Who knew mercy was nasty?

We shouldn’t be surprised about people defending the president’s rant and demand for an apology from Bishop Budde for the proclamation and plea for mercy for those on the margins of society. 

Russell Moore told us in 2023 that he had numerous conversations with pastors who had congregants complaining about the preaching of the Sermon on the Mount – and those were Jesus’ literal words.  They said that it didn’t work anymore, that it was “liberal talking points,” and that the teachings were too “weak.”  When I hear things like this it often confirms a theory I have – that religion used to play a central role in defining one’s identity, but this has shifted to politics, partisanship, and ideology now playing a central role in defining one’s identity. That’s not a healthy shift, in case you were wondering.

We need to get better at asking which Jesus someone is supposedly following so we know if we are talking about the same person or not.  This extends beyond just Jesus too. There are many words that are thrown around quick easily by many people that we need to start asking for clarification on – freedom, liberty, Christianity, faith, values, people, etc. We’re using English, but we’re not all speaking the same language. And we certainly aren’t all using the same words the same way. Definitions are important to understand what someone is actually talking about.

The biggest questions that seem relevant right now in the midst of all that is going are these – what does a faithful person do? How are we to live? How are we to respond?

Let’s start by acknowledging a sad and frustrating reality. It seems as though many people are either not responding to, intentionally not listening to, or worse, actively rejecting the proclamation of Jesus’ message.  I’m not talking about atheists and agnostics, or people of other non-Christian faiths. I’m talking about people who claim the label of Christian. This is why definitions are important. Who knew that the biggest enemy to the Gospel would be the supposed faithful.  Maybe enemy is the wrong word here. I don’t know. It’s one thing to be ignorant of something, or to make a mistake, or slip up. No one is expecting perfection after all, or at least we shouldn’t. We’re human. We make mistakes. We make errors. We don’t know as much as we should.

It’s quite something else to willfully reject or work in opposition to something that you claim to believe in. I don’t have a word for that. And it doesn’t make much sense either.

Of course, I’m also making an assumption – probably a really bad assumption. It’s the assumption that all Christians share the same story about Jesus, his message, and his teachings. We don’t. That’s why there are over 10,000 denominations. And many of them are in direct conflict with each other. The label of Christian is actually pretty wide. Maybe we’re at a point where that wideness doesn’t work any more. But who gets to decide that? I don’t know.

So what do we do? In a sense, what we do becomes easier. We can’t change another person. We can’t force transformation. We can’t save someone else. We can’t insist that they listen. We can’t make someone respond. We aren’t called to any of those things. They are not in our power. Why do we insist on trying to do them? We will fail every time.

We can keep proclaiming Good News. Even if no one wants to hear it, it’s still Good News.

As a pastor, my call is to proclaim the Gospel and administer the sacraments. It’s not to make sure that my people are all behaving a certain way, or that they all believe a certain thing, or that they have discipleship down, etc. I am called to proclaim and offer the sacraments. I’m called to proclaim Good News and to offer the means of grace. That’s the core of my job.

How people respond is on them. Reminding myself of this is like freeing me of a heavy burden.

The church has gotten too concerned with equating “success” for the church with large numbers of people in the pews and how big the budget is. No wonder the church feels like a failure in the last few decades – numbers, membership, and budgets have all been down. The problem with these measurements as the primary way of determining success for the church is they are based on productivity. The church has value because of what it produces – full pews and large budgets. So much for justification by faith.

So what do we do? We persist. Look, anyone who faithfully proclaims Good News and offers the means of grace is going to be called names, and maybe suffer worse things. There are many who do not want to hear Good News. There’s a reason for this. Good News changes us. It transforms us. It means we are no longer in control. And that, my friends, is the biggest human challenge there is – the addiction to the sense of control. Strip that from a person and they fall apart. Or as Jesus might say – we are call to pick up our cross, die to self, and follow him. Good News includes a person dying to self, so that resurrection can take place in that person – they are born anew.

It is the Spirit that changes and transforms people, not you and I. Let the Spirit do the Spirit’s work. You and I do ours. And do it faithfully, trusting that the Spirit will act.

This all reminds me of when I used to coach soccer. One of the biggest challenges that you face is getting the kids to trust their team mates – that their team mates will go to the open spaces to receive a pass, that they will run the plays as practiced, that they will come and support you when you are in trouble on the field, that they will communicate with you. All of this has to do with building a team. A trusting team has players that know their position and stick to it, because they trust the rest of the team to do what they are supposed to.

Fellow followers of Jesus, do you trust your team mates? The other faithful followers of Jesus? The Spirit? Jesus? The Father? Do you trust they will do what they are supposed to? If so, that means you don’t have to do their jobs. You focus on your role.

When we proclaim the Good News, some people will respond. Not because of you. But because of what the Spirit is doing in them. Rejoice in that. When they don’t, it’s also not your failure either. Mourn for people. But keep proclaiming. Keep loving your neighbors. Keep loving your enemies, which can be very difficult. Keep praying for people – friend and foe alike. Keep living the way of peace. Keep offering grace and mercy. Keep seeing the humanity of others. Keep moving towards shalom. Keep being congruent with what you proclaim and how you live it out.

This is an age of discontent. An age of stiff neckness. An age of stuckness. An age of misinformation, AI, deep fakes, political spin and more. And the only way to stay sane in the midst of all of this is to be congruent. It’s not to change others. Don’t proclaim something unless you are willing to live it.

This is a time for congruency. It’s a time for persistence in the midst of great opposition. This is a time for faith to be embraced and lived as fully as possible. This is not a time to make faith just a compartment of life that you can pull out when it’s convenient and comfortable. If that’s all faith is, then you’ll probably discard it as soon as it becomes difficult or inconvenient.

This is a time to be honest about what you actually believe versus what your aspirational beliefs are. This is a time when you will know who you really are. And so will everyone else.

Bishop Budde showed us who she is. And if she can cry out for mercy in the the presence of those in positions of power that seemingly lack mercy, and do it in a very public way, we can live congruent in our lives.

We don’t face this by becoming the very thing we hate. We face this by being true to what we believe. And that means following Jesus and his way of peace, mercy, grace, and love.