Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, photocredit: https://edow.org/about/bishop-mariann/
In this first week of the new Trump administration, amidst an overwhelming number of news stories detailing the administration’s swift assault on civil liberties, climate policy, and even birthright citizenship, one alternative story has been gaining a lot of traction in the social circles I inhabit. I’m speaking, of course, of the homily given by the Right Rev. Mariann Budde at Tuesday’s Inaugural Prayer Service in the Washington Cathedral. I, like many, deeply appreciated the bishop’s words, and I heartily recommend listening to the full fifteen minute sermon in its entirety, for those who haven’t heard all of it.
As a pastor myself, who shares Budde’s ethical and theological concerns about the policies that President Trump is seeking to enact, I have been both heartened and grieved by the polarized response to her words. I’m heartened that so many people of conscience recognize the moral clarity and truth of her call to “have mercy” on those who are being targeted as scapegoats by this administration in its power-building exercises. This positive reception has included, no doubt, many folks who do not identify as Christian, and are even skeptical (rightly so) that leaders in the Christian tradition have any capacity to speak truth to power in the midst of the current ascendancy of (pseudo) Christian nationalism. The fact that within 48 hours, Bishop Budde’s book, How We Learn to Be Brave, has sold out of many bookstores, speaks to the hunger many of us have for prophetic voices who are willing to speak courageous moral truths. In the face of so much darkness, this is a hopeful glimmer of light.
And yet, there have also been the voices of offense and fury that grieve me, often coming from those who purport to worship the same God that I do. Beyond the aggrieved words of the President himself who dismissed the bishop as a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” and threats from folks like Republican Representative Mike Collins, who called for her to be “added to the deportation list,” there have been many condemning responses from people who carry significant power in the systems of the Religious Right. Amidst the many lamentable Christian perspectives, one particular remark stuck out to me. Pastor and Theologian Joe Rigney posted this take: “Women's ordination is a cancer that unleashes untethered empathy in the church (and spills over into society).”
As an ordained woman, I believe Rigney’s words are meant to offend and delegitimize people like me, but frankly, I’m more amused at what these words reveal than chastened by them. For Rigney, women like Bishop Budde, and probably myself, are dangerous. He must warn against those of us who use our God-given hearts, minds, and voices to speak to the compassion of the Divine that we see most clearly embodied by Jesus. What exactly is the danger we wild clergy women are unleashing? “Untethered empathy.”
Watch out! There’s heresy coming from these soft-hearted females! God forbid they might call upon you to love your neighbor, to pray for those who persecute you, to turn the other cheek, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the imprisoned. They might even go a step further and ask you to set the incarcerated (a.k.a the captives) free. And if you’re really not careful, those dangerous women when given the pulpit for fifteen measly minutes will remind you that these are the very things that Jesus, himself, called his followers to do. Beware the cancer!
The lie behind this concept of “untethered empathy” is that Christians are supposed to “tether” our care. Rigney implies that empathy “untethered” goes too far; that it permits an excess of grace. It invites mercy beyond where mercy should be extended. But this assertion is counter to the scriptural assertion of Jesus himself.
In Matthew 18, one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers, Peter, seems to be looking to “tether” his own empathy. He’s wondering where the outer limit is on forgiveness. “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me?,” he asks. “Seven times?”
“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!” (Matthew 18:21-22)
Those who are doing the math might calculate that Jesus allows for exactly 490 extensions of forgiveness, but any serious student of this passage knows that what Jesus is really doing here is pointing towards infinity. Jesus is saying to Peter, “no, there is no limit on grace.” There is no quantifiable amount of forgiveness that we are required to extend and then we can be done. We have received unlimited forgiveness, and in the same way, we are also called to give it away to others. Forgiveness, grace, and yes, empathy, are meant to be “untethered.”
Oxford dictionary defines empathy as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”. This is exactly what Jesus was inviting his followers into when he called them to see every human being in front of them as a neighbor, worthy of being loved, just as they loved themselves. For Rigney, to give women (as well as people of color, immigrants, disabled folk, and queer, trans and non-binary people) leadership in the church (and greater society) is a dangerous practice because it requires us to see all these fellow humans as neighbors. It demands that we see all of these potential leaders as people, equally created in the image of God, who actually have something to teach us about who God is and how God loves that we need to learn. In other words, it requires us to empathize with them.
Even more challengingly, this invitation to a more expansive empathy demands that the church (and greater society) recognize and repent of the ways we have failed to do this in the past, and are failing to do it even now. This is particularly threatening for the Theo-bro-gians in the church, who likely fear the loss of control for the patriarchs in charge. I believe they, like Peter early in his journey, are interested in what they can keep their hands around as they try to define the outer-limit on grace.
But if we are to follow Jesus, we have to let go of that need for control, and recognize that we ought not fear the extension of empathy. For the Divine, there is no limit on it. All of us, particularly those who claim to be Christians, should actually be seeking to unleash as much empathy in one another as we can. So bring on the untethered empathy! Far from being a “cancer” that poisons the body of our society, it might just be the healing medicine we all need.