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| Bishop Takes King |
Thanks for your question, or perhaps I should say thanks for your comments. It is surprising to me to hear folks who consider themselves to be Christian or to understand the power and scandal of the Christ Event reacting in this way to Bishop Mariann Budde's homily. I say that because I recognized her proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God there, nothing more and nothing less. I could argue various points with you (e.g., the role of women in the Church, the nature of prophetic speech or what the NT calls parrhesia, the Kingship of Jesus, etc) and I could explain my vocation, but would that be of any assistance to you? Would you really listen or even see this response? If I am mistaken here, please write again and ask your questions or make your comments without the snark. I will be happy to answer or respond to them.
Let me point out one thing the Gospel writers make very clear, and that is the way Christianity, from Jesus' nativity to his death, resurrection, and ascension has always involved the political dimension of reality. Specifically, the Christ Event has always been a threat to the emperors of this world. Thus Herod wants to know where the newly born child is when the wise men come to Jerusalem looking for him and Mary and Joseph take their son and flee to Egypt until Herod's death when it is safer to return. Thus, the Jewish Temple leadership calls on Roman leaders to get Jesus tried and crucified; the disciples who preach with boldness after Pentecost are martyred, as is Paul in Rome despite being a Roman citizen. No one could read the New Testament and find that Jesus and his disciples, particularly after Jesus' resurrection and ascension or Pentecost, was not a threat to the established imperial order, or believe that it is not the role of Christians to speak truth to power in the same way Bishop Mariann Budde did in the National Cathedral the day following the inauguration.
I will also say to you what I said to my Scripture class last Thursday. Let's suppose President Trump (or anyone else in leadership in this country) had not wanted to hear the Gospel with all of its truth and challenge. In that case, if he did not want to be confronted with the message of Jesus who is God's Christ, the real King or Lord of this world (and certainly of the National Cathedral), he should have stayed away from there! If nominal Christians, don't want to hear a gospel focused on God's will in and for this world, God's will for the poor and marginalized, for the sick and suffering, or for the aliens we are called to make our neighbors and love as we love ourselves, then by all means find another faith or philosophy to embrace. Epicureanism might work since it involves significant values and a focus on pleasure** all without God, his Christ or the Holy Spirit. Don't use the Christian faith to give a patina of religious validity to an inauguration or other ways of celebrating someone's life or achievements when they are actually antithetical to the Gospel message! Especially, don't expect to hear Scriptures that do not condemn the ways of this world or that fail to celebrate the Kingship and values of Jesus, God's Christ.
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| Spreading Hope and Compassion |
Bishop Budde proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and requested Trump to remember the merciful and otherwise demanding ethics of that Gospel in accepting his new post --- something he claimed to consider was ordained by the God of Love. Isn't that her job? Isn't this her mission and even a huge part of her very vocation? Isn't this why we attend Church upon making a life commitment or assuming a responsible leadership position?? Meanwhile, to those who have castigated Bishop Budde for doing her job and fulfilling her vocation, I would ask you to imagine this homily in another context, say for the establishment of a committee or board whose focus is on Christian Unity, or on the ordination of new priests and preachers. Listen to the homily with that context in mind and ask yourself if anything in that homily was contrary to the Christian Gospel. I don't think you will find anything. In fact, wasn't the content and tone exactly what you would want Christian leaders to be hearing from the Church on such an occasion?
The second thing I would ask you to do is to take a list of the actions President Trump has taken in the past couple of weeks and set those down alongside the bishop's plea for mercy from the president. Ask yourself if that plea was inappropriate for someone representing the Gospel and the coming Kingdom of God. Again, I don't think you will find it inappropriate at all. What it may cause you to ask is why don't we hear these kinds of homilies more often if this is what Jesus represented? Too often, what passes for Christianity, is the pablum we required as children. When we are given a meal meant to nourish an adult we may spit it out as too difficult to chew, not sweet enough, or too unfamiliar. In an age where an intellectually demanding theology is despised as "elitist" or dismissed because it is not some simplistic version of what it means to love God or oneself and others as oneself, or when speeches are pared down to sound bite proportions we may be unfamiliar with challenging homilies. What is especially tragic is what I heard from Christians who didn't even recognize that what they were criticizing was the Gospel of God in Christ --- it was the meal adult Christians are supposed to regularly share with others in word and deed.
Preaching the Gospel is not an easy task. It requires that we speak truth to power as much as we speak it to console and empower the powerless. It requires courage and intelligence, and it requires a keen sense of the demands and promises of Christianity as well as an ability to tailor what one says to the specific assembly present that day. It requires integrity because one must be (or be committed to becoming) the image of the God one is proclaiming. One must live from the hope Christianity gives us and be entirely dependent on and in communion with the God who empowers not only faith, hope, and love, but the authenticity of truly human life itself. Bishop Budde knows all this much better than I do and she takes her vocation to serve God, God's People, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ seriously. As I said in my first post, Thanks be to God, and today I am grateful especially for Bishop Budde's faithfulness during such a time as we are now facing in this country. It has been a source of inspiration for me in my teaching and writing this week.
** Epicureanism, sometimes called Epicurean Hedonism, represents a philosophy with pleasure at the center of its thought. However, Epicurus never meant crudely pleasurable focuses on gluttony, greed, arrogant self-centeredness or license, and the like. Instead, he focused on the pleasure of the mind, a rational approach to reality rooted in living in the present moment and learning to be grateful for what one has right now. Epicureanism is an egalitarian and materialistic philosophy where genuine friendships are very important as is simplicity in the way one lives one's life. However, it has no room for God, particularly a God who dwells with us as Emmanuel!
*** Some may be interested in NT Wright's How God Became King for dimensions of the Gospel story that they may not have heard in the past.
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