LGBTQ+ Witnesses to Love

The Acts of the Apostles tell the story of the new church as it was being formed, after the resurrection of Christ, and before there was any serious structure. In fact, “church” here means the community of faith much more than it means any sort of organization. We see in these stories the “acts” of love performed by those who followed Jesus’ ministry and who therefore receive from the risen Christ the gift of the Holy Spirit—God’s love—to be communicated forward for the purpose of building up God’s kingdom.

So the structure that mattered most then as now was the structure of witness. The new apostle [Acts 1:15-17, 21-26] had to be a person who literally was a witness. Now, witness can mean many things—so not just that the new apostle had seen the events but also that he was present and visible to all of the followers and to the new converts as well because he too had received the Holy Spirit from Christ.

And here is where we see our own selves as God’s LGBTQ+ children, called to be witnesses to our own creation, to our own lives of love, to be visible as LGBTQ+ people in the community of the faithful, indeed, in creation at large.

Ask yourself then when have you been an apostolic witness? Maybe you were part of ACT-UP? Maybe you have been in a Pride parade? Maybe you have been there for LGBTQ+ people in need. Maybe you are the same-sex couple who always bring a terrific casserole to the church potluck? All of these are acts of witness.

We are witnesses to God’s love every time we stand up in the church and profess our faith as the proud LGBTQ+ people we are.

John’s first epistle [1 John 5:9-13] continues to proclaim the facts about God who is love. Love is God and God is love. If we know love then we know God. If we know God then we know love. If we know God and we embrace the love we know, eternal life is ours. Knowing God, loving God, embracing love, is witness of the purest form.

In John’s Gospel [John 17:6-19], Jesus’ prayer makes explicit the relationship between God and Christ and love and, yes, us. Jesus says “All mine are yours, and yours are mine … so that they may be one, as we are one.” When we are one with God we do not belong the “the world;” instead we belong to “love.” We are God’s children. We are the children of love.

We who are God’s LGBTQ children are sanctified; we are holy, in the love we share, because love is truth.

7 Easter Year B 2024 RCL (Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19)

©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Pray. Love is Endemic.

Love surpasses all understanding. How is that? If you know the power of love; not sentimental warm feelings, but truth, justice, righteousness—the things that define God’s love–then you know that love surpasses all understanding. God pours love into our hearts so that we might give love out through our own love of life building it up until the whole of creation sings with joy.

As indeed it is doing right now. The rhododendrons are blooming gloriously, shortly it will be warm enough to plant vegetables for the summer, the peonies are swelling to blossom, after some dry spells the spring rain is gloriously back in Oregon giving us the opportunity for short drives in the rain, for in-between sunny day glimpses of Mount Hood glistening with new snow. Love is endemic.

There are two broad categories of prayer, or maybe I should say, approaches to prayer. Kataphatic prayer is the kind we find in liturgies, precise words repeated over and over in specific patterns. Apophatic prayer is the kind used in “centering” prayer, in which there is no content, only the job of being still and listening for what God brings (here is a tutorial).

I have always been more attracted to kataphatic prayer. Indeed, I find it apophatic in its repetitive nature. That is, as the prayer is recited over and over, consciousness shifts from the foreground to the back, where indeed there is silence, and room for God to enter in. But that’s just me I guess.

I thought of this when I saw this week’s story from Acts [10:44-48] where it says “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.” LOL, his kataphatic voice lulled them into apophatic presence. They were lulled into a trance by Peter’s voice and in the trance the Holy Spirit occupied their hearts. The listeners were converted by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Fascinatingly, the story ends by telling us they invited Peter to stick around for awhile.

But there also is a story here about the spiritual welcoming of those were were outcast. The crowd Peter was preaching to was a mix of insiders and outcast; the insiders were “astounded” that the outcasts could get it, not just that they heard and understood but that they received the Holy Spirit.

It reminded me of church conventions, where of necessity everyone is together in one place and in worship the divisions must cease. It is in such arenas that LGBTQ+ people are at their most powerful just by their presence, especially their visible presence among the faithful. Sing a new song, indeed [Psalm 98]. This past week after decades of division our United Methodist kin, in convention, used the joy and love in their hearts to bring LGTBQ+ people into full membership. The insiders embraced the formerly outcast and all of the faithful received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

John’s first epistle of love [1 John 5:1-6] continues to explain how all of us who know God’s love must be (as there can be no other possibility) children of God. We know God’s love because we know love as we know gravity. We know love as we know rain and sun and hugs and tears. We know love because we are love because we are people of love.

In John’s Gospel [15:9-17] Jesus tells his disciples about the transcendence of love: “As [God] has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Joy must be in us for us to make love complete. But God’s love brings us such joy that we have the capacity to make more love. Love builds up. If we love one another creation will bring everything we need.

Let us embrace the Holy Spirit, rejoice in inclusiveness, and pray however we can for peace in the Holy Land.

6 Easter Year B 2024 RCL (Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98 Cantate Domino; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17)

©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Synergy of Love

Body-mind connection, another kind of “syn”ergy, is critical in creation. We have certain biological imperatives, but our evolution, which is God-given, has brought us to a place where mature life (I mean grown-up, not “old”) is meant to be a perfect synergy of mind and body. Sometimes theologians refer to this as “spirit” and “flesh,” to achieve the right balance is the key. In fact, this synergy is presented all through scripture as variously dichotomy, challenge, and gift.

It is a gift, that our minds control our bodies and our bodies control our minds.

To live in connection, without “sin,” means that we must manage the balance constantly. Yet, we must have faith that it is managed, and not expend spiritual energy on “control,” because that disrupts the synergy.

See, I’ve been telling you, it’s complicated. I know I’ve written more than once here that there was a day in seminary, not too far into the first term, when I sat straight up in my little desk and said to myself “there is just no way to explain this ever.”

Still, I was ordained and sent out to keep trying. So, still I try. Because God’s kingdom requires us to grasp the truth about this simple but complex balance.

In today’s scripture you will encounter the “Ten Commandments” [Exodus 20:1-17]. They are given at a critical time in the story of how God was revealed to God’s people. They are moral rules, they are all in some way the same rule over and over, which is, to love your neighbor as yourself, which is, to love your own self, and then to extend your love outward. Always.

Psalm 19 [7-14] says God’s law is perfect and revives the soul and rejoices the heart, our love of God, indeed the love God has given us, endures forever. Indeed, God’s love for us is true, more desired than gold, sweeter than honey in the comb. We pray to be kept from secret faults, from presumptuous disconnection, from the outcome of letting the synergy of body and mind, of flesh and spirit, get out of balance, even in our innermost thoughts.

In 1 Corinthians [1:18-25] Paul reminds us that we, indeed, are those who are the called. God has created us, specifically to call us, to show humanity how to live a life of love.

The inexorable march of Lent moves us ever closer to the truths of what theologians call “the Christ event”—the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. John’s Goespel [2:13-22] is one of the accounts of Jesus storming the temple in Jerusalem. We read the story as though it is an act of anger, vengeance, retribution. But, if we look deeper we see that Jesus took dramatic action which no doubt was unwelcome by those in the temple precinct.

But, did he ravage and kill?

No.

He drove out the cattle and sheep and released the doves. Do you know why the cattle and sheep and doves were there? To be sacrificed; the sellers were there to make money providing the animals for sacrifice.

Jesus saved the lives of the animals and ended the financial exploitation of the people. He brought love back into a space where love had long since ceased to prevail.

And that is the essential story of Christ, that Jesus of Nazareth, who is anointed the Messiah, the Christ, brought love into the foreground in space where love had receded in the face of habit and custom and the imbalance of body over mind, of flesh over spirit. Jesus reminded people of the joy of walking in love. Jesus loved so we too, might learn to love.

God creates us to live in synergy and calls us in that very act of creation, in God’s own image, to live fully into our LGBTQ+ lives, as Paul reminds us, as Jesus shows us, to be witnesses of the synergy of love.

3 Lent Year B 2024 RCL (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 Caeli enarrant; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22)

©2024 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Secretaries, Governors and Drag Queens: Love Realized

Where are we today? An important park in downtown Portland has been renamed for the late Darcelle XV, probably Portland’s most beloved drag queen (she passed away in March at the age of 92). Darcelle’s friends, and in particular her colleague drag queens, are about to put on a 48-hour drag event in an attempt to win a world record but more importantly, hoping to raise significant donations to support LGBTQ people everywhere (including drag queens under attack in many US states) https://www.portlandmercury.com/Theater/2023/06/01/46525694/wildfang-and-darcelle-xv-showplace-will-attempt-to-set-a-new-guinness-world-record

And then, this week, just like it was a normal thing, Pete Buttigieg was in Portland. You know, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation who just happens to be a gay man. When have we ever had a cabinet secretary who was gay and out?

And, I keep forgetting the governor is a lesbian! (I forget, because really, she is just the governor, which, of course, is what you want). When have we ever had a governor who was a person of our own LGBTQ identity?

I think it all adds up to an interesting reminder as we move from Pride month back into real life summertime that although it seems that we LGBTQ people are under attack, it also is true that we have made great strides not only toward equality but also toward normalizing our own existence. The political right are still trying to use us to ferret out angry voters and this will continue through at least the next U.S. election cycle. You and I must try to remember that this anger directed at us is about power, and it (the anger) comes from the fear of loss of power.

But we also must remember first and foremost that we are called to be the symbols of love in God’s creation. It is important for us to be visible, sometimes in just very normal ways—like when my husband and I go to the supermarket and quibble about which things to put where in the shopping cart, and then the cashier greets us “Hi guys!” Just like we belong together! Just like we actually belong together there!

Many years ago, when I was meeting a congregation that was then new to me but would become my parish home for a number of years I was in a conversation with two married straight men who were parish leaders. I had been having a great time visiting their parish and serving occasionally as their supply priest. I liked them and they liked me and we were considering making the arrangement more secure. We had been having a good conversation, when it occurred to me that I should remind them that I had a very visible ministry in the gay community and that if I came to their parish my LGBTQ readers likely also would show up. One of them grimaced and said something along the lines of “well, it’s ok, but do you have to talk about it?” I don’t know to this day how it happened that with great control and calm in my voice I just looked at him and said “Don’t you know that every time you take your wife and son out to eat you are announcing, indeed, waving proudly, the signs of your sexuality?”

And so I think we must celebrate all of the little wins, all those things that add up to witness … the (gay) transportation secretary comes to town to ride a bus down a notoriously difficult transit corridor; the (lesbian) governor declares an emergency when a wildfire occurs, appoints a new secretary of state when the elected one resigns in a scandal, and my husband and I quibble at the supermarket! And, Poison Waters takes up the leadership role of local drag leader. All in a day’s work, as they say, in the Pacific Northwest.

In the church, today is the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost—something some theologians call “normal time,” meaning there are no specific holy days in sight (sort of like the ecclesiastical version of it is hot and dry and there is no rain in sight). The liturgy for the day opens with a prayer that reminds us that love is a system, a cycle, a network, a synchronism, a synthesis … oh, do you see that “syn”? it’s from the Greek for “connected.” Love is all about synthesis, synchronism; love is all about connection. And, therefore, we are reminded of the critical part that you must love your own self, because all other love follows freely from that point.

God provides. God, which is love, provides love, when we walk in love. In [Genesis 24: 34 ff.] is a very long and complex story about Abraham’s son Isaac becoming married to Rebekkah.

We are to take the story at once in two ways—first that it is miraculous that God has provided, and second that it is normative that God has provided. God provides, this is the nature of creation, but it often appears miraculous to us because we are not paying attention to the details of love around us. Miracles you see are really just the average everyday outcome of walking in love. Miraculous outcomes are normative. Their normalcy is their very power.

Thus, as at a wedding feast, we rejoice in the realization of the power of the love we share, which is eternal [Psalm 45:11-18]. The Psalmist rejoices in the presence of the power of love with the metaphor of the joy of a wedding feast … lots of people, two people in love, lots of other people supporting them, circles, like the tightly enclosed layers of an onion, from the couple outward to the surface where we burst into the sunshine … and in every moment in every aspect of every dimension of every layer we rejoice, we sing, we give praise. Because when we do that we whip up the frequency of love and ensure its continuing presence among us.

That is why we, the LGBTQ people of God’s creation, are called to be the artists, dancers, bakers, architects, singers, musicians … and cabinet secretaries and governors and yes even drag queens, whose job is to direct all of society toward the places where acceptance and love prevail.

In Romans [715-25a] Paul writes about the priority of active love. He says we can neither rely on faith nor can we lie back and watch the world roll by. Rather, we must actively remember to walk in love. Salvation is ours through Christ, who came to show us how to defeat the sin of disconnection.

Good old Paul. We can always count on him to explain it to us. So here is what he is trying to say: you cannot rely on the good feelings you have from time to time—say at church, or at a concert, or in the presence of stunning natural beauty—because your animal nature asks you to preserve yourself through isolation, through throwing up fences. This is why we need religion, this is why we need church, to remind us that God became human in Jesus to reveal explicitly to humanity the eternity of the power of love. All this means is that you cannot rely only on yourself; you must rely instead on your faith in community … in community, in connection, in other words without sin. And that again is why God has called us, God’s LGBTQ children, to draw everyone around us into communities of love. To demonstrate that our love is for love.

In Matthew’s Gospel [11:16 ff.] Jesus preaches to the crowds with a series of dichotomies, but sums it all up in these famous words:

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Rest comes in the promise of the joy of love realized.

Proper 9 Year A RCL 2023 (Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45: 11-18; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)

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

Recognition is the Revelation of Resurrection

Faith … well, is hope, and trust, and loyalty, but most of all, it is love in action. The “eyes of our faith” are the eyes of our souls, open in even the most difficult moments to simple acts of love.

We have had a family crisis since the disappearance of Red Oval Farms Mini-Stoned Wheat Thins (go ahead and laugh, it’s supposed to be funny). We ran out sometime in the fall, and they aren’t being made any longer. And it isn’t just (like most complainers on the web) that we miss the big crackers (that, as reviewers notice, stopped breaking along that line several years ago when Nabisco acquired Red Oval Farms or some such and changed the recipe) but we were addicted specifically to the little ones, the minis, tiny squares, just the right size to fit in my Fiestaware ramekins …..

So, yesterday, after months of trying substitutes and searching online, we went to Trader Joe’s, because they supposedly had a good substitute. Trader Joe’s is always difficult, too busy, too small, too hard to navigate. But today it was really almost impossible … people were jumping in front of us to grab things, we couldn’t even get a good distance (for someone with my sightedness) from a shelf to see what was on it because people kept shoving us aside literally, and huffing loudly, to grab stuff all around us.

Btw, there was no such product in the store.

We left.

But … day before yesterday we went to our newest romantic place (LOL), the Market of Choice (a supermarket). There we didn’t need much and we gathered it quickly, but then I was struck almost literally dumb as I walked up to the checkout. There was a hot young fellow with a beard … normally I would just go for his lane … but right next to him, laughing and joking, was a really nice lady who has been taking care of us for months … oh no, I thought, what to do … fortunately my husband grabbed the cart while I was frozen in fear and headed for our lady friend’s aisle. And I’m glad, she is always so loving, and we love talking with her, and he made the right choice, even as I couldn’t.

See, I keep telling you, this walking in love stuff isn’t as easy as singing hymns and pretending you are pious at church where the Spirit has been whipped up and it seems like second nature.

In Acts 1 Peter preaches to immense crowds and at the end of the story we learn that 3000 were baptized at once! Because they welcomed his message of love.

The Psalmist asks (116: 10) what can we give God in return for the promise of love? The answer is faith, of course, which is walking in love, most easily expressed with a simple “thanks.”

In his first epistle Peter (1 Peter 1:22) reminds us that we purify our souls by “obedience to the truth so that [we] have genuine mutual love.” Love in action, always.

Theologians argue about this passage from Luke [24:13-35], and indeed the other resurrection appearances in the Gospels, where the disciples don’t recognize Jesus. Is he so changed that they cannot recognize him? Are they so disabled that they cannot see God?

No, it is just that, we don’t expect that the person standing next to us, cold, sweating, naked, hungry, afraid, dirty, whatever … is our risen Savior. And yet, it is exactly the person standing next to you, always, whoever it is, who is exactly God incarnate, with you, recognizing you, offering love, your Redeemer.

We do not see God because we are so busy being us. Just look. Just pay attention. God is with you. God is all around you. Resurrection is with us, near us, always.

I do not know why or how it is that suddenly we, God’s LGBTQ children, are the subject of social and political struggle. I suppose we likely are in for a bit of turbulence as we remind the world that we too not only have a right to live, but that we too are created by God in God’s own image and we too are called by God to be loving heirs of the dimension of love.

It is worth remembering that witness works, that by being visible, by being recognized as loving siblings, neighbors, colleagues, co-workers, (LOL even shoppers), we remind everyone around us that in recognition is the revelation of resurrection, the doorway to the dimension of love.

3 Easter Year A 2023 RCL (Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35)

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

We all are Witnesses

Easter-tide, thank goodness, is a time of refreshment, rejuvenation, reorientation to life without holidays –a kind of opening of the way of normalcy. With any luck the weather will get better and soon spring sun will be the norm instead of a rare surprise. My tulips are beautiful on the rare occasion when there is enough sun for them to open up! This sense of return to normal is, I think, a major aspect of faith. It is easy enough to get whipped up by holiday hype, it is another thing to walk in love, to live the love that God asks us to live into. God asks us to understand in resurrection the idea that there is always renewal where there always is love in action. Resurrection is within us.

So it is that like Peter (Acts 2) and the other disciples, we are witnesses—[Acts 2:32] “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”  Yes, Peter means that he and the disciples were witnesses of the risen Jesus. But he also means that all of us, you and me, if we have faith, if we live into our covenant with God that we love our neighbors as ourselves—we are witnesses of resurrection.

In this, then, is our joy. In the leaves popping out on stems that remind us spring is coming and life is abundant and that there is always renewal. This is our joy in the smiles and hugs of loved ones, in the greeting by the nice lady at the supermarket, in the sweet sound of a familiar voice—in a hundred moments in each day is the proof that resurrection is within us, that God has raised us up too, that our joy is complete in the fullness of the path God has pointed out for us, the doorway into the dimension of love [Psalm 16:11].

In his first epistle [1 Peter 1:3-9] Peter speaks of hope, of that sense of trust that is the essence of faith that our inheritance of love is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” It is this hope that is the catalyst for Easter joy, the sense of renewal, or if I may, of salvation, which is “more precious than gold” because like all of life it has been “tested by fire.” We know that resurrection is within us if we can keep our feet on the path into the dimension of love.

John’s Gospel account of the risen Jesus’ visit to the upper room [John 20:19-31] leads usually to the focus on Thomas, whose “doubt” is revealed not only as very human but also as very intimate. Whatever Thomas’ failings, however momentary, the love he shares with Jesus is so powerful that the risen Christ comes to him to say “Do not doubt but believe.”

Jesus ends the story with the pronouncement “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Thus belief completes the circle of faith, the route back to love, the sure way to the dimension of love.

And so even we, the LGBTQ Thomases of our own time, we who are oppressed and outcast and reviled and distrusted even in our own “enlightened” day, we still believe, because we know the power of the love we have been given in our creation in God’s own image as inheritors of God’s love, as gatekeepers of God’s dimension of love. We know that resurrection is within us because we experience it every day, every moment, in the love we share. We all are witnesses. We all are blessed.

Second Sunday of Easter Year A 2023 RCL (Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31)

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

Keep on

Time is, as Einstein pointed out, an illusion. All time is all time all at once. The dimension of love is always not past or future but always now. We must live in it always now.

And, therefore, we must always be one with God. God wants us like a lover. God wants us to be always one with God. We must let God know we are there for God.

The life God wants us to live is a life of love, a life of realizing joy, a life of giving joy.

God wants us to understand that the message of salvation is that it always is always ours. There are no conditions other than that we walk in love in the dimension where God is.

Jesus pronounced “blessings”—promises of acceptance already given—to those who were willing to walk in love. All he asked in return is that they should rejoice and be glad.

My husband gave me a CD called “ExtANNAganza” from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus singing songs from Abba. It is an amazing gift for a whole lot of reasons. Of course, because he knows the music makes me joyful. It is music that just makes you feel good. But it particularly seems to me to be the hymnary of the LGBTQ community.

There are two extraordinary spiritual experiences in my life. I’ve written about them before, I know. But here I go again. The first was at the consecration of The Right Reverend Barbara Harris, the first woman bishop in the church of God (ok, since Joan the Pope) in Boston in 1989. Wikipedia tells me I was one of 8,000 people there that day. The thing I remember the most clearly was the moment in the liturgy when the 8,000 all rose to sing the Nicene Creed in unison. I could never ever have expected such a moment of power to come from the repetition of an ancient rite, I could never had imagined such a diverse crowd of witnesses coming together in the one thing that we all shared. It was almost an overpowering moment.

The other was, at the closing ceremony of the Gay Games in Amsterdam in 1998. I had been ordained a priest two months at that point. My friends who had supported my decade-long journey to ordination had all chipped in to give me the gift of that trip. And it had been an amazing couple of weeks, learning about the Netherlands, experiencing the thing the Gay Games gives, which is the sense of belonging no matter what. And now here we all were at the final evening, under the warm summer sky. And as the ceremony opened the strains of “Dancing Queen” began. And 50,000 (count us, 50,000!) queers all rose at once to sing and dance along. I remember my own joy. But I also remember the tears streaming down the faces of those all around me as we all stood and sang and dance. What amazing joy. What amazing reality. What amazing participation in God’s dimension of love.

And here is the message for us now—we must always hang onto that love that we all share, that joy that we alone can bring. Because our joy can change the world.

Look what we have done in three decades since—two lesbian governors, a gay former presidential candidate now in the cabinet, a trans-person in the cabinet—gay and lesbian bishops of the church, even a Roman pope who admits it is wrong to persecute us.

Keep on loving, keep on dancing, keep on creating joy, keep on keeping on.

Fourth Sunday After Epiphany Year A 2023 RCL (Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12)

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

Sustaining, Connecting, Present Prayer

We are asked to pray. In Luke 18:1-8 “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.”

We tend to think of prayer as “asking.” We forget, that prayer, really, is about “connecting.”

I remember one particularly sweet moment in my ordained life, after 15 years or so of regular prayer at specific times, after 3 years of seminary with prayer at regular specific times throughout the day, after my ordination as deacon and then as priest … I took a break.

You know, you get to have a break once in a while.

And one morning, I was sitting at my computer, it was a sunny day and I was looking out the window and there was suddenly a unitive moment.

Now, these are the moments when you “know” God is with you. Usually, they happen when you ask for them. Sometimes they happen when you are in a time of trial and God just wants to let you know you are not alone. But this was different, and as I pondered what God wanted I realized it was prayer time and I had not prayed in over a week. God missed me!

I laughed out loud. And then I said “thank you.” And then I learned at last to pray, not in “gimme-gimme” style, but rather in “I’m here” style.

This is what God wants—God wants us to be present not only with God but also with each other. In other words, love, always.

LGBTQ people are particularly good at this; it is our call after all, it is why God created us so we might be witnesses to love. And the best way we can be witnesses to love, which is God, is to live fully, at all times, into God, which is love.

In Jeremiah 31:33 God says “I will put my law [of love] within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” In Psalm 119:97 the psalmist responds “Oh, how I love your law!, all the day long it is in my mind.” In 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 Paul preaches to “continue in what you have learned and firmly believed” and “proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable.”

In other words, pray always and do not lose heart.

On Thursday October 14 Bishop Daniel Gutiérrez (Bishop of Pennsylvania, where I am canonically resident) sent a message to the diocese about beauty asking “What did you see today that was beautiful? Or, what did you hear that was beautiful? Beauty has the power to change our hearts and the world. In that beauty, we find joy ….” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYq1vGxiS0A ). Seeking beauty, recognizing beauty, is itself a form of prayer. Sharing beauty—such as the beauty I see in my husband’s heart—is a form of active prayer, a sustaining, connecting, present prayer.

Proper 24 Year C 2022 RCL (Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119: 97-104 Quomodo dilexi!; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8)

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Restoration, Nourishment, Integration, Witness

It’s Juneteenth, a quintessential American kind of holiday. Obviously a contraction of June 19^th, it commemorates the date in 1865 when emancipation of enslaved African Americans was announced and enforced in Texas. The history of emancipation is complex (check out Juneteenth in Wikipedia). But that’s not the only Americanism—the actual date of the holiday is June 19 but the federal holiday is celebrated on the following Monday (tomorrow as it happens this year). The original celebrations centered around shared food, the quintessential form of fellowship, but the holiday has become a time to celebrate the richness of African-American culture in all ways.

It also is Father’s Day when we celebrate the bond of fatherhood. It was special for me while my Dad was still with us, all the more so because he wasn’t my father but my step-father—the bond we shared was created from love and experience (and much adolescent angst on my part) over decades. I have Dad to thank for, among other things, teaching me that saying “I love you” builds up the love shared in its very expression. After he and my mother were divorced he had another marriage that lasted for decades, and I had the constant example of the two of them saying “I love you” to each other all through the day every day. Whenever we talked Dad would end the conversation by saying “you know I love you Son.” When my husband and I were married, the priest who presided (curiously, not as an ecclesiastical but as a civil officer of the City of Toronto) blessed us and then said “remember to say ‘I love you’ to each other every day.” My brain, newly ontologically shifted by the marriage, vectored immediately to Dad. And that’s just one tiny example of the power of the fatherly bond.

Maybe it’s no wonder then that people confuse their images of God with those of a paternal parent, it is an easy connection to make. But, of course, God is so much more. In 1 Kings 19 Elijah is hovered over by a very maternal God, by a God who shadows him as he journey’s in the wilderness and who three times wakes him up to make him eat something, one time baking for him a “cake baked on hot stones” to go along with “a jar of water.” Holy food, spiritual nourishment, food provided from love like all those Father’s Day breakfasts and brunches and very much like all those Juneteenth feasts. The love baked into that food is so powerful it keeps Elijah going for forty days, until God finally tells him to “go out and stand on the mountain before [God],” in other words, go stand where you can encounter shifting dimensions, go get on the dimension of God’s love. Elijah goes, after all, the call of love is all powerful, and withstands hurricane-force wind, an earthquake and a fire. But God is recognized, not in those demanding disasters but in the utter “sound of sheer silence.” God is in the gentleness, the new dimension.

In Luke 8 Jesus heals a man possessed by demons. Jesus names the demons, which robs them of their power. In the aftermath we find the man utterly transformed by love into a fully integrated member of the community—the ultimate meaning of healing. Healing means to be restored, to be fully integrated, to be welcomed, to be nourished. The transformed man wants to follow Jesus but Jesus sends him home with the command to be restored, to give thanks, and to tell people of the power of love.

We still are wending our way through LGBTQ pride month. Like Juneteenth and Father’s Day LGBTQ Pride is about fellowship, about shifting into the dimension of love through sharing and feasting and celebrating what God has done in our lives. LGBTQ Pride is about healing in the ultimate sense of restoration and integration and nourishment. And nourishment is just love expressed, love built up by giving, love towering through sharing.

And yet while we celebrate our pride we also have to think hard about the restorative and nourishment parts of it. We have to focus on listening to God calling to us in the sound of sheer silence, we have to remember that all of us created in God’s own loving LGBTQ image are called to build up love by loving. We have to raise our awareness that loving is our sure defense in times of stress, in times when it seems demons are everywhere.

More than ever before LGBTQ Pride must be more than celebration, more than feasting. It must be witness to the love that God has called us to live, to the love that God has called us to give, to the eternal possibility of the dimension of love.

Proper 7 Year C 2022 RCL (1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a; Psalm 42 Quemadmodum and 43 Judica me, Deus; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39)

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Time for Love

Are you reconciled? What a question for springtime!

Are you reconciled to Coronavirus-shelter-in-place-quaratine-boredom-loneliness-you_can’t_hug_your_honey? Reconciled. That is what God’s action in Christ did for all of humanity. Oh, my, is it a complicated story. But, this isn’t a theological seminar, this is a blog for LGBT people.

To be “reconciled” is to be “one with,” essentially to be one with God, and the only way we can be one with God is to be one with each other. And the only way we can do that is by giving each other love.

Boy is it hard, just now especially. This is tough. This is tough for all of us. I find, like a lot of people, that I’m just about ready to stop being confined. I want to go someplace, and I want to do something different, and I especially want to see the people I love. And yet, we have to remember (as I keep having to tell my friends for some reason) “this is not a drill, this is life or death.” What ever will end this nightmare?

Well, the answer is before us, the answer always has been before us, it is that reconciliation comes when we enter the dimension of God’s love.

We can see this in the scripture of Eastertide. In fact, in all of the resurrection stories the power of “witness” is the main thing we see, and yet in those stories, even those who “see,” do not quite believe what they see until they are able to enter the new dimension because Jesus himself has been transformed in resurrection into the dimension of God’s love. This is why (John 20:28) Thomas understands that he is seeing God in Christ, this is how Mary Magdalene in last week’s Gospel didn’t recognize him, this is how the other disciples (John 20:21-23) understand the risen Jesus’ commission to them to receive the Holy Spirit and to proclaim forgiveness—essential steps for moving into the dimension of God’s love.

How are we to enter this dimension? We have to love. I mean, we have to give love with our whole hearts in every moment every day.

Are you frustrated? Think of something that you love.

Are you overwhelmed? Think of someone you love.

Just keep in your mind thinking of love. You see, so long as we all are frightened, worried and panicked we will be blocked from the love that is God’s eternal gift to us.

In the Anglican communion we pray today to God “who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation.” We pray that we might show forth in our lives what we profess. This is Eastertide, time for new things, time for fresh life, time for renewal.  Time for love.

 

Second Sunday of Easter (Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31)

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