A bishop preaches about mercy. A president and his sycophants react with outrage. What does it say about our faith—and our politics—when a call for compassion is met with condemnation?
At an inaugural prayer service on Jan. 21, Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, delivered a sermon on the moral responsibility of leadership and a warning against the culture of contempt. Her words captured international attention, widely interpreted as a pointed critique of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The debate has largely fixated on the final part of Budde’s sermon: her plea for mercy. But this call for mercy needs to be understood within the full context of her message, which was ultimately about unity. With this in mind, the mercy Budde described was not simply an act of benevolence but an invitation to shared wholeness.
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That is precisely what made her sermon so threatening to those who thrive on dominance. Rather than simply ignoring her words, Trump attacked Budde directly, calling her “nasty”—his signature insult for women he perceives as a threat. But it wasn’t just him. His allies, clearly unsettled, went so far as to introduce a formal resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives condemning her remarks.
The irony, of course, is that Budde’s call for mercy was not a threat to Trump at all. But Trump does not know how to function in a world without winners and losers. While it is true that Budde called him out, she also called him in.
Mercy as a Biblical and political disruptor
Mercy is not weakness. In the Hebrew scriptures, it is an active force—disruptive, transformative, and deeply embedded in God’s relationship with humanity.
Take hesed (חֶסֶד), the covenantal love that binds both people and God together in loyalty and shared responsibility. Micah 6:8 commands us to do justice, love hesed, and walk humbly with God. This is mercy as action. It is not charity from a position of power; it is a force that ties the fate of the strong to the weak.
Then there’s rahamim (רַחֲמִים), a mercy that is felt with the very core of the body. The word is rooted in rechem, meaning “womb.” It is a deep, instinctual turning toward another’s suffering, like the mercy God invokes in Isaiah 49:15: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or have no rahamim for the child of her womb? Even if she forgets, I will not forget you.” This is not detached benevolence. It is mercy that aches. A mercy that longs.
And then there is hen (חֵן), the mercy that asks for nothing in return. The divine mercy God bestows freely: “I will have hen on whom I will have hen, and I will have rahamim on whom I will have rahamim.” (Exodus 33:19).
But these examples of mercy are dangerous. They challenge Trump’s logic of power. To extend hesed means recognizing that he is bound to those he scapegoats. To embody rahamim would require seeing migrants and trans people as fully human and deserving of care. And to receive hen—to accept a mercy he has not earned—would mean admitting that he, too, is vulnerable and in need of redemption.
Why this pushback matters
It is tempting for mainline Christians to dismiss the House resolution condemning Budde’s sermon as absurd, yet it is revealing. The offense was not merely that she spoke about mercy, but that she reminded us that mercy is a divine command binding all people.
If we believe that salvation is communal, then Trump’s rejection of mercy affects more than just those he refuses to extend it to. To refuse mercy is to deny one’s own need for it. To refuse mercy is to remain trapped in a system where one’s worth is determined by one’s ability to subjugate others.
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This is where Trump’s vision of Christianity diverges so dramatically from my experience of the gospel. The brand of faith he appeals to is transactional—rooted in the language of victory, conquest, and exceptionalism. But in the economy of God’s mercy, there is no hierarchy. That is what makes Budde’s words so dangerous to him. She was not calling for his downfall; she was calling for his transformation.
Mercy as a prophetic challenge
Trump may not have the theological language to articulate why her words stung, but his response speaks for itself. Mercy, especially when invoked by a woman, threatens the illusion of absolute power. Mercy requires vulnerability. And we worship a God who, from the beginning to the end, to the new to the now, understands what it is to be vulnerable.
Taken alone, Budde’s closing statement on mercy might sound like an appeal to hierarchy—one side choosing to be merciful to another. But in the full context of her sermon, it is an invocation of a mercy that binds. A mercy that makes whole. A mercy that, when rejected, reveals not the weakness of the one offering it, but the fragility of the one who would never accept it.
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Rev. Bri-anne Swan is the lead minister at East End United in Toronto.
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