You may have seen reports of the sermon given by bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington at the post-inaugural Service of Prayer for the Nation. Reports may not be a strong enough word- Mariann Budde's sermon was shared by everyone, everywhere, every major news and media outlet, influencers, independent journalists, she was being shared by people who hadn't gone to church in decades, she was being shared by people who thought church had nothing to offer them anymore. People made fan art, people sent her fan mail, people made memes about her. It was a reaction to an Episcopal sermon that we have not seen since Michael Curry at the Royal Wedding.
Her sermon was not flashy, it was not rhetorically complex. She simply said that unity requires three things: an awareness of the dignity of all people, the ability to tell the truth, and humility. And closed with what was, in her words, a "plea for mercy" for the people in our country for whom this is a scary and vulnerable time: gay and lesbian and transgender children, undocumented immigrants, and refugees, and children who fear their parents will be taken away from them. She said "Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land," a line right from chapter 19 of Leviticus. Her sermon- even just the last few minutes- is well worth a listen.
This is, to me, what it means to be Episcopalian- at the end of the day, liturgy aside, programs aside, organizational structures aside, Episcopalians have a quiet assurance that the dignity of all people is what matters first and most in our faith. The dignity of all people perhaps does not feel like a novel concept to us but it's worth noticing just how novel a concept it seems at this point in the life of our country-
how much a response it warranted from folks that seemed so eager to hear it,
and who were so surprised to have heard it from a religious leader,
who didn't know that there were women bishops,
who had never heard the word "Episcopal"
or who were stunned that the bishop would take the opportunity to make a plea for the dignity of all to so many people who she knew would not want to hear it.
And just how novel a concept it was to the folks who were not happy to hear it and who then called her nasty, ungracious, not smart, who called her a lesbian, a heretic and a "so-called" bishop, just how novel a concept, this dignity of every human being, to the one elected official who suggested she should be deported for preaching it from the pulpit in the cathedral of the diocese she is the leader of.
As gutting as it is to name, this dignity of every human being is still an extremely novel concept. It is a brave idea, it is an unpopular idea, and in ways that are both obvious and ugly and mean as well as subtle and logical and reasonable, we as a people are very, very good at resisting the idea.
1 Corinthians 12 this morning speaks to this: Paul frames the people of God- you and me and all of us- as a body, the body of Christ, and each of us is a member of the body. Paul talks about us being the eye and the mouth and the arm - when I teach this as a youth minister or as a camp chaplain I quite enjoyed talking about how some of us are the bellybutton or the earlobe or the pinkie toenail or the nose hair or the stomach acid, and the point stands! Whichever part of this body you are, we have need of you. Whichever part of this body I am, we have need of me. Paul says this:
God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? ... The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
You can imagine it right, all of the parts of the body on the playground at recess and the bicep and the deltoid and the prefrontal cortex flanked by the incisors sneaking up on the nostrils and pushing them off the swings, calling the arm hairs names, telling the wisdom teeth they don't matter, and kicking woodchips on appendix and saying "we never needed you." But the ideas of supremacy or importance do not- can not- factor into the life of the body if the body is to live.
This country thrives on the dynamics of inferiority and supremacy. We make choices and choices are made for us about who is vital and who is disposable. We move the goal posts to determine who is and isn't our neighbor. There are people and communities and ideologies that define an acceptable level of difference, across which the social contract of care and civility instead becomes a hunt. This is anathema to the Gospel- it is what Jesus has been trying to teach us from the very beginning. He says it over and over:
The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has appointed me to proclaim good news to the poor... to the prisoners... the blind... the oppressed. (Luke 4)
So as you did it unto the least of these you did it to me (Matthew 25)
Blessed are you who are poor, who hunger now, who weep now, when people hate and exclude you; woe to you who are rich, who are well fed now, who laugh now, when people speak well of you now (Luke 6)
The Kingdom of God is not ordered according to power, importance, or wealth; it's verb is not domination. It is not ranked in order of function or utility or attractiveness. The Kingdom of God is defined according to dignity, mercy, forgiveness, gentleness, generosity, and sacrifice. No wonder it doesn't preach so well. This being a Christian thing doesn't grant you power and authority, but it does remind you of your dignity, and it is a dignity that does not need power or authority to be made true. To have asked for the so-called inferior members of the body to be clothed with with honor, much less even merely to be shown mercy, is simply and precisely what we are meant to be doing here. And how wild this week to have seen just how longed for a sentiment it is.
I say all this to say: fly your Episcopalian (freak) flag high. I'm quite sure- based on what I've seen this week, that it will catch a breeze. What good news we have to share and how hungry this world is for a bit of good news. What fun work we have ahead of us to do, huh. Amen.
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