Here is my litany for Proper 8, Year B from 2018: Litany for What Ails Us
The First Testament reading in this week’s Lectionary is David’s lament for the passing of Saul and Jonathan. In David’s relationship with Jonathan, he experiences something new to him, a new frontier of love. He says of Jonathan, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” Blowing past what he’d previously experienced. Hm.
The Psalms and Lamentations texts are meditations on the “steadfast love” of God, even in the midst of life’s most difficult experiences. St. Paul extols the generous nature of Christ’s Love in the epistle. And Christ himself epitomizes the healing and restorative nature of Love in the gospel text.
We might read these texts with questions in mind: what is Love? What is the nature of Love? Where is Love found? Where does Love come from?
It is such a big idea that it is unsayable. Unwriteable. But we get these hints: relationality, restoration, healing, generosity, unceasing, steadfast, eternal, abundant.
And this: whatever we *think* love is, it is more.
I have more hunches about Love: that it is the sum of everything. That it is the “ground of being.” That it’s that elusive thing our physicists dance around when they’re trying to figure out dark matter and dark energy. Anyway, that’s why I’m still writing prayers about it - because as trite as it might sound, I think it’s the most important thing, and in fact, it’s everything. It’s God. It’s us. It’s life. I’ll never be done writing and thinking about it.
God, we are learning about Love,
Setting aside all our old assumptions about it,
Practicing and playing with it,
And re-imagining ourselves in light of it.