The Most Rev. Michael Curry, born in Chicago, was selected by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, to present the sermon at their Saturday wedding at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.
Curry, the Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, began his sermon during the wedding by quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words.
“We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world. Love is the only way,” Curry recited.
But Curry himself had some quotable moments as he sent a thoughtfully-worded message to millions watching around the world.
As he made reference to slavery, first loves and young loves, sacrifice, redemption, invention, innovation, the Industrial Revolution and social media, he captivated the worldwide audience.
He seamlessly blended lessons of the Bible with the challenges the world faces today, integrating the two to deliver a message unlike anything ever heard before at a royal wedding.
Here, are some of the messages he shared by quoting his sermon:
- “There’s power, power in love. If you don’t believe me, think about a time when you first fell in love. The whole world seemed to center around you and your beloved.”
- “The power of love is demonstrated by the fact that we’re all here. Two young people fell in love and we all showed up,” a light-hearted remark that earned him a smile from both Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
- “I am talking about some power. Real power. Power to change the world. If you don’t believe me, well, there were some old slaves in America’s Antebellum South who explained the dynamic power of love, and why it has the power to transform. They explained it this way, they sang a spiritual, even in the midst of their captivity.”
- “Love God. Love your neighbors. And while you’re at it, love yourself.”
- “Jesus did not get an honorary doctorate for dying. He wasn’t getting anything out of it. He sacrificed his life for the good of others, for the well-being of the world, for us. That’s what love is.”
- “And Jesus said you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it – Love your neighbor as yourself.”
- “Think and imagine a world when love is the way. … Because when love is the way, we actually treat each other like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all. And we are brothers and sisters, children of God. My brothers and sisters, that’s a new Heaven, a new Earth, a new world, a new human family.”
- “There was no Bronze Age without fire, no Iron Age without fire, no Industrial Revolution without fire. The advances of science and technology are greatly dependent on the human ability and capacity to take fire to use it for human good.”
- “Anybody get here in a car today, an automobile? Nod your heads if you did, I know there were some carriages. For those of us who came in cars, fire made that possible. I know that the Bible says, and I believe that Jesus walked on water. But I have to tell you I didn’t walk across the Atlantic Ocean to get here. Controlled fire in that plane got me here. Fire makes it possible for us to text and tweet and e-mail and Instagram and Facebook and otherwise socially be dysfunctional with each other.”
- “Dr. King was right: we must discover love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world
Quoting everyone from Martin Luther King, Jr., to controversial Catholic twentieth-century theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, referencing African-American spirituals and black enslavement in America, Curry’s sermon was a far cry from what might be seen as the “traditional,” aristocratic Anglican sermon you might expect from a royal wedding.
Running at nearly fifteen minutes, the sermon emphasised the power of love. But the love Curry described wasn’t just the romantic love you might express at a wedding. Rather, Curry was drawing on the rhetoric of liberation theology — a 20th century theological tradition inspired by Marxist thought — to characterize love as a necessary, chaotic, and political force. Love, for Curry, provides hope in the face of social injustice, even as it provides a blueprint for overturning it. Quoting the Biblical Book of Amos, Curry said:
When love is the way — unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive, when love is the way. Then no child would go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way. We will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever flowing brook.
Sanctuary
When love is the way poverty will become history. When love is the way the earth will become a sanctuary. When love is the way we will lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside to study war no more. When love is the way there’s plenty good room, plenty good room for all of God’s children.
It was theologically rich: highlighting not just the centrality of Christ’s death as the ultimate example of love, but the way in which love can counter oppression: love as a form of resistance. For an affair as necessarily anodyne as a royal wedding, the message was surprisingly political and surprisingly, well, religious.
Curry isn’t new to controversy. Curry has long been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights and racial justice. He came to prominence in 2012 when he gave a sermon of the importance of being a “crazy Christian” — in other words, arguing that the radical demands of Christian love, and truly loving one’s neighbor, necessarily put Christians at odds with restrictive, bourgeois societal norms.
In that sermon, writing of abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, Curry celebrated the ways in which her faith made her willing to buck social norms.
“She was supposed to marry well, raise well-bred children, participate in a few charitable activities and be fondly remembered by all who knew her. That was the life she was supposed to have.”
Rather, he said, “following Jesus means changing the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends. And sometimes that means marching to the beat of a different drummer…Sometimes it means speaking up when others shut up. Sometimes it means being different — even being crazy.”
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