Standing Up to Bullies

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

-Micah 6:8

On Sundays when we're up that way and not too lazy about crawling out of bed, Peg and I sometimes attend St. John's Episcopal Church, in Canandaigua. It's a beautiful old place, one of those Gothic revival sanctuaries built during the Episcopal Church's construction boom in the second half of the 19th century. Their Rite II service is lovely, with a booming organ and a very high church feel.

But what struck me the first time we visited was their version of the Prayers of the People, taken not from the BCP but from Augsburg Fortress, a Lutheran publishing house. We're in full communion with them, so I suppose that's okay. The prayers are for peace, for the sick and shut in, for the deceased--the usual. But they're also for social justice, for the outsider. They pray for the end of the death penalty, and by name for those on death row scheduled for execution each week. They hit every point the prophet Micah listed in the verse at the beginning of this post.

The downside to all this is that they're talking to each other. Somewhere on that highway between Canandaigua and Rochester, at the same moment, there is certainly some basketball arena sized megachurch where other self-professed Christians get their hate on, against gays and migrants and poor trans kids. They're talking only to each other, as well. And the world goes on as it is.

Which is why the prayer service this week at the National Cathedral was so extraordinary.

In attendance were the Trumps and the Vances and their entire entourage of enablers and security, packed into the first few rows of seats. The sermon came from the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington. She's called out Trump before, for using one of her parish churches as a backdrop while he posed with a goon squad holding an upside down Bible during the BLM crisis. Would she do it here, or keep the encounter cordial? Would she, like so many voices of the center left these days, fall into line as another enabler? I mean, he did tell us in his inaugural address that he is on a mission from God, sort of like Jake Blues in the Blues Brothers.

Apparently, she wasn't sure what she'd do until only a few hours before she ascended into the Canterbury Pulpit. But when the time arrived, she used her fourteen minutes to implore the Cheeto Messiah to show mercy: mercy towards the migrants he characterizes as criminals, mercy toward gay kids whose lives are already hard enough, mercy toward a trans community that is terrified of what's coming next, listening to DJT proclaim the beginning of the Retribution Tour.

I've never been so proud to be an Episcopalian in my life.

This is what preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about, friends. You can't hide your candle under a bushel. She had the opportunity to play the prophet, to call out the king. It was a "you are that man!" moment. (2 Samuel 12:7, if you care to look that one up), and she took it to proclaim the kingdom.

The reaction to her message also echoes the experience of the prophets. DJT demands an apology. For what? For suggesting he align his behavior with what seems universally recognized as a Christian virtue?

She's gotten lots of threats over the last few days from the cowardly thugs who voted him into office.

She's been told she needs to be deported, because she's not a "real" American if she's not MAGA. Let that one sink in, if you think they're not coming for you in the end.

She's had her gender singled out as a reason for scorning the message, and the faith community she represents. What do you expect from a church that lets women preach?

All pretty despicable.

But what's important is that someone, finally, spoke truth to power. And the son of a bitch had to sit there for nearly a quarter hour and take it, a petulant little schoolboy in a chair that seemed somewhat too small for that large ass. His backside, I mean.

So be a little inspired this week, find the strength and courage to talk back when you encounter injustice and hate. Contrary to what you may have taken away from Sunday School, this faith walk requires not only a humble, discerning lifestyle, or a cheap profession of faith in some notion of Jesus's divinity, but the occasional flare of the prophet. The world's counting on it.

Finally home after a miserable day sitting in the Sky Lounge at the Detroit Airport. When they announced the earliest they could get me to Tallahassee was sometime today, I booked an afternoon flight back to KELM and got a continuance of next week's trial. Still sort of dazed by the whole experience, but grateful that the decks are now cleared to take care of the seemingly endless task list associated with leaving one firm and starting another.