January 28-
The sermon by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, was part of a larger post-Inauguration Day interfaith ceremony at Washington National Cathedral. Trump was seated in the first row alongside first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance during the service, a tradition undertaken by presidents of both parties. The venue was meaningful, offering her words the power of Christian history. Washington National Cathedral has long been home to significant American political moments — services marking the end of wars, and state funerals for presidents from Eisenhower to Carter.
And the Canterbury Pulpit itself is an imposing platform, even when not addressing the president, Bishop Budde knew. Its Caen limestone is believed to have been brought to England by William the Conqueror, and used in the Canterbury Cathedral itself. The pulpit is where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached his final Sunday sermon, days before his assassination.
Its central carving depicts the signing of Magna Carta, the 809-year-old charter establishing that the king of England was not above the law.
Previous inaugural prayer services were hosted by the Cathedral but planned with the Presidential Inaugural Committee, meaning the president-elect often picked the participants. But that changed last year, when the Cathedral itself took over the planning well before Election Day, Bishop Budde said. It was a move toward religious independence, so the service itself would be free of partisan interference and so it would not be seen as a coronation or sacred anointing.
After Mr. Trump won in November, the Cathedral gave his team a selection of proposed music and readings to consider for the service. But the choice of preacher was reserved for the Cathedral alone, a spokesman for the Cathedral said.
Highlights of Bishop Budde’s Sermon
During her 15-minute sermon on Tuesday, Budde addressed Trump—who was seated in the front row—directly, by citing his belief about being saved by God from assassination and said: “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
Budde’s plea mentioned “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families,” across the country “who fear for their lives.”
The bishop also spoke up for immigrant workers, including those who may not “have the proper documentation,” saying the vast majority of them are “not criminals” but rather “good neighbors.”
Trump demanded a public apology from the Episcopal Church and Budde, who he called a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” who “brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way” and was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart” on Truth Social early Tuesday.
Speaking at the White House afterwards, Trump said the service was “not too exciting” and added “I didn’t think it was a good service…They could do much better.”
Here is the text of her sermon that has sharply divided the Christian world:
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh God, for you are our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. Please be seated.
Again, my warm welcome to all who have gathered in this House of prayer for all people and for those who are joining us via live stream. As a country we have gathered this morning to pray for unity as a people and a nation, not for agreement, political or otherwise, but for the kind of unity that fosters community across diversity and division, a unity that serves the common good. Unity in this sense is a threshold requirement for people to live in freedom and together in a free society. It is the solid rock, as Jesus said, in this case upon which to build a nation. It is not conformity. It is not victory. It is not polite weariness or passive passivity born of exhaustion. Unity is not partisan, rather unity is a way of being with one another that encompasses and respects our differences, that teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect, that enables us in our communities and in the halls of power to genuinely care for one another even when we disagree.
Those are across our country who dedicate their lives or who volunteer to help others in times of natural disaster, often at great risk to themselves, never ask those they are helping for whom they voted in a past election or what positions they hold on a particular issue. And we are at our best when we follow their example. For unity at times is sacrificial in the way that love is sacrificial, a giving of ourselves for the sake of another. In his sermon on the mount, Jesus of Nazareth exhorts us to love not only our neighbors but to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, to be merciful as our God is merciful, to forgive others as God forgives us. And Jesus went out of his way to welcome those whom his society deemed as outcasts.
Now I grant you that unity in this broad expansive sense is aspirational, and it’s a lot to pray for. It’s a big ask of our God, worthy of the best of who we are and who we can be. But there isn’t much to be gained by our prayers if we act in ways that further deepen the divisions among us. Our scriptures are quite clear about this that God is never impressed with prayers when actions are not informed by them. Nor does God spare us from the consequences of our deeds, which always in the end matter more than the words we pray. Those of us gathered here in the cathedral, we are not naive about the realities of politics, when power and wealth and competing interests are at stake, when views of what America should be are in conflict, when there are strong opinions across a spectrum of possibilities and starkly different understandings of what the right course of action is. There will be winners and losers. When votes are cast–decisions made that set the course of public policy and the prioritization of resources, it goes without saying that in a democracy not everyone’s particular hopes and dreams can be realized in a given legislative session or a presidential term not even in a generation. Which is to say, not everyone’s specific prayers, for those of us who are people of prayer, not everyone’s prayers will be answered in the way we would like. But for some, the loss of their hopes and dreams will be far more than political defeat but instead a loss of equality and dignity and their livelihoods. Given this then, is true unity among us even possible? And why should we care about it?
Well, I hope we care. I hope we care because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in this country threatens to destroy us. We are all bombarded daily with messages from what sociologists now call the outrage industrial complex, some of that driven by external forces whose interests are furthered by a polarized America. Contempt fuels political campaigns and social media, and many profit from that. But it’s a worrisome–it’s a dangerous way to lead a country. I’m a person of faith surrounded by people of faith, and, with God’s help, I believe that unity in this country is possible. Not perfectly, for we are imperfect people and an imperfect union but sufficient enough to keep us all believing in and working to realize the ideals of the United States of America, ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, with its assertion of innate human equality and dignity. And we are right to pray for God’s help as we seek unity, for we need God’s help, but only if we ourselves are willing to tend to the foundations upon which unity depends, like Jesus’s analogy of building a House of faith on the rock of his teachings as opposed to building a house on sand. The foundations we need for unity must be sturdy enough to withstand the many storms that threaten it. And, so what are they, the foundations of unity?
Drawing from our sacred traditions and texts, let me suggest that there are at least three. The first foundation for unity is honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, which is, as all the faiths represented here affirm, the birthright of all people as children of our one God. In public discourse, honoring each other’s dignity means refusing to mock or discount or demonize those with whom we differ, choosing instead to respectfully debate our differences and whenever possible to seek common ground. And if common ground is not possible, dignity demands that we remain true to our convictions without contempt for those who hold convictions of their own.
Second, foundation for unity is honesty, in both private conversation and public discourse. If we are not willing to be honest, there is no use in praying for unity because our actions work against the prayers themselves. We might, for a time, experience a false sense of unity among some but not the sturdier broader unity that we need to address the challenges that we face. Now to be fair we don’t always know where the truth lies, and there is a lot working against the truth now. But when we do know, when we know what is true, it is incumbent upon us to speak the truth, even when, especially when it costs us.
On the third and last foundation, I’ll mention today is, foundation for unity, is humility, which we all need, because we are all fallible human beings. We make mistakes. We say and do things that we later regret. We have our blind spots and our biases. And perhaps we are most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded without a doubt that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong, because then we are just a few steps from labeling ourselves as the good people versus the bad people. And the truth is that we are all people. We are both capable of good and bad. Alexander Solzhenitsyn once astutely observed that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties, but through, right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And the more we realize this, the more room we have within ourselves for humility and openness to one another across our differences, because in fact we are more like one another than we realize, and we need each other. Unity is relatively easy to pray for on occasions of great solemnity. It’s a lot harder to realize when we’re dealing with real differences in our private lives and in the public arena. But without unity, we’re building our nation’s house on sand, and with a commitment to unity that incorporates diversity and transcends disagreement and with the solid foundations of dignity, honesty, and humility that such unity requires, we can do our part and in our time to realize the ideals and the dream of America.
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. And the people, 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, 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, guruwadara 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 honour 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. The good of all people in this nation and the world.
Comments from across the Atlantic
Andrea Williams Executive Director of Christian Concern UK has very positively responded to Trump’s policies, his getting prayed over by numerous Christian leaders, giving glory to God- despite and acknowledging the fact Trump and his policies are far from being perfect in every respect, every time! Here is what she wrote among others:
These cultural changes help evangelism
I have often been told by Christians that there’s no point in “fighting culture wars” – a limited caricature of what Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre do. People say that we can’t achieve anything meaningful in culture unless there are more Christians.
I am convinced this is wrong.
First, since when did God need a majority of people to enact his will? God delights in the little people and loves to show what wondrous things he can do in response to a faithful few. At their best, the heroes of Scripture live lives of faith, praying to God and taking determined, strategic action to accomplish his will.
But, as we have seen, when cultural leaders take God seriously – when Christian faith becomes publicly plausible – opportunities for evangelism and discipleship abound.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Consider Deuteronomy 4:5-6 (NIV):
“See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” (Deuteronomy 4:5-6 NIV)
God’s law, his pattern for our lives and all that it entails, is good news for all of us. When people see Christians confidently upholding God’s wisdom and goodness, living and speaking like they really mean it, they are drawn to Christ.
We must take the opportunities that ‘cultural Christianity’ brings to encourage our family, friends and neighbours to go all the way to the source: Christ, the solid Rock.
He alone is the King of Kings, the Desire of Nations.
He belongs at the heart of our politics, our society and – in fact – everything.
