Dwight A. Moody
Presidential Inaugurations are big events. Important people attend. Money is spent. Plans are made. Pictures taken.
But sometimes, something happens that upends all of that. Like when Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter abandoned the black car and walked the full length of the presidential parade. Like when the teenage poet Amanda Gorman read “The Hill We Climb” at the Obama inauguration.
Like this week, when Mariann Budde took to the pulpit of the National Cathedral the day after the inauguration and preached a 15-minute sermon.
It was the last thing on the agenda: after parties and prayers, after bands and banners, after pronouncements and pardons. Then came the sermon.
I did not watch the inauguration, none of it. I caught bits and pieces of the commentaries by those who did. By Tuesday noon, I thought I was home free, disentangled from all the disgusting excesses of the event.
But then came the sermon, and the Facebook posts, and the TikTok videos, and everything else that drew my attention back to the inauguration, back to the festivities, back to the very last thing on the agenda: the sermon.
She stood to preach, standing high in the pulpit and facing a full house of dignitaries. A slight, perhaps frail, woman, robed as all the others in the cloth of the clergy. Mariann Budde. Mariann Edgar Budde, age 65, of Minnesota. Episcopal bishop of Washington DC since 2011. Not the imposing presence that we might expect from such a well-positioned professional.
But then came the sermon.
Fifteen minutes of gospel witness, unflinching in the face of political and economic power. The President of the United States and all his personal and professional entourage sat on the first rows. For days, they had reveled in the adulation of the people, their people, swept back into power by the thinnest of margins, full of ambition to remake the country to the benefit of the wealthy and the white.
Then came the sermon.
Fifteen minutes of gospel witness, holding up the humane virtues of dignity, truthfulness, and humility. Her voice and her vibe personified every syllable of her sermon: gentle, thoughtful, articulate, compassionate. It was the presence and power of Jesus.
Then came the sermon. The real sermon. Four minutes, perhaps, as an inspired addendum to the homily of how to build human community. “And now, Mr. President, in the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
The call for mercy is as old as biblical religion of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim variety. And the version of it in the poetry of Micah the prophet, long before Jesus and even longer before Muhammad: “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”
But here, the preacher was pushing back against the campaign rhetoric of the newly elected President. He had captured the office, in part, by promising to act without mercy against the most marginalized of people in the United States: the transgendered and the undocumented. He promised to unrecognize the former and deport the latter. Without justice, without mercy, and without humility. For a full year we have all listened to this crescendo of crudeness, this promise of retribution, this assertion of sheer power.
Then came the sermon.
It was a plea for mercy toward those who live among us, like the preacher said, and work, worship, and worry about paying the bills. “They are our neighbors,” she said, connecting her appeal to the answer Jesus gave many years ago when asked the question, “Who is my neighbor?”
Much of what was prayed and proclaimed prior to the sermon will be forgotten. None of us, in that sacred space or in cyber space, will forget the sermon. It will be replayed, studied, and imitated for years to come. It will be added to the collection of memorable speeches of American history.
“Ask not what your country can do for you….” “I have a dream.” And “Tear down this wall…” are powerful elements of our rhetorical history. But then came the sermon, this sermon, our sermon, the sermon we all needed to hear.
Bless, O Lord, the reading and preaching of your word.
Dwight A. Moody
Presidential Inaugurations are big events. Important people attend. Money is spent. Plans are made. Pictures taken.
But sometimes, something happens that upends all of that. Like when Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter abandoned the black car and walked the full length of the presidential parade. Like when the teenage poet Amanda Gorman read “The Hill We Climb” at the Obama inauguration.
Like this week, when Mariann Budde took to the pulpit of the National Cathedral the day after the inauguration and preached a 15-minute sermon.
It was the last thing on the agenda: after parties and prayers, after bands and banners, after pronouncements and pardons. Then came the sermon.
I did not watch the inauguration, none of it. I caught bits and pieces of the commentaries by those who did. By Tuesday noon, I thought I was home free, disentangled from all the disgusting excesses of the event.
But then came the sermon, and the Facebook posts, and the TikTok videos, and everything else that drew my attention back to the inauguration, back to the festivities, back to the very last thing on the agenda: the sermon.
She stood to preach, standing high in the pulpit and facing a full house of dignitaries. A slight, perhaps frail, woman, robed as all the others in the cloth of the clergy. Mariann Budde. Mariann Edgar Budde, age 65, of Minnesota. Episcopal bishop of Washington DC since 2011. Not the imposing presence that we might expect from such a well-positioned professional.
But then came the sermon.
Fifteen minutes of gospel witness, unflinching in the face of political and economic power. The President of the United States and all his personal and professional entourage sat on the first rows. For days, they had reveled in the adulation of the people, their people, swept back into power by the thinnest of margins, full of ambition to remake the country to the benefit of the wealthy and the white.
Then came the sermon.
Fifteen minutes of gospel witness, holding up the humane virtues of dignity, truthfulness, and humility. Her voice and her vibe personified every syllable of her sermon: gentle, thoughtful, articulate, compassionate. It was the presence and power of Jesus.
Then came the sermon. The real sermon. Four minutes, perhaps, as an inspired addendum to the homily of how to build human community. “And now, Mr. President, in the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
The call for mercy is as old as biblical religion of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim variety. And the version of it in the poetry of Micah the prophet, long before Jesus and even longer before Muhammad: “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”
But here, the preacher was pushing back against the campaign rhetoric of the newly elected President. He had captured the office, in part, by promising to act without mercy against the most marginalized of people in the United States: the transgendered and the undocumented. He promised to unrecognize the former and deport the latter. Without justice, without mercy, and without humility. For a full year we have all listened to this crescendo of crudeness, this promise of retribution, this assertion of sheer power.
Then came the sermon.
It was a plea for mercy toward those who live among us, like the preacher said, and work, worship, and worry about paying the bills. “They are our neighbors,” she said, connecting her appeal to the answer Jesus gave many years ago when asked the question, “Who is my neighbor?”
Much of what was prayed and proclaimed prior to the sermon will be forgotten. None of us, in that sacred space or in cyber space, will forget the sermon. It will be replayed, studied, and imitated for years to come. It will be added to the collection of memorable speeches of American history.
“Ask not what your country can do for you….” “I have a dream.” And “Tear down this wall…” are powerful elements of our rhetorical history. But then came the sermon, this sermon, our sermon, the sermon we all needed to hear.
Bless, O Lord, the reading and preaching of your word.
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