Photograph by Jon Tyson via Unsplash

When I interviewed with a church’s pastoral search committee, one of the committee members caught me off-guard with the question, “Do you preach politics from the pulpit?” Without hesitation, I answered “Yes!” Now, I have never preached partisan politics or told anyone who they should vote for. I am Pastor to people on both sides of every issue, and it is not for me to impose my political agenda. But… isn’t it politics to preach what Jesus taught about love (even love for enemies), forgiveness, giving grace, helping people in need, being a good Samaritan, being a steward of God’s earth, favoring nonviolent resolution of conflict, practicing the Golden Rule, extending an extravagant welcome to all people without exception, or having mercy for those on the margins of society?

Mercy has become politicized at a new, stratospheric level. When could it ever have been imagined that encouraging mercy to another could become a political hot potato, but that is what happened at the inauguration service for the new President of the United States. At the Inaugural Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral, attended by the President and many of his chosen leaders, the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, an Episcopal bishop of Washington, referred to the President’s own remarks: “As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God.” She then asked the President to show mercy: “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” She mentioned gay, lesbian, and transgender children, as well as undocumented immigrants. “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.” What else would you expect from a church service, if not to encourage mercy? Mercy is the message of the Bible, mentioned a couple hundred times in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures. Jesus’ first words to his newly-minted disciples were about mercy: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7).

The President, after commenting that he thought it was not a good service, rejected the message of mercy: “Trump took to social media. He said she owed the public an apology, calling her tone ‘nasty.’ Trump wrote, ‘She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way’.” Therein lies the sentiment behind the question I was asked by the Search Committee: “Do you preach politics from the pulpit?” I anticipated that preaching about mercy could be politically charged, but never so much as in the reaction to Bishop Budde’s prophetic message. To reject mercy seems to show callous indifference to the very people who Jesus named “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine” (Matthew 25:40). The Message puts it this way: “Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me – you failed to do it to me” (Matthew 25:45).

Mercy is a value cherished by voices of the ages. Nelson Mandela said, “You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Being all fashioned of the selfsame dust, let us be merciful as well as just.” And after Jesus handled the trick question about “Who is my neighbor” and responded with his Parable of the Good Samaritan, he asked his interlocutor “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” His questioner answered “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:36-37). Of all Jesus’ parables, this is the only time he used that phrase “Go and do likewise.” Show mercy.

Bishop Budde was well within her rights as a preacher of the gospel to encourage listeners to be the one who shows mercy and inviting them to go and do likewise. In the rejection of her message by some of her hearers, she might take comfort that Jesus preached a message not so dissimilar in his hometown synagogue, and that didn’t go over so well either: “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” (Luke 4:28-29).  Encouragers of mercy can face risks.

In the preacher’s toolbox are words similar to mercy which sound seemingly innocent and even religious but could also trigger a firestorm of political reaction: Love. Kindness. Grace. The New Testament word for love is agape, which can mean to desire that which is in the highest and best interest of the other. Imagine if Bishop Budde charged her hearers to truly desire that which is the highest and best interest of the categories of people whom she named… known in Jesus’ parable as the least of these brothers and sisters of mine. You might expect even an indifferent person to show a little mercy to people hurting or in need, but to love them goes beyond showing mercy. To love is politically charged. Kindness is one of the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22), indicating that kindness is a byproduct of what a person looks like when God’s spirit resides within. Kindness is one of the three things the prophet Micah (6:8) wrote that God requires of us – not just to practice kindness, but to love kindness. Grace is a gift of forgiveness, love, and acceptance. We receive grace from God – it cannot be bought, earned, deserved, or demanded, but can only be received as a gift. Wouldn’t you think that when a person is conscious of being given grace by God, that person would want to turn around and offer the gift of grace to others? To state or even imply that Christians ought to give grace to the people named in Bishop Budde’s list could lead to a politically charged response.

When I was asked if I preached politics from the pulpit, my reply was involuntary – I just blurted out “yes!” Now more than ever, I affirm that mercy, love, kindness, and grace are politically charged messages of the gospel, to be preached and practiced by the people of God, even when they are not reciprocated.