What happens after you ask Trump to ‘have mercy’? Threats, praise and hope.

Bishop Mariann Budde returned to Washington National Cathedral on Sunday for her first public service since her viral inauguration sermon.

“It isn’t political activism for a pastor to ask for mercy,” said Episcopal Church Bishop Mariann E. Budde. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)

Once more the faithful mounted the steps of Washington National Cathedral and filed into its nave. The choir sang, the people smiled and the morning February light sifted in through the stained glass.

Many, it seemed, were excited to share the Sunday service with one person in particular.

It had been 12 days since the Right Rev. Mariann E. Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, pleaded with President Donald Trump to “have mercy” on immigrants, LGBTQ children and others who might be scared by his return to power.

Twelve days since the media storm began. Twelve days since praise started pouring in from around the world — and vitriol, too. Twelve days since a U.S. House member called for the New Jersey-born bishop to be “added to the deportation list.”

Now, Budde made her way to the altar for her first public service at the cathedral since that sermon, the final event of Trump’s inauguration. Congregants craned their necks and rose to their tiptoes. They stretched out their arms to snap a photograph.

“The Lord be with you,” said Budde, 65, the first woman elected to her position.

“And also with you,” the crowd replied.

Her direct appeal to Trump on that January day — some 24 hours after he had ascended to the highest office in the land for the second time — ushered in a deluge of reactions.

Was it a moment of political catharsis? An act of public resistance? An inappropriate politicization of the pulpit?

For Budde, it was an expression of basic Christian theology.

“It was rooted in Jesus,” she said, “not a partisan agenda.”

Trump demanded an apology and called her “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”

On Sunday, the cathedral appeared more full than for the post-inauguration service, which was not open to the public. The wooden chairs were packed with a diverse crowd of young and old: people who had walked to the cathedral from nearby homes and those who had driven upward of an hour and across state lines.

“How nice is it to have Bishop Mariann back in our midst?” said the Very Rev. Randolph “Randy” Hollerith, dean of the cathedral. “We’re so glad she is here.”

Claps began to ripple through the incense-scented nave.

“Stop it,” she appeared to mouth, smiling and batting away the applause with her hand as it grew louder and louder until hundreds were standing and clapping: The crowd, the choir, the bishops, all on their feet.

Ever since her address to Trump, people nationwide have shared clips of the sermon online. Her book “How We Learn to Be Brave” is ranked second on Amazon’s list of most sold nonfiction — its first week on the list. Memes were made in her honor on social media and references made on late-night shows. More than 50,000 people have signed an online petition thanking her.

Soon, the cathedral was inundated with calls, emails and letters from around the globe. For some the sermon ignited a renewal of hope; for others it was something to be condemned.

That duality “says more about where we are as a nation than it does about me personally,” Budde said in an interview Sunday afternoon at the cathedral, security standing nearby.

D.C. police are investigating threatening phone calls to her, according to Tom Lynch, a department spokesperson.

Before the viral moment, and the support and fury that followed, Budde had thought hard about what to say.

“It is a tremendous responsibility, one that I take with humility and prayer,” she said.

The interfaith service, a tradition for almost a century, was the final inauguration event, capping a presidential election cycle marked by turbulence, threats and violence.

She drafted and redrafted her remarks. She wanted to focus on the three principles of unity. But listening to his inaugural address, watching his flurry of executive orders and noticing the little resistance he had so far encountered, those pillars felt incomplete and insufficient.

So, she added a fourth: a plea to the country’s new commander in chief for mercy on behalf of all those frightened by the ways he has threatened to wield his power.

Episcopal Church Bishop Mariann Budde preached a message of unity and urged President Donald Trump to show “mercy” during a Jan. 21, interfaith service. (Video: The Washington Post) She was a little afraid, standing up there in the pulpit. Trump was seated about 40 feet away in the front row.

They made eye contact. She took a breath.

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared,” she said.

The president appeared unmoved. He later called her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.”

Rep. Mike Collins (R-Georgia) said Budde should be “added to the deportation list.”

Still, Budde insists it was “a pretty basic sermon, the themes of which have been preached in many pulpits across the country on any given Sunday.”

At this Sunday’s service, Budde presided over the ceremonial seating of the Most Rev. Sean Walter Rowe, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church.

Rowe urged listeners to resist division and honor the inherent dignity of every human.

“In God’s kingdom, immigrants and refugees, transgender people, the poor and the marginalized are not at the edges, fearful and alone,” he said to a ripple of applause. “They are at the center of the gospel story.”

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Last month, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Oklahoma) introduced a resolution calling for the House to recognize Budde’s sermon as a “display of political activism and condemning its distorted message.”

Budde, according to the resolution, promoted “political bias instead of advocating the full counsel of biblical teaching.”

On Sunday, after the service, she pondered the lawmaker’s action.

“It isn’t political activism for a pastor to ask for mercy,” she said. “It is an expression of Christian faith and the teachings of Jesus.”

With that, she continued through the cathedral, taking only a few steps before a woman approached her to say “thank you.”

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