The Power of Love

by | Nov 8, 2018

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7

If you were watching television or listening to the radio in the last week, amidst the media frenzy leading up to Tuesday’s election and the national response to those killed in Pittsburgh, you may have seen or heard Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. My mother called to tell me that she watched him on The Today Show. I happened to be with Bishop Curry at a meeting in New York on Tuesday when he slipped away to be interviewed for 1A, a syndicated talk show produced by WAMU 88.5, a public radio station here in Washington, D.C.  

The occasion for this latest round of interviews is the publication of The Power of Love: Sermons, Reflections, & Wisdom to Uplift & Inspire. This small spiritual treasure contains the manuscript of his Royal Wedding sermon. It also includes several sermons Bishop Curry preached at the Episcopal Church General Convention this summer: one in which he introduced The Way of Love; another he preached outside a prison facility in Hutto, Texas where immigrant women captured at the Mexican border were being held, separated from their children. The book’s final sermon is from Bishop Curry’s installation at Washington National Cathedral in 2015.

Bishop Curry’s words are food for the soul and a reminder to those who follow Jesus that love is our way. “Yes, we live in scary times,” he writes. “Yes, people are hurting. Yes, people are hurting one another. But anger is not the key; revenge is not the answer. The way of love–love and the power of God–is the key to our hope and to our future.”

As news of yet another mass shooting and the swirl of political realignment fill the airwaves; as we ask ourselves what is ours to do to help realize God’s dream on earth, I pray that each one us might remember each day to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and our hearts set on his teachings. With his love in our hearts, we carry on. With his love, we can offer love where it is needed most.