When we all dragged ourselves out of bed before sunrise on Saturday to watch the Royal Wedding, we expected tradition. Stiff British upper lips. Fascinators.

We did not expect to be taken to church.

But I’ll be damned if The Most Reverend Michael Curry, the first African-American Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, didn’t take us right there. His sermon quoted liberally from both St. Paul and Martin Luther King, Jr., and centered around the redemptive qualities of simple, selfless love. The love between Harry and Meghan (“Two young people fell in love, and we all showed up”), the love Jesus had for the world (“He didn't sacrifice his life for himself, He did it for the good and wellbeing of others. That's love”), and the power of unselfish love to transform the world (“When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields.”)

It was a shot of adrenaline directly to your feels: “There is power in love,” Bishop Curry said, “If you doubt it, think back to when you first fell in love.” It was a call to action: “Love God, love your neighbor, and while you’re at it, love yourself.” It quoted African-American spirituals, and equated love with the fire that powers automobiles and airplanes. It was a doozy.

But it wasn’t the content so much as the delivery, because Bishop Curry for sure brought the fire. It was such a passionate, animated, wholly American performance, that it felt deliciously, bracingly incongruous. Watch it below.

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The assembled British royalty played their parts to perfection, which is to say they visibly could not deal. Here is Prince William barely suppressing a laugh, and Prince Philip thinking the elderly British equivalent of “..the fuck?”

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Royal reactions to that preacher are my new fave genre of TV#RoyalWedding pic.twitter.com/jQCzNIW7SA — Tom Harwood (@tomhfh) May 19, 2018

Here is Princess Beatrice searching desperately for someone to make eye contact with.

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Some royals not quite able to keep a straight face with the loud American Preacher #RoyalWedding pic.twitter.com/HY7f6YfR4E — FionaFox (@TheFoxyNz) May 19, 2018

And here is Sir Elton John, serving full angry, flashy turtle.

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An American preacher quoting the late great Martin Luther King and gospel singers. Royals looking at each other thinking WTF and Elton gurning! Best #royalwedding ever! pic.twitter.com/pMoQ5MUweu — Angela Blakemore 🇪🇺 (@angeblakey5) May 19, 2018

Raw displays of emotion such as Bishop Curry's are profoundly un-British, but we as Americans are free to eat them the hell up. And at this point in history, when the world seems to be getting crueler by the minute, an impassioned plea for self-sacrifice, a call for a life centered on love for one’s neighbor, is exactly what we need to be hearing. Particularly when it’s delivered in a castle that has survived the Norman conquest and two world wars. In the last thousand years, Windsor Castle has seen worse than what we’re living right now. We will come through this. But we have got to start loving one another.



We really did not expect to get inspired by a Royal Wedding, but there you are. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to join the Episcopal Church.

Dave Holmes Editor-at-Large Dave Holmes is Esquire's L.A.-based editor-at-large.

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