NICK SCHIFRIN: This is
the season of reflection
on the things that bind
us together, the things
that matter most.
Judy Woodruff recently spoke
to a man who combines religious
faith with the secular
powers of inspiration and love.
JUDY WOODRUFF: As the presiding
leader of the Episcopal
Church in the United States,
the Most Reverend Michael
Curry leads one of the
nation's oldest denominations.
Last week, he participated
in a state funeral of
former President George
H.W. Bush at Washington's
National Cathedral, but he's
much more widely known for the
sermon he delivered last May
during the marriage ceremony
for Britain Duke and duchess of
Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan
Markle.
MOST REV.
®MD-BMICHAEL CURRY, Episcopal
Church: When love is the
way, then no child will go
to bed hungry in this
world ever again.
When love is the way, we will
let justice roll down like a
mighty stream and righteousness
like an ever-flowing river.
When love is the way,
poverty will become history.
When love is the way, the
earth will be a sanctuary.
JUDY WOODRUFF: That sermon
formed the basis of Bishop
Curry's latest book, "The Power
of Love."
Welcome with back
to the "NewsHour."
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Thank you.
Good to be back.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you threw
yourself into that sermon, but
you write in the book that,
when they approached you
about preaching, at first, you
thought they weren't serious.
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Well, yes.
I remember the archbishop of
Canterbury called a member of my
staff, because I was traveling
somewhere.
And when with the staff
member talked with me, I said,
look, it is not April fools.
What do you really want?
What is going on?
And I couldn't believe it.
And he had to convince
me that it was for real.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How did
you go about deciding what
to say in that sermon?
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: You know, the
truth is, I had to wait until
I knew what the Bible passage
that was going to be
the centerpiece, if you
will, of the service.
And the couple and their staff
and the archbishop and the dean
of the chapel were all involved
in conversations
about what stricture
passage would they use.
When they landed on Song of
Solomon or Song of Songs, then
I knew what trajectory to take,
because actually if you look at
Song of Songs, it actually is
love poetry between a couple.
And they are talking about
their love for each other.
And they are going
back and forth.
And there is the
Jerusalem chorus, kind
of like the Greek chorus.
And they're in the background,
kind of -- they're almost --
it's sort of like Gladys Knight
and the Pips.
They're kind of the
Pips in the background.
And then all of a sudden,
after they have talked about
why they love each other, the
woman, it's almost as
though she really stops.
It's like, she stops in place.
And she's saying, wait a minute.
We didn't generate this low.
We're not the
source of this love.
We're experiencing it.
And she says -- though
she begins to point to
the transcendent source
of that love, which
ultimately is God, the source
of all love, and that's where
the text took its clue, and
the sermon evolved from there
JUDY WOODRUFF: And it grew
naturally, Bishop Curry, out
of many sermons you have given
before.
Obviously, this one's unique,
but you have been preaching
about love, the power of love,
which is a title of the
book, for a long time.
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Yes.
I really do believe, certainly,
as a Christian clergy person,
that the heart and soul of
the Christian message and the
great tradition, religious
traditions of the world is that
the key to life is loving
God and loving each other,
that that's the key.
I mean, there's a lot of
complexity as to how you do it,
and work it out practically.
But if you start from that
core principle of unselfish,
sacrificial, unconditional love,
you will navigate your
way through life, even its
most complex and difficult
sides and dimensions.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Why do
people like you have to
keep preaching that sermon?
Why is that message, why has it
been so hard for that message
to sink in, do you think?
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: You know what?
I have got a theory.
And that's all it is.
It's my theory.
But I used to think of the
opposite of love is hate.
And, on some levels,
that makes sense.
But what I'm beginning to see
is that, if you look at love
as the New Testament talks
about, as Jesus of Nazareth
talks about it, he talks about
love most consistently as he's
about to give up his life.
And at one point, he even says,
greater love has no one than
this, but that they give up
their life for their friends.
The opposite of love
is not simply hatred.
The opposite of love is
selfishness, self-centeredness,
which the religious
traditions have always
identified as the root
source of all the dilemmas
that are created by human
beings, this selfishness.
Love is the opposite
of that, the antidote
to that, if you will.
And the reason it's difficult
for us is, healthy self-respect
and self-love can quickly become
selfishness, if we let it.
You need healthy
self-respect, but the
selfishness, when I become
the center of the universe,
and you're the periphery,
it's all about me,
and the heck with you.
And that even includes God.
If I'm the center of the
universe, well, God's
on the periphery too.
It's kind of a reverse
Copernican Revolution, if you...
(LAUGHTER)
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: And so that's
why it's so difficult,
because we always live
in the tension between
healthy self-esteem
and self-centeredness.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you -- in the
sermons that are excerpted in
the book, you take that concept
of love, as you did it when
you were preaching at the -- at
the wedding, and you talk about
how it relates to the
problems we face as a
people, as a humanity,
whether it's immigration,
in this country right now,
the plight of migrants,
whether it's racial injustice.
And you talk about making it
a practical thing that people
live beyond just what they think
about in church every Sunday.
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Yes.
It's -- the truth is,
love is not a sentiment.
It's a commitment.
It's a decision and a commitment
to seek the good and the
welfare and the well-being of
others, sometimes even above my
own unenlightened self-interest,
to borrow from the philosophers.
And the truth is that you
can't build a society,
there is no social compact,
there is no functioning
democratic society, there is
no freedom, true freedom, when
everybody is functioning solely
on their own unenlightened
self-interest.
If it's all about me,
you actually have us
tearing ourselves apart.
Somehow, we have got to
look for common good,
for the good of others.
It's the samaritan road, the
parable of the good samaritan
in the New Testament, about
the one who is willing to risk
to save another person's life,
to help another person's life.
Selfishness is the
most destructive force
in all of creation.
But selflessness is
the most creative power
that actually exists,
because that's the nature
of God.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And how are we
doing as a country right now
when it comes to selfishness?
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Well,
we're struggling.
But it's a mix.
It's a mix.
But we are struggling.
We're in the midst
of a great struggle.
And I think some of our identity
as a nation, if you will, is
really rooted in the result
of that struggle, whether
immigration and the
migration of peoples.
Our capacity...
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you -- one
of the sermons you preach in
here is at a detention center...
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: ... where
families are being kept
apart from one another.
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Yes.
And that sermon was -- it
actually was an example of,
how do you put love in action?
And, in the sermon, I said,
we do not come in hatred.
We do not come in
anger or bigotry.
We come because we believe
what Jesus taught us.
You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.
And we come with love for those
who are detained here and women
-- this was a women's detention
center -- women who had been
separated from their children.
We come in love for the prison
guards, who have to do their
job, whether we agree or
disagree.
We come in love for our nation.
But, because we truly love
our nation, we will not sit
idly by and allow our nation
to do wrong, because
we're better than that.
If you love somebody, you
want the best for them.
And we came because
we love our country.
And we want our country to
look like that lady in the
New York Harbor, the Statue of
Liberty.
Give me your tired, your
hungry, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free.
That's America.
That's America.
That's the soul -- Jon Meacham's
-- that's the soul of America.
And we went to that detention
center because we want America
to find its soul again.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Bishop Michael
Curry, writing about love and
relating it to so many larger
questions our country is dealing
with right now, "The Power of
Love: Sermons, Reflections,
and Wisdom to Uplift and
Inspire," right now and
this holiday season and
throughout -- throughout
the year.
Thank you very much.
MOST REV.
MICHAEL CURRY: Thank you.
God bless you.