Love Is the Way

 Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has written a book Love Is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. Below is an excerpt from an interview about his work found on episcopalnewsservice.org. 

On All Saints Day 2020, the bishop preached at the National Cathedral a sermon called “Holding on to Hope: A National Service for Healing and Wholeness,” which can be accessed online for a great listening experience. (https://www.episcopalchurch.org/publicaffairs/presiding-bishop-michael-currys-sermon-from-holding-on-to-hope-a-national-service-for-healing-and-wholeness/)

Also, Dr. Brené Brown interviews him on her Unlocking Us podcast. She says that in it, they, “…talk about love. Messy, hard, complicated love. I ask him how we can transcend fear in a scarcity-based culture and what we can learn from those who came before us. We also talk about the church, how to develop beloved community and the scrappy, gritty, work of love that is my definition of faith.” This chat is also a wonderful audio adventure. (https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-bishop-michael-curry-on-love-hope-in-troubling-times/)

Bishop Curry:

“I’m here to say there is power in the kind of love that is unselfish, even sacrificial, that seeks the good and the well-being of others as well as the self – enormous untapped power in that kind of love that can help both to give us hope in troubling times and to help us find our way and navigate our way through… Jesus said the supreme law is the law of love. He was very clear about that, Matthew 22. There can be no debate about that. The New Testament was absolutely clear about that: to love God and love the neighbor, that is what the will of God calls for.

What is love? The love most frequently talked about in the New Testament is ‘agape' love, which is a kind of love that is not selfish. It actually seeks the good and well-being of others as well as the self, but it’s not a selfish kind of love. It’s giving, not always taking. If that is the case, and we who are the church are a Jesus movement of people who have committed their lives to the way and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, then love must be the dominant chord of the music, of the life of we who are the church. That means that we by definition are a community of people who are bidden to love, to live for the good and the well-being, not of the institutional church, not of ourselves, but for the world for which Christ died.”