
By now, you've likely heard about Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Washington the Rt. Rev. Marianne Budde's sermon during the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. Addressing the new President of the United States, Donald Trump, she made a plea in her sermon for mercy.
She asked the President to show mercy to those who are afraid, to LGBTQ+ persons in fear, and to immigrants and refugees living in fear. She pleaded with the most powerful in the world to show mercy to the powerless. Of course, this proclamation of the Gospel is clearly in line with the teachings of Jesus, the theology of the Episcopal Church, and our understanding of scripture, including the declaration in his Sermon on the Mount that blessed are the merciful for they will obtain mercy.
The response to Bishop Budde's sermon has been vitriol by the President, his administration, Republican members of Congress, and in right wing media and social media. She's been called everything from "so-called bishop" to a sorceress working on behalf of the Devil.
Words on social media are one thing, part of a long strategy of self-aggrandizement and political gamesmanship. Everyone knows politicans compete for attention.
Actions, on the other hand, grab different attention.
On January 23, 2025, House Resolution 59 was introduced, and if passed, censuring Bishop Budde for her sermon, repudiating her remarks, defining them as a "display of political activism and condemning its distorted message." More disturbing to me is its claim that she was "promoting political bias instead of advocating the full counsel of biblical teaching." In other words, accusing Bishop Budde of reading the Bible selectively in order to promote her so-called radical Leftist political agenda.
What this bill does is effectively define what is and is not Biblical teaching. This would be a claim by the US Congress, if passed, to determine what is and is not Biblical, a complete departure from the Constitutional principle of separation of Church and State enshrined in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution and adjudicated time and again by the judicial branch of the U.S. government.
As a citizen of the United States, I find this profoundly disturbing.
As a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, or reign of God, I'm neither surprised nor distressed. But the Christian response is not repudiation. It is trust, endurance, and faithfulness. Let me dig in.
Our allegiance as Christians is not to any worldly authority or power, no reign on Earth. Our allegiance is to the reign of God. As Ephesians says, "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Elsewhere, the Apostle Paul tells us that the cross is foolishness to the world, incomprehensible by their language and worldview. The reign of God flips upside down the world's understanding of power, greatness, and wisdom, as well as where our security, safety, and belonging are found.
"God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God."
Christians exist as a people, a nation, whose very identity and nature turns upside down the categories that the world understands. This is evident in the famous dialogue between Jesus and Pontius Pilate in the Gospel of John:
Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?”
If the reign of God looked like an earthly reign, the followers of Jesus would pick up the tools of the world, the weapons of war, to free him from captivity and liberate the city of Jerusalem from their occupiers. Even the word king does not define Jesus.
The conversation ends with Pilate's question "what is truth?", but attentive readers to John's Gospel already know the answer. Jesus said just a few chapters earlier, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Truth stands before Pilate, but he cannot see it because his eyes are only able to see the categories of Empire.
The New Testament warns those that follow Jesus of persecution. In the same sermon where Jesus blesses the merciful, he also blesses us and perhaps gives us a warning of what is to come: blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness sake, just as the prophets were persecuted before you.
Anyone who speaks truth to power, as the prophets did, ought to expect persecution.
After all, once Jesus and Pilate conclude their dialogue, Jesus is executed by state capital punishment, using a form of death intended for political insurrectionists. Jesus, like Bishop Budde today, is accused of political activism and condemned to death for it, a complete misunderstanding of his teaching and proclamation.
Jesus defines discipleship, what it means to live out his teachings and be like him, as taking up our own cross and following him to Calvary. Christianity was persecuted for centuries after Jesus as politically dangerous. Even after the Roman Empire became tolerant of Christianity, bishops were known to government officials as a nusance in regard to treatment of the poor and marginalized.
At the heart of the Christian faith is care for the poor, outcast, marginalized, the foreigner, and the stranger. In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus associates himself completely with the "least" of our society, the most powerless. He says as we treat them, so we treat him. In fact he says when we help or hurt them, we do so to Jesus.
We should not be surprised when calls for mercy and compassion go completely misunderstood by the most powerful people in the world, when the Gospel is heard as foolishness. The Gospel is foolishness unless your eyes and ears have been transformed by the one who is himself Truth.
So what is the Christian response to rejection, persecution, and repudiation of the proclamation of the Gospel?
We are called by God to respond not with our own vitriol and attacks. To do so is, in some ways, making them right that what we are doing is simply political activism on the other side of the political divide from President Trump and Republicans. Too much of what I've seen on social media is just that, Episcopalians, and I especially mean clergy, behaving like "the Democratic party on Sunday morning". I'm sympathetic because so often as someone with progressive views on politics, this is my instinct as well.
The Christian response is to point to Jesus. We are called to trust God in all things, including in these. We are called to endure whatever condemnation, repudiation, or persecution we may face for following Jesus' way of love. We are called to be faithful to the Gospel: the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
When asked if she was afraid for her safety after the response to her sermon, Bishop Budde rejected any fear. She pointed out that she is priveleged to have a network of support and plenty of security for herself. Rather, her concern is only with the vulnerable.
There is absolutely no reason for fear in the face of political persecution! "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers can separate us from God's love," the Apostle Paul writes. No powers can separate us from God's love. Jesus knows that there is absolutely nothing that Pontius Pilate and the Empire of Rome can do to harm him. He belongs to God, the Creator, the source of all life. They can take his life, but not even death can separate him from God.
If God is for us, who can be against us?
If, as Christians, we feel convicted that certain actions taking place, words being used, and treatment of people during this current political administration go directly against the teachings of the Gospel, the answer is not anger on social media, as cathartic as that may be. We are called to so much more than memes, more than the same tactics the world uses for power and influence.
We are called to love. We are called to serve. We are called to act on behalf of our neighbors and accordance with the teachings of Jesus.
Or as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that."
In all things we are called to the Way of Love. We are called to be faithful to the one who is eternally faithful to us. We are called to Trust the God whose Spirit hovers over the Creation, to trust the One who loved the world so much that he stooped down to be one of us. Jesus has not abandoned us. God is not far off, and will keep his promises. And we are called to act on behalf of our neighbors, serving the world, making the reign of God real on Earth through us. May God give us the grace to follow where he leads.
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