Sermons About That Sermon
“A preacher gets up, quotes Scripture, and reminds the gathered congregation that God loves the outcast — those in fear for their lives — the poor, prisoners, the disabled, and the oppressed. In response, an outraged mob tries to kill the preacher. Is this from the New Testament or the Washington Post?”
Diana Butler Bass, an Episcopalian, made that observation about the similarities in the responses to Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon at an inauguration prayer service and the responses to Jesus’s first recorded sermon in Luke 4. That connection was particularly potent since, as I noted last week, Jesus’s sermon was the Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary for yesterday. So across the nation, mainline Protestant pastors were already preparing to preach on that text when a real-life parable unfolded in the national media. It’s an example of what theologian Karl Barth encouraged: “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”
Budde urged Trump to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” She specifically mentioned LGBTQ children and migrant workers in her sermon as she invoked biblical teachings about being merciful and loving toward others. In response, Trump blasted her as a “so-called bishop” and “a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” a member of Congress called for her to be deported, and other lawmakers proposed a congressional resolution to condemn her sermon as unbiblical. Meanwhile, after Jesus’s first sermon, the people were also filled with rage and sought to kill him.
While Trump sat through Budde’s sermon last week, he skipped church as usual on Sunday. Had he gone to a mainline Protestant church, he might have heard praise for Budde and yet another sermon about the Bible teaching us to show mercy for the powerless and marginalized. Although Trump didn’t hear it, countless congregants did. This matters in seeing how pastors are responding to this moment and what countercultural values Christians are being taught. So this issue of A Public Witness looks at numerous sermons by Episcopal and other mainline preachers across the country as they reflected on Luke 4, Bishop Budde, and showing mercy.
Inaugural Sermon
Rev. Liza Knapp, a United Church of Christ pastor in Deerfield, Massachusetts, noted at the start of her sermon that Jesus’s message in Luke is “sometimes referred to as Jesus’s inaugural sermon, which are particularly fraught words this week.” Highlighting the importance of the moment for Jesus to decide what to say when everyone was looking at him, Knapp mentioned that Budde also had to make such a decision with “all eyes being upon her, not only in the cathedral but around the country.”
After reading some excerpts from Budde’s sermon, Knapp pointed out that responses included a congressman saying Budde should be deported, adding that “is an interesting thing to say about someone who was born in New Jersey. But then again, they threw Jesus out of his hometown.” Knapp argued that Jesus and Budde could have stopped their messages sooner and avoided the strong criticism but that both felt they must say more.
“Inaugural sermons are always fraught, apparently,” she added. “It’s easy to talk, you see, about timeless truths. It’s when we try to apply them in the here and now that we run into controversy.”
Rev. Matt Schur, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America minister in Nebraska, similarly talked about the importance of Jesus offering his inaugural message.
“When a new president takes power in the U.S., their inauguration speech sets the tone and the vision for what they want their term to look like and what the country can expect from them. What Jesus chooses to read from Isaiah serves as his inauguration speech, in a way. It tells his hearers what’s important to him, what they can expect from him as he begins his full-time ministry, and what it looks like to be anointed by the Spirit,” Schur said. “Unlike an earthly leader, he says nothing about consolidating his power or expanding his territory. And he doesn’t threaten revenge on his political enemies. No, in his big coming home moment in the synagogue, what he chooses to focus on first is caring for society’s most vulnerable in the here and now.”
“Believing in Jesus isn’t just about getting a ticket to heaven, it’s not just about our own individual lives and decisions. It’s also about what goes on in the world around us. This past week, Episcopal bishop Mariann Budde caused a bit of a stir when she directly addressed the president at the end of her sermon at the inaugural prayer service,” Schur added. “What’s been interesting to see has been the focus of the outcry. It hasn’t primarily been that she ought to have said these things privately or anything along those lines. The loudest opposition has been that her asking for mercy wasn’t in line with Christian teaching. ‘Beware the sin of empathy,’ one pastor has responded. One lawmaker has tweeted that she ought to be deported, and another has drawn up a resolution declaring that her words don’t represent Christianity. I wonder what the Jesus who chose a passage from Isaiah to make a public declaration about who he is would have to say about that.”
Many pastors pointed out how preaching the good news for all people — and especially for the vulnerable and marginalized — can be unpopular, as seen in the backlash against Jesus and Budde.
“Today’s Gospel story has similarities to the events that transpired at that cathedral. In both places, a need for mercy and compassion is emphasized and ironically become fighting words,” said Rev. Barbara Simmers, an ELCA minister in Slidell, Louisiana. “Just like at the cathedral with Bishop Budde’s remarks, Jesus’s reading and homily about mercy sparks growing tensions among his listeners. By the conclusion of this text … Jesus will be hated and run out of his hometown. I continue to pray for Bishop Budde’s safety as she receives death threats.”
“It isn’t hard to hear these words, this text and see the parallels between it and where we find ourselves today,” Rev. Dwain Lee, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, similarly noted during his sermon after recounting the crowd’s response to Jesus’s sermon. “And as some of the people in that Nazareth synagogue were outraged and didn’t like the content of what Jesus had said to them there that day, some of those this past week who were sitting in the National Cathedral were discomforted, they were upset, they were outraged by the simple gospel truth embedded in the bishop’s sermon.”
“Friends, the bishop’s courage, the bishop’s faith to proclaim the truth of the gospel and to stand up against the horrible Christian Nationalist distortion of it that we see so often in these days is exactly what we need in this time,” Lee added. “Regardless of who we voted for, regardless of whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, regardless of whether we’re liberals or conservatives, we are first followers of Jesus Christ. … When people in this church are vilified for proclaiming the simple, true message of the gospel, when there are now people seriously claiming that empathy for others is actually a sin, when government officials are trying to muzzle and punish religious expression of the gospel, and most significantly when history offers us a clear and stark precedent, I just can’t stress enough the urgency of the times you and I are living in as people of faith.”
At the Episcopal congregation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Budde served as rector for 18 years before she was elected as bishop of Washington, D.C., the current rector invoked Budde’s message. Rev. Lisa Wiens Heinsohn noted how Budde echoed the call Jesus gave in Luke 4 as he read from the Book of Isaiah.
“We have our marching orders and they have not changed for 3,000 years,” she said. “Well, our marching orders may not have changed, but the circumstances of the world do change all the time. Who are the oppressed, the captive, the blind, the poor today? Two of the most vulnerable groups today include the ones Bishop Budde mentioned in her sermon. … I am particularly concerned for our trans and non-binary friends and our immigrant friends whose current status is unresolved. I’m concerned too for those who are blind, who cannot see the world clearly, whose fear and hatred are manifesting in policies that create so much suffering.”
For many pastors, Luke’s story about Jesus’s sermon and the news this week about Budde’s sermon shows how Christians will need to decide how they will respond and act. For instance, Rev. Alex Evangelista, pastor of a PCUSA congregation in Sarasota, Florida, noted that Jesus’s sermon contrasts with “the powers to be” and thus requires listeners to make a choice.
“This good news is salvation, a different type of salvation than the good news from powers to be, for it is rooted in peace, justice, and solidarity with the vulnerable. This is a dangerous word to hear. For if this is a counter good news than the powers to be, you are left with a choice, for the good news demands a response. Do you follow and are formed by the good news, the priorities, and the victory we find in Jesus?” he said. “We’re not called to be formed by Republican or Democrat agendas, because as Christians we are formed by this inaugural sermon — and it’s risky business to simply proclaim the good news.”
“This past week, Bishop Mariann Budde from the Washington National Cathedral made headlines and even received messages of hate for her courage to speak truth to power — and maybe more simply stated, for proclaiming the good news of Jesus that is in solidarity with those who are vulnerable,” Evangelista added. “If we are tempted to think that if we just became a Christian nation, history reminds us that even when Christianity became the religion of the state, Church fathers like St. John Chrysostom constantly agitated the empire with his regular critiques of imperial abuses and excess. Friends, the good news has always been offensive to the merciless and those who used power to oppress. The good news will mark you as someone who has an annoying persistence, as someone who continually advocates for the most vulnerable.”
“Just like Jesus in today’s Gospel, who courageously proclaimed his ministry to the people of his hometown, we are called to act and speak up not only when it is easy but especially when it is difficult and challenging,” argued Rev. Tim Dyer, an Episcopal priest in Ridgway, Pennsylvania. “Bishop Mariann Budde exemplified the mission of Christ and our baptismal covenant when she asked the president to have mercy on society’s most vulnerable, including immigrants, documented or not, as well as those who are gay, lesbian, or transgender. … To those who listened, her words revealed the divine nature and the manifestation of God’s love, compassion, and mercy shown in and through Jesus Christ for all of his creation.”
Similarly, Rev. Robert Morris, a PCUSA pastor in Radford, Virginia, called Budde “another voice speaking from the wilderness” who has been threatened with violence. He added, “In our Gospel this morning, Jesus says what he must and got much the same reaction as Bishop Budde and eventually was crucified.” But even when unpopular, Morris insisted Christians must continue to preach the good news.
“It seems that preaching the gospel has once again become a dangerous thing to do. If the Beatitudes, the most fundamental and beautiful of Jesus’s words, get that kind of reaction, where is faith, love, and mercy in our country and our churches, today?” he said. “Jesus is speaking a truth they couldn’t hear and telling us that we have a responsibility for bringing that truth into existence. … There are no neutral Christians, no part-time Christians. There’s no neutral stand when it comes to standing with Jesus. And make no mistake, we’re called to take a very public stand, we’re called to speak what we must, and it’s hard to do.”
Powerful Words
During her sermon Sunday, Rev. Katy McCallum, an ELCA minister in Kirkland, Washington, mentioned the outrage over Budde’s message from Scripture about loving strangers and showing mercy to people. In such responses, McCallum said, “We saw that those ancient words can still light us on fire.” But, she added, “Fear not, because that’s exactly what Scripture is meant to do, what it’s always done.”
“A plea for mercy, a recognition of the stranger in our midst, is core to the faith,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, similarly told the New York Times. “It is radical, given the order of the world around us — it is countercultural — but it’s not bound to political ideology.”
The uproar over Budde this past week did indeed show the power of the radical, ancient words we gather each week to study in community. And it clearly energized and inspired many mainline Protestant preachers as they prepared to walk to their own pulpits on Sunday. For each sermon I’ve highlighted, there were likely dozens if not hundreds more invoking Budde and making similar points to help people understand Luke 4 and Jesus’s inaugural sermon. It’s inspiring to see so many faith communities taking seriously the words of Jesus.
When real-life events so closely align with a biblical message, may we never miss the connection. And may we not allow partisan politics to trump biblical teachings about loving our neighbors and showing love and mercy to all.
“Words are things that can provoke powerful responses. We’ve certainly seen that this past week,” Rev. Jared Cramer, an Episcopal priest in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said during his sermon Sunday. “If claiming your God-given identity and call ruffles some feathers, causes those you thought loved you now to see you as somehow threatening to the status quo, well, then I would say you’re in some pretty good company.”
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
Thanks for this encouraging overview of responses to the sermons of Bp Budde, and Jesus. We might note that the episode in Luke 4 goes beyond Jesus' quote of Isaiah to the reaction that follows when he applies these words to God's care, through the prophets Elijah and Elisha, to the foreign widow of Zarepheth and the Syrian Naaman, who were not of Israel.
We should also note Jesus concludes his quote by simply saying, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," implicitly identifying himself as the One who personifies the reality of Isaiah's in action.
I am always reminded by this and other texts, how in the 1970's and 1980's in Central America many, priests and laity, were killed by oppressive regimes for simply reading Mary's "Magnificat" in worship.