I always think it sort of humorous when I’m conference-going that the world goes on around me. The rest of the time, you see, I’m at the center of the universe. Hmmmm … and if you believe that let’s talk about that bridge in Brooklyn. Okay, still there’s little opportunity to engage the news in the usual ways when your work and life routine is up for grabs. So let’s just acknowledge that there was a revolution in Egypt this week.

But maybe there’s a hook here after all. I was thinking (again sort of bemusedly) about how hard I have to work to get home from a trip, especially via air (but it used to be like this on the train as well). It takes all of my emotional energy to keep the plane in the air, to keep the airline running on schedule, to generate enough emotional energy to make the people around me sit still and not put their seatbacks down in my lap and so on. It wears me out! And this is what Ecclesiasticus points to, and what Jesus also is teaching, in today’s scripture. (Remember, Jesus is never teaching about the actual thing in his story—never; his examples are supposed to make you think deeply, so you’ll internalize what he has said, and change.) Ecclesiasticus says you make your own choices in life, God has given you both fire and water and you get to pick which one you want to live with. And all of the dichotomies Jesus raises are examples.

It all goes back to the real meaning of sin, which is to cut yourself off from God. (And don’t go finishing the phrase by adding “by doing X” because that is exactly my point. There is no list of naughties that are “sins” that you can just tick off on your list to make yourself a good boy! Or girl!) Cutting yourself off from God means turning off the part of your soul that listens quietly to God’s voice, that plugs into the gently powerful energy that is God’s creating love. And since it is by sharing God’s creating loving energy with each other that we prove we are connected with God, when we cut the circuit—when we are in sin—then we usually have cut ourselves off from each other as well. In fact it’s the first sign. And that, as Ecclesiasticus says, is all up to us. Every one of Jesus’ examples is such a thing. Jesus doesn’t say you shouldn’t ever have a disagreement. He says if you consume yourself with anger you have already shut the door on God. And so on. Paul says the same thing in two ways in 1 Corinthians. He says don’t argue about whether you belong to him or to Apollos (another early evangelist)—you are missing the point, because you belong to God. Grow up, Paul says, get ready for solid food. Stop demanding selfishness (this is what Paul means by “in the flesh”) like a spoiled brat and learn to deal with your fellows as an adult joint heir of God’s kingdom.

There’s nothing explicitly gay here this week … jetlag got me I guess. I could do some Philadelphia-bashing. I could say I was in Seattle all week, and while I didn’t think it was the best place I’d ever been, I did discover some really nice people. Nobody I encountered was mean. I found a gay bar for cocktails one evening and although my back hurt too much to relax, everybody was very friendly. And I found a really nice gay restaurant, where I managed in two days to become practically a regular, just because everyone was really friendly. (You figure out why this is Philly-bashing.)

I can say I shouldn’t have spent all day yesterday running the airline and all of my fellow passengers. That’s the true lesson of this scripture. Let God be God. Love each other. And the rest will fall into place on its own.

*6th Sunday after the Epiphany (Ecclesiasticus 15:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37)

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

Salt of the Earth*

A year or so ago my husband gave me a book about salt. I was a little curious when I opened it (it was a Christmas gift) but I trust his judgment and he was right. It was both interesting and important. It is the sort of book you can read on a long flight, and since I had a few trans-Atlantic flights going on then, that’s exactly what happened. I read about salt as I flew back and forth from Philadephia to Amsterdam.

It was interesting all on its own. And although I had never seriously considered the role of salt in the history of humankind, I began to see its importance emerge from the narrative. This was very well-written history; compelling even. And what’s more, I began to recognize salt I knew! Those salt flats at the southern end of San Francisco Bay for instance. We’ve all flown over them landing at San Francisco International Airport. But those of us who grew up in California have driven past them for decades. When have you flown in there, or driven there? I first drove past them in 1964 en route to Hawaii (on the USS Lurline). Next when we flew back from Hawaii in 1967 and drove south to Monterey. And then over and over en route to San Francisco, but especially when I flew to New York to take conducting lessons when I was 17, and then again, and again, and again as I flew back and forth from Portland Oregon, where I went to college. And then more. So that was exciting. And it turned out I knew other salt flats as well. But the real thrill came for me when I was on the train through Belgium, when I began to think to myself “my, this looks like how the salt flats were described” and then whoa, there they were …..

So this Gospel is great because Jesus is equating being salty with keeping your light shining, and that is exactly correct physiologically speaking. But how else is it correct? Remember, the body is mostly salt and water; if we subtract the water, what’s left is salt. If the water is the electricity that makes the engine run, the salt is the substance on which and from which and within which it runs. Sounds like the soul to me.

Never thought of your soul as salt, huh? Well, take a shot at it. Isaiah says shout out your love of God, don’t think all that posturing with candles and vestments and pretty language is convincing God of your love … God knows better, God sees through you, God knows your salt because God knows you’re salt. Paul says the same thing to the Corinthians; he says “we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God.” He means, we have received our salt—our souls—from God. And that is how we are the children of God. And like orphans everywhere, it is up to us to recognize God our Father as our Creator, and to acknowledge that love that made us and makes us and is in us.

God my friends wants to be with you in your saltiness. I think this is a terrific message for gay people. We’re always being accused, usually by other gay people, of being too gay—“oh my gosh you will mess it up for us if you keep being SO GAY.” Well, my friends, God wants us to be gay, and salty to boot. And God wants us to be gay because it is how we lift the boats, it is how our salty souls provide a place for the whole world to relax and see that sexuality is not freakish, it is of God.

That means of course that sin is irrelevant. How many times have you  been told you are a sinner because you  are gay? Well, that is always wrong, wrong, wrong. Sin is how you disconnect yourself from God. Isaiah’s prophecy is all about how to stay connected to God. Love each other, respect each other, help each other; for heaven’s sake (literally), participate in creating the kingdom in your own midst.  Because you my friends, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, you are the salt of the earth.
*5th Sunday after the Epiphany (Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12); Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20)

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