It has been a tumultuous week. We began the week with Annual Meeting, which was a relatively calm meeting as Episcopal Church meetings go. Then on Monday there was a big thing in Washington DC, a cease fire declaration in Gaza, and on Tuesday an epic snowstorm that brought quiet to the busy highways of the Gulf Coast. What we might have missed as we frolicked in the snow was a sermon preached by The Right Rev’d Marianne Budde, Bishop of Washington DC and current occupant of the see of our National Cathedral. In classic prophetic form and the Inauguration Prayer Service, she preached truth to power without regard to her own personal safety. If you did not hear it here is the link. It is well worth you time.
With pastoral sensitivity and grounded in Gospel truth, she called for unity in our country that is formed by extending dignity to all, being honest with each other, and walking with humility. In closing she asked the president for mercy in dealing with those who are scared that they might not be safe in our country now.
Some will think she was too direct in her sermon and that she should not have addressed the president’s actions in such a public way. But the prophetic voice in our faith tradition always seeks the openness of public gatherings to call out sin. This week our lessons begin with Ezra reading the law of Moses in the town square in a way that the “people understood the meaning”. Paul calls for unity among the Corinthians telling them that they are part of the Body of Christ and all essential to God’s Reign. And Jesus declares in the synagogue he is sent by God to bring good news to the poor and to let the oppressed go free and all eyes were fixed on him.
Bishop Budde, is the author of How We Learn to be Brave, Decisive Moments in Life and Faith. She writes: "our relationship with God cannot be based on correct belief, but rather it is based on our willingness to trust and to step out in faith" even when it might not be the convenient place to be. Epiphany begins with Light. The light of the star leading the Magi to the Manger. And Epiphany begins in the waters of Baptism washing us, naming us, marking us. We come to the waters of baptism as individuals, independent and relatively self-contained, but we come out of that water changed. We are no longer solitary. We can no longer truly be known without reference to that community into which we have been incorporated- sealed and marked as a beloved and necessary part of the Body of Christ. After baptism we are more than just ourselves, we are by definition beings in relationship with each other and with God. Where the spirit of God once moved over the face of the deep and brought life to the world, the Spirit of God remains the source of all life, the breath of the church, moving among us and within us.
Image attribution: Jesus Mural of Faith, Hope, Love, and Peace, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.
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