The Most Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, delivers his sermon “Choose Love” during the morning worship service Sunday in the Amphitheater.
“Sometimes I feel discouraged / and think my work’s in vain, but then the Holy Spirit / revives my soul again. / There is a balm in Gilead / to make the wounded whole, / there is a balm in Gilead / to heal the sin-sick soul. / If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul,/ you can tell the love of Jesus /and say, ‘He died for all.’ There is a balm in Gilead / to make the wounded whole, / there is a balm in Gilead / to heal the sin-sick soul.”
The Most Rev. Michael Curry spoke those words to begin his sermon at the 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. “In spite of it all, there is a balm,” he said. His sermon title was “Faith, Hope and Love: There is a Balm in Gilead,” and the scripture reading was Jeremiah 8:18-22.
Theologian Paul Tillich, in his book Shaking the Foundations, wrote in an essay on divine providence: “… Providence means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation, which cannot be destroyed by any event.”
“There is appreciation in spite of hatred, a cure in spite of illness, a stand for justice in spite of evil, for life in spite of death,” Curry said. “There is faith always in the face of the odds, the hope of things not seen.”
The spiritual, “There is a Balm in Gilead,” is a radical discussion of faith, Curry said. People of different centuries who speak for justice can relate to it.
“The prophet Jeremiah, who found out that working for God was not profitable, found himself persecuted and vilified,” Curry said. “Jeremiah asked God, ‘Is there no balm, no ointment, no hope?’ ”
Curry continued, “Over the centuries and across the great seas, enslaved people heard Jeremiah and said, ‘We understand, there is a balm. Sometimes we feel discouraged, but the Spirit revives us again.’ If you cannot preach like Peter or pray like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus and say he died for all.”
Love is an equal-opportunity employer, an employer who loves everyone, Curry said. There is a balm in spite of it all. “Ask Desmond Tutu, ask the Dalai Lama, ask Fannie Lou Hamer, ask the prophet Isaiah, ask Abraham Joshua Heschel.”
Curry quoted Isaiah 2: 3-4: “Many peoples shall come and say, / ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, / to the house of the God of Jacob, / that he may teach us his ways / and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. / He shall judge between the nations / and shall arbitrate for many peoples; / they shall beat their swords into plowshares / and their spears into pruning hooks; / nation shall not lift up sword against nation; / neither shall they learn war any more.”
He continued, “We will lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside. When love has its way, life comes; there is a balm. It is not easy, we don’t pretend it is. We need God to really love.”
Love, he said, is not just a matter of will. It is will plus God’s liberating, redemptive grace, so that love becomes a possibility.
The way to love, the way of life, needs to constantly be born and reborn in a relationship with the God of love. This is love when we don’t want to love, when we fail to find forgiveness. It is a matter of faith and it can work.
“Faith is the simple trust born of an intimate relationship with God,” Curry said. “We did not earn it, God just said, ‘Show up and be you.’ I have a theory that faith is not as difficult as we think.”
When Curry was Bishop of North Carolina, he drove around the state to visit parishes. As presiding bishop, he is on a plane two or three times a week. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and flies Delta Airlines. “You may be going to heaven, you may be going to hell, but in the South you are going on Delta,” he said.
Curry has a routine as he boards the plane. He has already stopped at a restroom, and when he gets on he greets the attendants, “because they have a hard job,” goes to his seat and buckles his seatbelt and then gets out his iPad and prays the 23rd Psalm.
The flight attendants then do their routine to be sure seat belts are buckled, seats and trays are in the upright and locked position, and warn that in the unlikely event the plane loses oxygen, “the masks will descend like the Lord sending help.”
The pilot then comes on, and “they all sound like they went to the same linguistics class,” Curry said. “They tell us we will have a good flight with a little bit of chop, but when we get to 35,000 feet we will have clean air. I love it when they tell us we are going to the wrong city.”
The plane leaves the gate, taxis to the runway where it gets in line, it picks up speed and Curry prays. “Isaac Newton’s theory bites the dust. Theoretically, the WiFi comes on and when we get to 35,000 feet the pilot says if we want, we can walk around, but when seated to fasten our seat belts.”
Now, Curry said, “I am at 35,000 feet, going 300, 400 miles per hour, in an airplane with a pilot I have never met, serviced by mechanics I have never met, and I don’t know if Delta has filed all the paperwork with the Federal Aviation Administration. If I can trust Delta, I can trust God.”
He said, “With God all things are possible, including and especially love. May God hold us in his almighty hands of love.”
Sally Goss, a lay reader from St. John’s Church in Ellicott City, Maryland, presided. Sonya Subbayya Sutton, past president of the Anglican Musicians Association, read the scripture. There was no prelude. The anthem, sung by the Motet Choir, was “There is a Balm in Gilead,” an African American spiritual arranged by William L. Dawson. Denise Milner-Howell was the soloist. The choir sang a cappella under the direction of Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist. Rees Taylor Roberts, 2024 organ scholar, played the postlude, “Fantasy,” from Suite No. 1, by Florence Price, on the Massey Memorial Organ. Support for this week’s services and chaplaincy is provided by the Samuel M. and Mary E. Hazlett Memorial Fund.
