From the HeART

Pulpits are For Free Speech

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“Is anybody going to say anything?” wondered Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde. It was the day before the inaugural prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral, where she would bring the homily. The Cathedral staff put together the carefully planned service. The 22-page program was elegantly crafted to be interfaith and inclusive in every way. The President’s staff had input into musical selections, but not to the program as a whole or to who would give the homily. As the bishop​ for the Episcopal diocese that includes the cathedral, she was a natural selection for this role. She had a sermon on unity all prepared and rehearsed. It was the day before, as she heard and saw all that the new administration was putting into place, that she decided to include her plea for mercy in her sermon.

Her sermon, in its entirety, is 15 minutes long and worth listening to. It is the final few minutes that has brought the fury of the religious right down onto the bishop’s head. As one listens to it or reads it, the way she concluded was a natural outgrowth of all she had been saying about unity. She made a heartfelt plea for mercy for the vulnerable, downcast and weak to the leader of the free world, not a pronouncement or a judgment.

I was known to add things to my sermons either as I delivered them or as I thought of them in the shower before I went to church that morning. It is a little risky, especially for someone who preached from a manuscript, as I did. Preachers do their best to be prepared. Sometimes, we are prompted in the moment by a force beyond ourselves to say what is not on the page.

A pulpit is a unique place from which to speak. I always check them out when visiting other churches. Some are very high and have small circular stairs leading to them. It is quite daunting to speak from that height. The pulpit in the National Cathedral has a prominent history. The New York Times reported that:

…​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.

 The pulpit in the last church where I served as lead pastor​ has this message on an engraved plaque on its side: “This pulpit is dedicated to the free and unfettered proclamation of the gospel.” I would touch it sometimes on my way up the stairs for an extra dose of courage. Its message should go without saying for every pulpit, including the one in the National Cathedral.

Whether or not you agree with Bishop Budde is not the point. You are free to think and believe as you choose. Likewise, Bishop Budde is free to respond to the prompting of the Spirit as she was led to do. That was her place to be for that moment in time. She had full authority to be there and to speak from her heart and mind.

She is no stranger to being brave​ in the moment, as she was in 2020 when President Donald Trump stood in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, a church in the diocese under her care. After George Floyd was murdered​, there were innumerable protests​ against racial injustice and police brutality. The president cleared the streets of the protesters around the Capitol and marched with other military members to the front of this church. Without anyone’s permission, he used the church’s property and sign as a backdrop, held a Bible aloft upside down and proclaimed his message. She spoke out against these actions on national media at that time. Her 2023 book, “How We Learn to be Brave​,” gives a more longitudinal view of the evolution of what being brave​ means to her and what it can mean for all of us. Her most recent sermon was a natural outgrowth of her life of witness and service.

In the introduction to that book, she recounts a painful story of her family from her youth​. She made a huge decision to return to her biological mother and to the Episcopal church​ of her upbringing. She says, “It dawned on me for the first time that a relationship with God is not a matter of correct beliefs, but rather a willingness to trust and step out on faith.”

May Bishop Budde’s story and her courageous witness embolden you to take the next step of faith, wherever you are in your life’s journey.