Thursday, May 24, 2018

Royal wedding 2

The highlight of the wedding came from a most unlikely source: the address. Quite often, especially at grand royal affairs, you expect the address is to be non-provocative and slightly boring but the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church delivered it with all the flair you might expect of a black preacher. And passion. And words. Yes, it was quite long. But very worthwhile.

His message was simple: the power of love is the answer to the problems of the world. And love is from God. 

He mentioned the two commandments Jesus gave: to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself. He didn't go on to develop the neighbour bit although in the gospels Jesus did. When asked 'who is my neighbour?' he told the story of the Good Samaritan.

Precised down to basics, Jesus said to love your neighbour who is the woman down the street who gossips about you, the drunk in the gutter, the Muslim with whom you have a mutual distrust, the gay transgender who wants to marry for love, Donald Trump, the suicide bomber. You get the idea?

No-one said Christianity was an easy option.

2 comments:

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Yes, the sermon was marvellous. But I don't know about loving everybody … I draw the line at Trump in particular, and politicians in general.

Liz Hinds said...

It's difficult. There's a cop-out that christians use: you have to love them but not necessarily like them!