Spirit, Flesh, Grace

The Spirit is our very life force. It is that thing in the back of your consciousness that leads you to smile, or to get (erm) aroused. Paul writes again and again about the difference between Spirit and flesh; the difference is between that part of you that is biological and that part that is sentient, between that part of you that occurs without heart (flesh) and that which occurs only with love (Spirit).

LGBTQ people are particularly gifted because our sentience is biological. We are part of the biosphere, genetically created as we are to advance love.

In the church it is the First Sunday in Lent. We have the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2), and Paul’s midrash on it (Romans 5), and the story of Jesus led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4). The focus is on this distinction between Spirit, that which is holy because it sentient, and flesh. We are being reminded that it is by choice that we follow the Spirit.

This story of Eve and the tree and the opened eyes, well, it’s sort of like coming out isn’t it? When I was a boy I knew I loved boys, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to love boys, but I did, but I knew to keep it shut up inside me. Then one day, I ate the proverbial apple (erm) and my eyes were opened and … oh my!!

Grace is that gift of knowledge of love that comes from God. Like when I discovered that being bodily gay was in fact being led by the Spirit to discover my truth; that was grace. That was God calling me to be me. That was grace. In everything, that is grace.

Jesus was “led by the Spirit” to go into the wilderness … he was moved by his connection to creation. Because Jesus was God and was of God and was with God he could not have had any sin, he had only connectedness. And in every test Jesus sent disconnectedness away. He chose life. He chose power. He chose grace.

We are called In Lent to reflect on our place in God’s creation. We who are called to be God’s LGBTQ heirs are called to reflect on the grace of being who we have been created to be, because it is an essential part of the connectedness of everything.

First Sunday in Lent A 2023 RCL (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Tough Love

I’ve been taking my time putting away Christmas decorations. I told several people I kept having the feeling that Christmas was stolen from me this year. We had lights on the house, a tree, lots of decorations, all the usual food, lots of presents—you’d think I’d have been satisfied. But what we didn’t have was a four week run up of church through Advent—not just the liturgical realities but also the preparations and rehearsals for Christmas itself. We didn’t have friends in or drop in on anybody. We didn’t sing. After Christmas I love the sweetness of the season of Christmas too—the twelve days ending in the feast of the Epiphany, the arrival of the magi, the fruition of the remembrance of Emmanuel “God-with-us” and the launch into the refreshed new year. I was really looking forward to Epiphany this year.

Well, that sort of got taken from us too, didn’t it? We knew it was going to coincide this year with the certification of the Electoral College votes by the US Congress. But we didn’t know what else was coming down the pike. No sweet multi-course meal, no music by the fireplace this year. Rather, it was a tense day reminiscent of other days of tragedy in the world. I spent most of it working on academic research on one computer with CNN open on the other computer and NPR on the radio behind me. The only exception was the hour I spent driving to a healthcare appointment and back—all of that time spent listening to NPR on the radio as well. The capital was “breached,” a mob attempted a “coup,” a vile set of circumstances came home to roost (forgive my nicely mucked up metaphors). Democracy, in the form of the Congress reconvened if shaken returning to the constitutionally-mandated work of certifying a free and fair election, triumphed. But the social fabric remains shaky at best. Everyone is angry or frightened or both.

It seems there is a lot of anger floating about in the world today and much of it landed on us, much of it is still present within us. Preaching a gospel of love often feels futile. People want to believe in love, but it is really quite difficult to understand the concept properly. We love chocolate, we love strawberries, we love the sunshine, we love beauty, we love music, we love each other. Yes, these are all inward ways of comprehending love. But this is not what we mean when we say that we are called to walk in love. To walk in love is to give oneself to the act of always loving—it is an outward action, not an inward sense.

When difficult things present themselves, it is very hard to think about how to work around them by walking in love. Part of it is that we think we are supposed to love some one or some thing that obviously has caused us harm. Maybe, if you can do that it might help. But really, what it means to walk in love through difficulty is to refuse to give into hate, refuse to be embroiled in fear. Instead, we must fill our hearts and minds with the love of God and keep going forward. A psalm comes to mind (23:4) “yea though I walk the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” In a week like the one we just experienced in the United States, with mounting death from a pandemic that could have been mitigated year ago, with a seditious coup propagated by a sitting president, it is indeed tough to love.

Thus, it is time for tough love. It is time to refuse to be consumed by fear or hate or trembling, but instead to walk in love. How? Not by disregarding the circumstances. Rather, by responding bravely and firmly but always with a loving heart.

Here is where the season of Epiphany can show us the way. In Genesis 1:3-4 God’s creation is defined by the manifestation of light, which was good, because light is love. God’s love shines like the sunlight. The presence of light is the sign of the presence of love. The presence of love separates the dimension of love from the chaos of the absence of love. When we walk in love we walk in the dimension of light, the dimension of creation, eternally.

In the book of the Acts of the Apostles (19:1-7) Paul, arriving in Ephesus, baptizes a group of believers. Now, baptism is new birth by the Holy Spirit given through the action of water. The flowing water is a symbol both of the birth process and of the motion of the spirit, always forward, always cleansing, always refreshing. In Mark’s Gospel (1:4-11) Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan river. As Jesus comes up out of the water he receives a dramatic vision of heaven accompanied by the arrival of the Holy Spirit descending “like a dove” together with the voice of God. Interestingly, it is an internal experience for Jesus, it is not just a response to baptism but also a catalyst to action. It is the acknowledgment of and the catalyst for the creative power of the presence of love.

We baptize children, we baptize new Christians. We forget, easily, that the people we baptize are people who embrace love. What happens after baptism? Many of us forget to walk in love. We pretty much learn to walk defensively, walls up, in fear. We learn to reside with the absence of love. And we forget that when we do that we create the kind of world we have now.

If we want a world that is not ruled by chaos or hate, then we must learn to fill our own world with love, even when it is tough. We must learn to look for, to prize, to nourish the light of love in our lives. Is there an LGBTQ perspective? Only that it is in this that we are truly and fully integrated. Indeed, it is we who are identified by the love we are created to share who can show the way.

1 Epiphany Year B 2015 RCL “The Baptism of Our Lord” (Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11)

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

Sowing Seeds of Love

Is the pandemic worse or better? I guess it depends on where you are about now. We are experiencing increasing numbers of infections daily in much of the US, including here in Oregon (although the numbers here are still lower than in other parts of the US). On Facebook I can see my friends in other parts of the world reuniting, going out, beginning to take up the new kinds of life that will be required to live in the pandemic until either a vaccine or a cure emerges.

We are still hunkered down.

The question in my heart each day is: “will this be the day we give enough love to bring life back into equilibrium? And each day I wonder where is the love we need to be giving? Where is the love we need all to give to bring each of us individually back into the arms of our loved ones, back into the company of dear friends, back into the simple things in life like sitting on a park bench or getting a coffee or a drink?

There is a lot of “self” (“flesh” as Paul might put it [Romans 8:9-17]) visible in the world right now. Flesh feels good in the moment but it is not in the Spirit, it does not lead to “minds set on the things of the Spirit.” What is the difference between places with rising infection rates and those returning to some version of normalcy? With all deference to all of the potential political comments that could pop up here, let’s focus on things of the Spirit. The difference is that in places where people dwell in the Spirit, where they give love for each other and for the collective all, the Spirit triumphs, and sets people free.

There is no barrier to love except self.

Love can set us free.

Those who love are occupied not with self but with the building up of love, the growing of love, the expansion and sharing of love. Think of how good it feels to hug your pal—now multiply that feeling a million times and then a million times a million. That is the love we need to give right now, in every moment.

All of us are capable of this love, because all of us are created in God’s image, and in that we are already filled with love, because God, who is love, dwells within us. All we have to do is let self step aside and let that love work its magic.

Jesus’ parable about seeds sown in good soil (Matthew 13:18-23) is just another interpretation of this fact about God’s love. The seeds sown in good soil are the seeds of love sown in a world where love prevails. Such seeds must yield more love.

Jesus nails it when he points to “the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields.”

We must hear the word and understand it. We must imagine the warmest hug ever, and then multiply that feeling, as I said. And then we must stand vigil against the weeds and rocky grounds of our own hearts, so that we stay focused on that love. It is we who must sow the seeds of love.

There are sociological theories about the role of lgbtq people in society that point to a calling of sorts, a kind of genetic imperative that the world must yield seeds of love that in turn yield crops of love. One idea is that we are hear, indeed, to give love; that we are well-suited because our very God-given identity is bound up in the love that we share with each other.’’

We must sow the seeds of love, now more than ever.

 

Proper 10 Year A 2020 RCL (Genesis 25:19-34; Psalm 119:105-112; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9,18-23)

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

The Dimension of Love

Do you ever think about when you were born? I bet it isn’t right up there on your personal top hit chart.

I was born in 1952, in what was then called Queens General Hospital in Jamaica, today in the borough of Queens. When I started commuting from Philadelphia to Long Island University in Brookville I saw the hospital from the window of the LIRR. I thought, oh wow, that’s where I was born. I was 40 when that happened.

Now, if you were born down the street from your parent’s house, you probably had this experience when you were 2 and sort of spaced it. For me it was pretty exciting, seeing this great and famous hospital outside the train windows and thinking that one day I had been a tiny being nurtured into life there.

Was I born of Spirit?

One of the really difficult parts of understanding Christian theology is understanding this odd language of flesh and Spirit. To be born of the Spirit has everything to do with love. To be born of the Spirit is to be a person who has discovered the multiverse in which love is the only law that matters. To be born of the Spirit is to be a person who lives constantly by giving love from your heart. This is why Jesus says to be born of the Spirit means a second kind of birth, because it takes a conscious shift in your being to move from the dimension of self to the dimension of giving love. As Nicodemus asks (John 3:4) “how can anyone be born after having grown old?”

Jesus says that thing about the wind blowing—(John 3:8 “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit”)—do you ever stand outside in a fresh wind and bless it? I do. Especially since returning to Oregon, where I live surrounded by centuries-old fir trees towering higher than skyscrapers. When there is wind they not only rustle, they positively dance, a ballet of creation, a truly amazing wonder of God’s world. I think this is Jesus’ point about being born of the Spirit—Spirit is a dimension of its own and it swirls dynamically through creation always but only when we have chosen to give love do we tune into it, notice it, join it. And that shift is a kind of new birth.

In Old Testament times such shifts in dimensionality were described as literal movement. Look at Genesis 12:4 where God promises Abraham multitudes of blessing in return for ultimate faith—“Abram went, as the Lord had told him;” a shift, a movement, a conscious act of faith, choosing the dimension of God’s love. As Paul affirms then (Romans 4: 13), God’s promise is revealed in the righteousness of faith. Righteousness is a metaphor for a way of standing in faith, for that conscious movement that shifts dimensions from self (flesh) to love (Spirit). This is why Paul says it all rests on grace in which the promise of eternal blessing is guaranteed to everyone who shares the faith.

Movement, this shifting dimension, is something well-known in the lgbtq community. We call it “coming out.” For some of us it is the simple realization of true being, a kind of revelation that emerges from a lifetime of experience but seems uncannily simple once experienced—not unlike my epiphany looking out the window of the LIRR one day and seeing the place of my birth—a moment, a sudden slight shift in dimension, a new life of grace. For others of us it is a gut-wrenching experience driven by loneliness or despair or exile or dispossession but then coming as a revelation of the “exodos”—ancient Greek for “departure” but also the “way out” sign all over modern Greece.

Like the biblical Exodus, the way out is also the way in, the way into new life, rebirth in the lgbtq Spirit of love, where God’s guaranteed blessing is available to all who have faith, to all who give love. Either way, the way out must come from looking within, from realizing the truth of who God has made us to be, each of us and all of us in God’s image.

Birth from above, new life in the dimension of God’s love, is the way into the realization of God’s promised blessings to all who have faith.

 

2 Lent Year (Genesis 12:1-4a); Psalm 121 Levavi oculos; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17

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