Love letter

The following is part of a sermon I preached on January 18th. It still seems a little preposterous to write a letter on God's behalf. But in the preaching it seemed to touch people. So I only ask forgiveness for whatever hubris this reveals.

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…and now faith, hope and love abide these three; and the greatest of these is love.” –1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13

What would it sound like if you and I received a letter from the one who loves us most in the whole wide world? What would a personal love letter from God sound like?

I’m not sure. I’m not at all sure. But it might sound like this…


Dear Woodland Congregation,

I am writing this to each one of you, personally, your name is on the envelope. I don’t mean, Woodland Untied Methodist Church, I mean your name. This is a letter meant for you, so take this personally. Don’t assume it’s for your neighbor or your friend or the one who has been here the longest or the one who is newest in the door. It’s not. It’s a letter for you.

I’m glad you’ve come today. I’m glad you’re sitting here reading this because there is something very important I want you to know. I love you.

That’s what I want to tell you. That is what I have been trying to tell you for as long as I have known you, and I have known you for as long as you have been you. I love you. That is what I have been wanting you to hear for as long as you have known me.

I realize this is hardly news. But you can never hear it too much, because you tend to forget. You tend to get wrapped up in the business of everyday life and you get bogged down with getting to work on time or keeping the dishes clean or having the energy to do life’s chores, and you forget how much I love you. You get tied up in stress that isn’t even yours to carry and you struggle with fights that aren’t yours to win and become distracted by trying to solve other people’s problems and you don’t have time to realize how much I love you.

But I do love you. In fact I love you more than anyone else you have ever known loves you. And I know what a powerful statement that is.

But I love you that much. And I do so knowing exactly who you are. There is no hiding part of yourself from me. That persona that you carefully construct for the world to see, the way you keep part of yourself separate from everyone around you, it doesn’t work with me. I know even the quiet thoughts of your heart, before a word is on your tongue I know it completely. And yet I love you. I know you work hard to protect yourself in the world but there is no need to cover up or cover over your mistakes with me. I’d like it better, actually, if you would admit them to me, come clean, be honest. It’s the only way our relationship can grow. Like I said it won’t be news to me, but it will help. It will help you feel my love.

Because even in the face of your biggest mistakes what I want to give you is forgiveness, the ultimate kind that only I can give. Forgiveness and mercy, those are part and parcel of my love. They come as a package deal.

I know it might be hard to believe, when I say that your honesty will help our relationship grow because you have been let down by love in the past. What you thought was whole and perfect love that would last a lifetime turned out not to be perfect. It turned out not to last. Over time and through your living your friendships have faltered, your family has been fractured and your romances have failed. But those are only partial loves. Those are only pale reflections of the love that I have to give. Even your biggest successes in loving are only a reflection of my love, and you have been far from perfectly successful. Don’t judge my love solely on the basis of what others have done or failed to do to you. The love I have to offer is whole and perfect, it is everlasting.

I don’t want you to think that this is easy for me, however. Real love, deep abiding love is always a costly affair. Love, though freely given, always requires something of the lover. To love is to give of one’s own self. And that is what I have done for you. I have given of myself, I have given all I have to give, for you. I have redeemed you because I want you to live in love with me forever. I trust you want that too. Tell me so, if you do.

I love you. I love you because it’s who I am. I am love. To know me is to know love and to know love is to know me. As I am present with you, and I have promised to be present with you always, my love is all around you. In fact you are surrounded by it right now, now and every single moment of your life, you are surrounded by my love. It is a basic fact of your existence that you are surrounded by my love. That should make a difference to you. It should effect how you live and what you do and how you treat those around you. Because it is yours, my love will never falter or fail, it is your eternal possession. That should make a difference to you.

I love you and I want you to grow, I want you to grow in my love. I want you to grow up, to mature and become more and more the person that I created you to be. You aren’t there quite yet but you are on the way. And with time and strengthened by my love there is no reason in the whole universe why you can’t continue to grow, in love with me. I look forward to watching what you will do, it gives me great pleasure to see you change and mature, to see you become the child I have envisioned you to be. And I have things for you to do. I have ideas about how you can make a difference in this world, how you can bring the truth and beauty and love that you know in me to places that need it. I am calling you, calling you by name to be a light for me, calling you to share my love.

I have already said that my love is yours, it is your eternal possession. Take that gift seriously but realize that it is not a static or stale gift. It is the kind of gift that I mean for you to give away. As I have loved you, so I want you to love others. Don’t worry that giving away your love will mean you have less. I am ready with an inexhaustible supply. Love is not a limited commodity. There is no limit in me, and there is no limit to how much I can love you.

So give it away. Give love away freely and without caution. Just as I have surrounded you in love, so I want you to love others. Surround one another with the same deep and abiding love that I have given you. Keep each others best interests at heart. Trust one another with your deepest pains and share your greatest joys. Be present for one another in times of need, keep track of one another. See gifts in one another and encourage their use. Celebrate one another and realize what a gift you are to each other. Love one another. Love one another as I have loved you.

And I mean all of you. There are a few among you who don’t always feel the full course of that love, there are a few who get left out or left aside in the love feast that you enjoy. Don’t forget a single one, for my sake, take care of all. I realize I’m asking you to do something difficult for you, for you can get crosswise with one another and end up annoyed, or even angry. But don’t let your disagreements tear down or block out the love that I have for you, for any of you, for all of you.

I love you. I’ll be telling you again because I know you will need to be reminded. You will feel close to me and distant from me, your perception of my love will ebb and flow. But regardless of how you are feeling, my love does not change. It surrounds you and upholds you and is with you always. Always.

Love,
God.

Amen.


Written by Rev Amy E Lippoldt.
Woodland United Methodist Church, 1100 W 15th St N, Wichita, KS