Finding Faith ... in the the Rev. Michael Bruce Curry

The Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since becoming the clergy leader at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn., in November 2017, I've written a monthly column for our church newsletter. This column originally published in the May 2018 FLC Newsletter.

In the days after the Royal Wedding between Prince William and American actress Meghan Markle, I watched in awe as the sermon from the wedding took the Internet by storm. My Facebook feed was filled with friends talking about this “awesome sermon,” and the sermon even wormed its way into the talking heads on TV who were discussing the remarkable attention-grabbing event.

I sat back in wonder at the thought that the entire world was engrossed in a deep conversation over an engaging sermon that took place in front of billions of people … Imagine that! … That was a phenomena that I was certain was relegated to the early days of televangelists such as Billy Graham, who had the knack for getting the entire world to stop and listen, and never coming back.

But there it was. … The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, the first-ever black presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, was there in living color, plastered all over the world’s televisions and smartphones. … Say what you will about the media-saturated environments in which we live, there are moments when these tools do something for good!

But in addition to my giddiness that the world was talking about a sermon for a couple of days, the minister and budding theologian in me had to wonder what it was about this particular sermon -- after all, there are tens of thousands of Christian leaders who take to a pulpit each week -- that captured millions of people’s imaginations.

Don’t get me wrong: The sermon was absolutely phenomenal. One over which any preacher would be jealous! … Well constructed. Designed for the ear. Strong images. A beautiful message. It was the full package! … And I highly encourage you to Google it and listen if you haven’t already. … But, what was it about his specific message that so many people, across so many countries and continents found exciting?

Well, I think the answer is that the Rev. Curry tapped into something that we’re longing for, the answer as to what can help us navigate these most difficult of times in which we live. Not to give away the sermon for those who haven’t listened, but the reverend’s main theme is the redemptive power of love, God’s love. … Not the romanticized, cutesy version of love with which us humans struggle. … No, the Rev. Curry helped us to find an answer that is at the very core of who we are as children of God, and he reminded us that without love we are nothing.

Without actually speaking the words of 1 Corinthians 13, which is so often used in wedding services, the Rev. Curry used stories about African slaves and the Rev. Martin Luther King to tell us the very same things we always here in that verse. Let me remind you:

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Ultimately, I believe that the Rev. Curry tapped into a phenomena that is universal across the globe these days. Billions of people are looking for deeper answers. Deeper answers to the existential questions of, “How can I be happy?” “How do I make a difference?” “How do I live out my faith principles in everyday life?” … and on and on.

And what the Rev. Curry so beautifully did for us, the billions of people tuning in across the globe, was to give us the simple answer: Love … Not the Hallmark version that sells greeting cards every Feb. 14. … But the version that caused Jesus to sacrifice himself on that cross some 2,000 years ago. … The version that allowed our almighty God, the one that created heaven and earth after all, to sacrifice his only son to save the rest of those He created in His image. … The version that calls us to live the same.

Love. … What the Rev. Curry did so brilliantly was to remind us that at the end of the day, the one thing that could get the entire world to stop and listen to a sermon was love. … Not hate. Not war. Not divisiveness. … Even though we all know that bad news is what sells: On that day, what got the world -- the ENTIRE world -- to stop in its tracks was love.

Because after all, if we do not have love, we are nothing.

And I can think of no better fitting sermon to light up the internet than that. … Amen.