The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde: Rebuilding Our Foundation

In the Name of God, Amen.

Oh, good morning, friends. I’m Bishop Mariann Budde, and I am so happy to be with the Cathedral community and all of our guests today, you who are physically present in the cathedral space and all who are worshiping with us via technology, wherever you are.  And whatever the challenges and joys of your life now, may you have a palpable sense of God’s presence and love for you in this place and wherever in your life you could use a little mercy now.  As the Dean said, this weekend holds special significance for those of us at the Cathedral.  So guests, please know that, in addition to the annual commemoration of the laying of our first foundation stone 116 years ago, as the Dean said, we also dedicated to the glory of God, the Now and Forever Windows, by the renowned artist, Kerry James Marshall, and beneath the Window, beautiful, soon to be inscribed poem, American Song, by the wondrous poet Elizabeth Alexander. And I’ve asked that the video screen show the windows. If you haven’t had a chance to go by them, please do. May we never cease to give thanks for the artistic genius, creative planning and the soul-searching process that brought these stunning works into being.

So pondering the meaning of today, I was, was reminded of another Elizabeth Alexander poem entitled Praise Song for the Day, which she wrote for President Barack Obama’s first Inauguration in 2009, and recited from the steps of the US Capitol.  And portions of it read thus: Say it plain. “Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Say the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of”.  Say it plain; many have died for this day.

Jesus speaks to us this morning about the importance of foundations. The parable he tells of a house built on solid rock actually comes at the end of what is surely the most concise summary of Jesus’ foundational teachings known to us as The Sermon on the Mount, found in the gospel of Matthew, chapters five through seven. He tells us, and we hear it plain, what it looks like, what it looks like when people choose to follow him in the way of life changing, world transforming, love. And, as you may know, that sermon famously begins with words of blessing. “Blessed are the poor in spirit and those who mourn, those who are merciful and who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the peacemakers and the persecuted”. He then exhorts those who follow him to be like salt of the earth and light for the world.  To seek reconciliation with those who have something against us. To honor our vows and whether we feel like it or not, to refrain from evil and the temptation to judge other people. Be on your guard, he warns us, against the corrosive love of money and the power of self-deception. Don’t congratulate yourselves when you love those who love you back. No, he says, go higher. Strive to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Give generously. Pray honestly, and please, without a lot of words. Be like trees that bear good fruit.

And in conclusion, he reminds us as we heard, that while God’s love is universal and unconditional, following Jesus is in fact a bit like walking through a narrow gate. It’s a hard road, he says, that leads to life. And then he says, to clinch it off, everyone who then hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like the wise ones who built their house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall. Why? ‘Cause it had been founded on rock. So on this Foundation Day, shall we consider the importance of good foundations?  Rock solid foundations in architectural design and the constructions of any building, not the least of which a cathedral. The foundation is, as you know, the lowest load-bearing part of a building typically below ground.  In the broadest sense, applicable to all dimensions of life, a foundation is an underlying principle or structure upon which other aspects of life are built and sustained. So it is we speak of the foundations of any academic discipline or commercial endeavor. The moral foundations of a community or a nation. The relational foundations of a family, the spiritual foundations of a life. And ironically, once the foundation, which is arguably the most important part, is built, we don’t see it any longer and we can easily forget that it’s there or that it matters.

And Jesus’ warning is clear enough. If you, if your foundations are built on sand, they will not hold you well. So be wise and seek instead to build your lives on solid rock.  It’s pretty hard to argue against that kind of advice. And who would want to? So when we are at the beginning, we find ourselves at the beginning of any endeavor, be it a relationship, the raising of our children, establishing networks of care in our communities or building actual physical structures, we do well to tend to the slow and painstaking, soon to be forgotten work of building a sure foundation. Yet we also know how tempting it is to cut a few corners, move a bit too quickly, and hope that we’re not the ones to bear the burden or clean up the mess when the rains come. In fairness, though, I dare say most of us do the best we can in foundation buildings, in building our foundations. And when our faulty foundations fail, as they will, we must learn the hard way what must be done to start over and rebuild a firmer foundation. Tragically, sometimes the wreckage is too great, and we can’t salvage what we’ve lost. But if circumstances are kind and God is gracious, we’re given another chance to clear the debris, save what we can, and begin again. And those of us who have been around the sun a few times know that that’s a pretty steady rhythm in life. This building and rebuilding of foundations and replacing faulty ones with ones that hold true.

I hope you’re with me so far. Yeah. Because I’d like to broaden the lens a bit further where we see that for most of us, most of the time, we live and move and have our being on foundations that others built.  And not merely the buildings we live in or the subterranean systems of structures that support our homes and communities. But even the building blocks that form our identity and our communities and our churches and our traditions and our social, national, increasingly global institutions. We didn’t build these things.  But sometimes we realize, or discover, or are forced to reckon with the reality that part of our inherited foundation that we assumed was sound, isn’t, and cannot hold. Or worse still, particularly in the more relational and emotional spiritual dimensions of life, worse still is when we realized that core aspects of who we are, or thought we were, had in fact been built on foundational assumptions or beliefs that while we thought were true, were in fact at best, based in ignorance, or worse, lies perpetuated by those who stood to benefit from them.

Now, to be honest, I’m hoping as I’ve been speaking, I’m actually counting on the fact, that as I’m speaking, examples of what I’m describing have come to your mind.  From your life, from your line of work, disciplines of study, whenever you’ve realized or you studied, the realization in the past of a previous foundation, self-constructed or inherited, no longer held. And the person you were becoming or the discipline that was evolving needed to remove that foundation that you were taught or picked up along the way, or that we assumed, and suited us, and fit us, and was true for us no longer. And in some instances that realization is horrifying, and in others it’s sheer liberation. But either way, the process of coming to terms with this, this whole process, is not easy.  Because it’s disruptive and unsettling at first, and it always creates a bit of a mess. Because we have to sort through what’s worth keeping and what isn’t, and finding the right materials and, and build again, as Jesus said, a foundation that cannot only hold us amid the storms, but lead us, allow us to live and thrive. Now, for those of you in the cathedral community, I dare say you know where I’m going with this because it’s been a wonderful weekend of celebration.  And we now have two powerfully moving windows depicting the courage and tenacity of millions of black Americans who were determined to claim their rightful place in this country and their rights as human beings and their dignity as children of God.

And you can see in that window the movement and the determination and the struggle.  And it’s here now.  But amid our celebration, we do well, I think, I think it’s necessary to take a moment to remember the windows they replaced.  Depicting two generals of the Confederate army, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, depicting them as icons of Christian virtue. Men who themselves own slaves, betrayed their country and fought a war to create a new country, intending to preserve and expand the enslavement of black people across the American continents. And after the Confederate windows were removed, they spent nearly a year on loan to the National Museum of African American History and Culture as part of an exhibition entitled Make Good the Promises: Reclaiming Reconstruction and Its Legacies. And in that exhibition, the cathedral, we the cathedral and those windows, represented a discredited yet very powerful, potent historical lie perpetuated for generations and with lasting impact today known as the Lost Cause.  Which extols Confederate leaders, like generals Lee and Jackson, as saintly figures, the war itself as a noble cause to preserve a noble way of life, in which slavery was a benign institution that benefited the enslaved.  

In this historical period known as Reconstruction, generally dating 1865 to 77, it was a time of breathtaking advancement for formerly enslaved black Americans that was, in the end, violently and systematically dismantled by many of our white ancestors, who were determined to maintain racial supremacy and reunite white American society, north and south, at the expense of black Americans. And we were a part of that. And it’s painful for me. It’s as painful to acknowledge this period in our history as the 300 years of slavery that preceded it, because at the very moment we had a chance to rebuild this country after tearing it down in the bloodiest of wars, we had a chance to build this country on the best of democratic ideals that were enshrined in our foundational documents, that we failed to live up to for anybody but white American men.  That all are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights. And instead, the majority of our white ancestors preserved and fortified the foundational lies of racism and white supremacy.  And at critical junctures in the year after the Civil War, when black Americans and others rose up in self-determination, most notably after the world wars and in the Civil rights era, monuments and windows like ours were conceived, paid for, and installed all over the south and the north and here in Washington. And they became, as you know, and remain, powerful expressions and a rallying cause for white supremacist movements in our day.  Movements that are growing.

And this cathedral participated in the perpetuation of the religious underpinnings of, of this lost cause, as did nearly every other white institution in its day. And I dare say that the majority of white worshipers and visitors in this cathedral walked by those windows as I did. And we didn’t know it. Oh, but black worshipers and visitors, they knew.  You knew, you knew what we chose not to know, and what we knew for years and tried not to know, or minimize, ‘til we couldn’t any longer. And I played a part in all that, and I apologize. I didn’t see it at first. And when I did, thanks to a few doggedly persistent black leaders in this diocese and our former Dean Gary Hall, when I did know, I hesitated. And the late Reverend Robert Hunter said to me in my office, “Bishop, Bishop, will you be a compass pointing the way or will you be a thermometer and act only when the heat rises?”

Never forgotten that.  Because as you know, it took two incidents of horrible racial violence in which Confederate symbols predominantly featured for us finally to act. And I’m so grateful, so grateful to Dean Hollerith, the Cathedral Chapter members, all those who made all those decisions to start the process and do the learning and replace a part of our foundation that was at odds with everything.  Take down what was at odds with everything that this cathedral and the teachings of Jesus stand for. And more than simply remove, to go a step further and replace them. When the time was right and we had the vision, with artistic imagery telling a more complete story, and acknowledging how black Americans have been the ones to move us toward our ideals all along, as a nation and a church. And so the dismantling began, which gave space. First it was empty for a couple years. And then these new pillars of transformative beauty and power, built on a more solid foundation worthy of the struggle of black Americans, and our deep desire to be a cathedral that is in reality, a house of prayer for all people. And what would we have missed? What would we not have seen were it not for the taking down of what never belonged, and replacing it with expressions of those countless ones who walked and struggled, and continue to struggle to carry on, on that road that leads to life?

Jesus is right. The road to life is not an easy one, especially when it requires the dismantling and reconstruction of foundations that cannot hold. But it is as he promised. And we can attest from our experience, it is life that waits us on the other side. And Beloved Community is one step closer to its fulfillment whenever we remove what we thought was foundational and isn’t, and replace it with what allows the human spirit to thrive. So if there’s any, if any part of what your, of what was you thought was foundational in your life is in fact collapsing now or needs to be excavated because it cannot hold you, know that God is with you.  And it’s Jesus beckoning you to walk on through that gate to whatever life is awaiting you on the other side. And for all of us in this place, in this church, as Elizabeth Alexander said, “May we never forget the many who have died for this day”. We must remember our history, she says, as we walk toward freedom, believe in Beloved Community, “Sing sacred words just and true. May our lives and this place be the portals where the light comes in”. Amen.