Loading...I don’t know about all of you, but I do know that some of you, like me, have been dealing with fear, worry, outrage, and doubt since late January. I know that many are looking for glimmers of hope, moments of joy, and hugs and words of recognition that you are not alone.
For me, many of these emotions started on January 21, after our Washington DC Bishop Maryann Budde preached in her pulpit in the National Cathedral for the Inaugural Prayer Service. A service that is historically a part of the first days of a new president’s term.
She preached the Gospel. She focused on many of the things that Jesus did as he taught his followers what compassion and caring, grace, justice, love, and mercy look like. She made a plea to the president for mercy for those who are afraid, and she provided a small list of some of the most vulnerable expressing the validity of their fears.
I learned about it on Facebook and shared it. Almost immediately there were comments about her bravery. And there were comments about how inappropriate it was.
I responded to those who felt she was “out of line,” that she preached the Gospel, as she is supposed to do. I expressed that she was following the vows she made at her Ordination as a Bishop. That she was representing some of the policies and programs of The Episcopal Church.
On page 518 of the Book of Common Prayer, one of the vows she took is this: “Will you boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ, enlightening the minds and stirring up the conscience of your people?” The response is, “I will, in the power of the Spirit.” Another vow is: “Will you be merciful to all, show compassion to the poor and strangers, and defend those who have no helper?” To which she responded, “I will, for the sake of Christ Jesus.”
Some of my family members and a couple of friends continued to disagree that The Right Reverend Budde was doing what she is called and expected to do. I explained more about her role, my role, and the role of TEC.
Throughout the next two weeks, anytime I shared something that was concerning me about programs being put on pause or slashed that would deny justice for or deny the dignity of all people by erasing their identities or removing already approved funding to support them, these same people continued to express their disagreement.
Now, I think it’s okay to disagree. Some of you might not agree with me, and I may not agree with you. Hopefully we can either set those topics aside or respectfully find ways to have a fruitful conversation. I want to learn.
But what began happening was harmful. It wasn’t a conversation. My person, my education, and my role as a spiritual leader were being mocked, ridiculed, and judged. Others who spoke up to support the vulnerable or the programs, like me, were argued with, and names were being called on both sides, but not by me.
On top of being sick, my emotional state was a mess, and I wasn’t sleeping well. I had horrible headaches. The stress of trying to stand up for the vulnerable and then myself, my education, and my role as a spiritual leader was beginning to take a negative, very negative toll on me. Twice I felt a need to remind people that I’m an Episcopal priest who is following my vows and my Church, and that I will always lean on the side of those most at risk.
When I had to do this a second time, I said I wouldn’t delete comments from people who disagree with me, but I included some expectations for those who disagree with me or with one another. I had overwhelming support from many people from many parts of my life. Except one who, though they did not use the word, repeatedly, publicly, called me a liar.
Last Sunday, I told the Vestry about what was going on. Overwhelmingly, your vestry supported me and encouraged me to block these individuals from my Facebook page. When I went home, that’s exactly what I did. And while I know I needed to do this for my own well-being, it difficult to do, and I’m still having a hard time being okay with my decision.
Yet this was the right thing for me to do because I felt disrespected by family members for doing what I promised to do as a priest almost 10 years ago. It is important for me to not let their behavior influence my heart, mind, and soul.
In the vows I took, you can find them on page 532, I strive to do them all, but the second one on the page is one that is important to my ministry each week as I prepare to share the Good News with you: “Will you be diligent in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures, and in seeking the knowledge of such things as may make you a stronger and more able minister of Christ?”
One of the people I blocked said that since I became a minister I have changed. I responded saying, of course I have! I should expect to be changed. I am constantly learning through (for example) the Dismantling Racism seminar, as a student in the current Sacred Ground class, through the pilgrimage Jeff and I took to Montgomery and Selma last fall. I learned more about the LTBTQ+ community when I sang for years in the Twin Cities Women’s Choir. I was extremely challenged by the focus on social justice at the Seminary I attended.
For me, being transformed is exciting, hard, heart-breaking-open, eyes cleared, pocketbook opening, life-long work, and it has turned some of the ways I used to see the world, and the ways I understood God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, closer to right-side-up. It is thrilling and daunting and just who I want to be.
But this right-side-upping of the world, this kind of compassion for the poor, the hungry, and the mourning is misunderstood by a lot of people these days. To follow the hope of today’s Sermon on the Plain means recognizing that all of our humanity is wrapped up in the circumstances in which we live. Any one of us at any time could be a recipient of the blessings or the woes.
If we are the Jesus Followers we profess to be, we will take these reminders of blessings and woes and look at the world maybe a little more compassionately, knowing that there will be people who will vehemently disagree, who will exclude your voice, will shame you, and sometimes go as far as to publicly harm your reputation all for following Jesus.
Like I’ve been experiencing. Jesus says, however, that my reward will be great in heaven for following Jesus and standing up for what I think Jesus expects from those who follow him. I sure hope so!
I pulled this book: Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg, off my shelf earlier this week and read the whole thing to help me learn even more about the importance of Jesus’s ministry for and in this world.
Some of you may have seen this quote when I posted it on Facebook earlier this week. Borg wrote “For Jesus, compassion was more than a quality of God and an individual virtue: it was a social paradigm, the core value for life in community. To put it boldly: compassion for Jesus was political. He directly and repeatedly challenged the dominant sociopolitical paradigm of his social world and advocated instead what might be called a politics of compassion. This conflict and this social vision continue to have striking implications for the life of the church today.”[1]
Our former Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry said, “We who follow Jesus have made a choice to walk a different way: the way of disciplined, intentional, passionate, compassionate, mobilized, organized love intent on creating God’s beloved community on earth.”
When we call ourselves Jesus Followers, we claim that we will do everything in our power to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Making a commitment to following Jesus means we will butt heads with people who don’t live or believe like we do. And though Jesus says we will be blessed when it happens, this is hard, especially when we are striving for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
We know that following Jesus means we are not on this journey alone. We acknowledge with each response of the Baptismal Covenant that we cannot do this except with God’s help.
Look around you now and see that we also cannot do this without each other.
If you are worried or afraid for yourself or for others, look to the people who can remind you that even if some people don’t see the world like you do, who don’t understand what it means to follow Jesus the way you do, you are not alone. You are valued. Your trust in God’s love will not fail. If you give your heart to God—the single act of believing in the power of God’s love—you have all you need. Amen.
[1]Borg, Marcus J., Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Harper San Francisco 1994, p.48.
