That long Royal Wedding sermon

There’s been plenty of talk this week following the Royal Wedding, after the famous sermon by American preacher Michael Curry   It will certainly be one of the biggest things you’ll remember if you ever think back to it in future years.

The speech was full of passion and he mentioned the word Love many times, and that the word love was not a feeling, but a verb, i.e. a thing we do. It was a call to action.

Was it productive?

This got me thinking about whether or not the sermon was productive. Firstly, it certainly wasn’t efficient in terms of its length, it was supposed to last 6-7 minutes, but it went on for nearly 14. In terms of of being efficient in reaching as many people as possible, it certainly did that. The whole world was watching.

And was it effective? Well we would need to ask everyone who saw it. If it changed just one life, I personally see that as a good thing. It filled me with warmth, but did it call me to action to go out and love. It’s nearly a week since the event, and I’ve not done anything noticeable yet. So why is that, and why is it the same for most of us, that a speech can fire up our hearts, but we take no action?

Do we have room for love?

Well, I think simply that we think that the job is too big, and just don’t know what the first or next step is. If love is a verb (a doing word), we need to work out what to do. We find it difficult to stop and think about those next steps. We have too much already on our to-do lists, in our calendars, and in our heads.

So I sat down and had a good old think. Then it came to me. I need to sort a date night with my wife. But what shall we do? That’s was easy, we both like Star Wars, so we can go and see the new “Solo” film. So what’s the very next thing I need to do. Easy again, sit down with my wife when we have our calendars infront of us, and pick an evening. After that first step, all other actions will naturally follow as we get close to the date (as I’ll add them to my to-do list), ie book babysitter, and book tickets.

So to sum up my own little sermon here about the sermon, after the preacher was saying Love love love, could he have said execute, execute, execute. To go and do something, just get something started, however small, which is where you give the love.