Blessed Are The Merciful…
“God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
(Matthew 5:7 NLT-SE)
President Trump demanded an apology from an Episcopalian cleric for asking him to be merciful to people he despises.
Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, urged President Donald Trump to “have mercy” on people who are “scared now” during the inaugural prayer service at Washington’s National Cathedral Tuesday.
“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. Good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen”
Trumps response was to label her as “nasty” and demand an apology.
The preferred evangelical response was to call her a “satanist”…I saw a lot of Calvary Chapel folks going to town on social media with this one.
Let’s talk about this for a moment with the intention that the conversation leads us to Jesus.
For the record (again) I hold to the traditional church teachings on human sexuality.
I have friends who I love (and who are holier and more faithful than myself) who believe in full inclusion of LGBTQ folk in the life of the church.
We disagree, but charitably and with open hearts toward each other.
We agree on what the bishop said…these groups targeted by this administration are terrified.
We agree that Jesus expects us to be merciful in how we pursue righteousness.
My personal belief is that everything I do and think has to be filtered through the teachings of Jesus Christ and particularly the Sermon on the Mount.
Nothing that the bishop said opposed those teachings, even if you believe that the people she spoke of are “in sin”.
Jesus came to have mercy on sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
I’ll just go ahead and say this…if your politics put you in opposition to Jesus, you need to decide what is most important to you… your faith or your politics.
It is possible to hold to traditional sexual values and have mercy and compassion toward those who do not.
It is possible to believe in border security and “legal” immigration and have mercy and compassion for those fleeing poverty and violence.
It is not possible to follow Jesus and disregard His teachings…and it is quite dangerous to do so while claiming He endorses your disobedience.
Choose this day who you will serve…as for me and my house…
I don’t get how it’s even possible to have a dialogue in this situation.
bob1,
We have to try…even if for no other reason than to keep orthodox teachings alive…
I’m swiping Michael bird’s column…he said it better than I did;
“Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde (The Episcopal Church) delivered an exhortation to President Trump at the National Prayer Service calling on him to show mercy to LGBT people and undocumented immigrants.
You can watch +Mariann’s homily here as well as her response to the criticism.
Some of the criticism has been visceral and unhinged, including Joe Rigney, part of Doug Wilson’s New Saint Andrews College, who said on X:
“Women’s ordination is a cancer that unleashes untethered empathy in the church (and spills over into society).”
My response was befuddlement: “untethered empathy”? Is that like, “love unleashed” or “kindness without license”?
To which I responded:
“Or … Christan patriarchy is a disease that hardens our hearts, scoffs at God’s mercy, and abandons God’s love for the love of godlike power over others.”
I’m an evangelical and orthodox Christian, yet I steadfastly believe in mercy for LGBT people just as I earnestly believe in compassion for immigrants. That’s not a capitulation to progressive theology nor an affirmation of an open border. In any case, I reject the castigation of female ordination on the grounds that it allegedly leads to “untethered empathy” because spiritual gifts do not come in pink and blue and empathy is not a vice.
Some of the criticisms of +Mariann sounded positively cartoonish, like a Star Wars villain declaring, “the jedi’s weakness is their compassion.”
Trump himself responded on Truth Social to criticize the “so-called Bishop” as a “Radical Left hard-line Trump hater” and accused her of bringing “her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way.” He labeled her sermon as “nasty in tone,” “boring” and “uninspiring,” even went so far as to demand an apology from her and the Episcopal Church.
What are we to make of this? How can mercy and compassion be regarded as a vice?
I need to begin by expressing some reservations about +Mariann’s homily.
Many people lived in fear of the Biden administration. The Biden administration has attempted to prosecute whistle-blower Dr. Eithan Haim for disclosing illegal practices about gender transition treatments of children in Texas. Some analysts have claimed that the Biden administration diminished religious freedom protections more than any other administration. The Biden administration attempted, unsuccessfully, to erase the freedom of conscience for doctors when it came to abortion.
Why didn’t +Mariann speak-up and speak-out against the Biden administration’s heavy-handed tactics then? Well, for reasons that are obvious as they are self-evident.
Big partisanship and a little bit of hypocrisy aside, no call for mercy and compassion should be denigrated.
Mercy is not a weakness.
Compassion is not a vice.
People of every sexual orientation need mercy. Everybody’s story is different. Everyone carries their own burdens and everybody possesses scars hidden from the naked eye.
Migrants, whether legal or undocumented, need to have their case heard, their story told, and to receive fairness in how they are treated.
If the choice is between self-righteousness and prejudice over and against mercy and compassion, we must always choose the latter.
The Lord is sovereign is his mercy and his compassion, he hath said:
“I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose” (Exod 33:19).
Let us too be promiscuous in our mercy and scandalous in our compassion, for in doing so, we imitate the ways of our God who had mercy on us and showed compassion to us in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
you are only forgetting one thing in your narrative. We are a country of laws and when people violate those laws as many illegal immigrants have, and will continue to, then we have a problem. If you feel that lawlessness is the best option, then perhaps you should live somewhere else where laws are not enforced. (let me know how that works out for you) The border issue has nothing to do with legal immigration, for which there is a legal process. The issue at the border has to do with people coming illegally with bad intentions, obviously as witnessed by us all with the explosion of Fentanyl into our country, rapes, assaults, robberies and murders from those whom we have allowed to enter the country illegally. Your agenda is disguised behind religion is misplaced. The bible clearly states, those who do these things (see list above) shall not enter the Kingdom of God. The idea is, those who practice these things. Your narrative certainly fits nicely with all the other left wing lunatics out there that want to support the immigration policies of the previous administration. What a train wreck!!!
Greg,
I only approved your rant as an example of the kind of thought I’m addressing.
Statistically, undocumented people have a lower crime rate than the legal population.
No one has any issue with deporting criminals.
What I am saying is that undocumented people are human beings created in the image of God and should be treated as such.
As to biblical admonitions…you probably don’t understand that each beatitude has a contrary thought attached to it.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy…..those who are not merciful…will not.
Make your own application…
Mercy and compassion, YES!
Migrants should have their case heard following legal routes of immigration, YES!
When this woman makes false statements about so called “transgender children” she has lost all credibility. There’s no such thing as a transgender child!
Since people people are throwing Bible verses around trying to justify their political agendas, let’s not forget what our merciful, kind, loving and gracious Lord declared about those who harm and mislead children: Matthew 18:6.
Raina,
I’m probably closer to your view on transgender issues than you understand.
Having said that, I still believe that those people need our mercy and compassion…especially as they discover that they bought into a lie.
Those propagating the lie may indeed have consequences they cannot imagine at this point…
When showing mercy is equated with false teaching, the Church is in trouble… Proud to be an Episcopalian this week.
What an amazing, beautiful plea. It would take a really fragile person to be hurt or offended by what she said.
I recognized the heart of Jesus in her words.
“Mercy triumphs over Judgement.”
James 2:13
“I saw a lot of Calvary Chapel folks going to town on social media with this one.”
It figures. They need to learn to be about better things.
pstrmike,
Better yet, no things!
What Josh said.
At Spanish church last night I whisked my 10 children away for a Bible story, snacks, games, and crafts. Their parents were in the social hall for Bible study and prayer. When I returned with the kids, the parents were standing in a circle praying with the pastor about the immigration situation. I have cried all I can for now. I’m praying much (happily saw that the challenge to birth citizenship had its first reversal in court today-prayed about that this morning), and I’ve asked God to let me be as helpful as possible to my family in Christ. It may be as simple as teaching a kids’ class or helping a mom find the school district web site to answer a question about high schools for her 8th grader. I trust I’ll be up to the challenge, whatever it is.
Linn,
That church family is blessed to have you…as are we.
As a TEC member who visits (mostly lurks) here to challenge myself to react in charity to/with my conservative TEC friends and ACNA cousins, I was wondering how and if Bishop Budde’s remarks would be processed. Appreciate the way the discourse is going despite all sorts of temptations to take it in less God-honoring ways.
bob1,
Not all of them, not everyone.
I have been shown a lot of kindness by some Calvary pastors. Their encouragement has not been forgotten. There is a younger guy in the area, who I consider a friend, who treats me with more respect than I probably deserve. There is an older guy here who years ago stepped in and covered for me when I was scheduled to speak at a new church plant. He didn’t hesitate but stepped in while I took my wife to the ER. The doctor told me if I had waited much longer, she may have died. There was a guy in Germany who I didn’t know, who put my wife and I up for week while we visited our son.”
I have other stories.
While I felt it necessary to move on from them both for methodological and theological reasons, I will always remember their kindness, and as I’m getting older, I want those memories to stay with me.
I find it ironic that religious liberty comes under attack from the party that claims to be the defender of religious liberty. Although I don’t approve of females masquerading in male roles, Budde nevertheless is actually encountering religious persecution (not the fake stuff) as at least one congressman has called for her deportation over her sermon. What has our Republic come to?
“What has our Republic come to?”
Possibly…its end.
Michael, I no longer believe it to be hyperbolic partisan rhetoric to state we may well be losing what we have always known.
I stayed out of politics this past year for personal reasons, but things have escalated in my absence. There is a great evil afoot. The appointees are strategically placed to end democracy. I don’t feel at all out of line saying that.
Reuben,
Trump fired a bunch of inspectors general last night. These folks scrutinize federal agencies and Congress is suppose to have 30 days notice before one is fired. Maybe some of the GOP reps and senators will come to the realization that they elected a dictator, not a president.
Anybody remember what senator Amidala (Padme) said in ‘The Phantom Menace’ (Star Wars)?
“So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause…”
Linn,
Does not surprise me. However, I don’t think there will be much pushback from the GOP. This is an anointed man at this point.
Reuben,
The Constitution is the foundation of everything that holds us together.
When it is under attack, the possibility of complete collapse into authoritarianism is at the door…