Written for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B

God of deep, abiding, relentless love,

Oh my, oh my, do we need to hear about

The fearlessness of love,

The kind of love that we have built into us, if only we could just

Breathe in

Locate within ourselves where we are holding your love, lungs clasped around it like it’ll all spill out if we don’t tighten our grip and hold it in…

And breathe out before we turn purple, knowing that:

Love is not going to run out, there is no danger of scarcity

Or of shortage

Love is not like toilet paper, coins, diet dr pepper, or grape nuts or any of the other things the Last year has taught us can be in short supply.

It’s not like we’ll one day go to reach for love and discovered it has been discontinued

And people can attempt to hoard love all they want, but it’ll never, ever run out.

The challenge we face, God, is in upholding our part of the covenant, of the promise, our role as keepers of the deep well from which love is always readily drawn.

We say, “I love God” and then we turn around and do something that causes harm or pain to someone else. We don’t see you God at the grocery store or in mowing the lawn, but we love you so dearly. When we hurt other people and do not act in a spirit of love—

–and not the meddlesome, false love of doing mean things for someone’s own good because we love them so much—you know the kind—the kind of love where we don’t embrace the fullness of another because we are trying to love them into submission. That isn’t love, that’s creatively rebranded bullying—

We are in conflict, because we should be able to love our neighbor as readily as we love God—we see them all the time!

Help us to come closer to that perfect love, the kind that dispels fear and challenges hate. Teach us to love our neighbors—even the one with the dog who does his business on our lawn or the one whose politics actively bristle against the humanity of our other neighbors. How do we love the person who has caused harm? How do we dispel fear when a neighbor makes us feel unsafe? We know you have the answer, because your love covers even the people we can’t stand.

Create in us hearts that don’t shy away from wrestling with these big questions, we ask for your divine help in this urgent matter. We pray for such bold love in your many names,

Amen

Feel free to use/adapt this prayer with, “Written by/adapted from a prayer written by Kimberly Williams, 2021.”