A Sermon to Emulate

All yesterday, I heard much talk about Bishop Budde's sermon at the worship Service of Prayer for the Nation, which was held at the National Cathedral. This morning, I decided to watch the whole sermon, not just the last few minutes which have gotten such attention, when she spoke directly to the incoming president, urging compassion to persecuted groups, like people here illegally and gay, lesbian, and trans children.

Bishop Budde is the Episcopal Bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C., so it is no surprise that she knows how to craft a sermon.  I watched parts of the service that came before it:  an hour of gathering music (diverse selections), a wide variety of worship leaders and readers, that beautiful cathedral.  The whole service, 2 hours and 18 minutes, is here; the sermon itself is here; you can read the transcript here.

I then watched Bishop Budde's conversation with Rachel Maddow which was a different kind of conversation than I was expecting; you can watch it here.  They were both very thoughtful about what it means to give a sermon, that it's a different kind of speech than the kinds of speeches that usually flood our airwaves.  Bishop Budde talked about the need for compassion, and the tone of the ending of the sermon, about how compassion needs to be manifest in a given time.  I didn't think the tone was particularly angry or confrontational, particularly not in the context of the whole sermon.  

There was discussion of her courage, which she shrugged off.  Bishop Budde pointed out that the worship service that happens with each inauguration usually includes a direct address to the president, so what she did was not so unusual.  And those of us paying attention have seen her bravery before, in June of 2020, when she spoke out in the wake of the murder of George Floyd when President Trump talked about sending the U.S. military out to quell protests.

I remembered that Diane Rehm had an interview with Bishop Budde, so I sought it out.  They discussed Bishop Budde's book, How We Learn to Be Brave.  This interview gave me such happiness and left me feeling nourished in all sorts of ways.  You can listen/watch here.

This week's Gospel, Luke 4:14-21, has Jesus giving a sermon of sorts, and I need to start writing my own sermon for Sunday.  It's been a week of sermons and prayers, not just Bishop Budde's.  It's interesting to consider those, in light of all of the readings for Sunday.  I look forward to seeing how all of these streams converge.