“There is no place we can go where God is not willing to go in order to be with us.”

—The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, December 2025

A Brief Excerpt from the Christmas Eve Sermon at Washington National Cathedral

How does one achieve a healthy, compassionate Christian life in practical, day-to-day terms? Perhaps the same way a trained comedian delivers great comic improv. I loved this sermon and hope you will give at least the below excerpt a place in your new year.

The video below is cued up to a 2-minute excerpt, culminating in the above quote. I recommend listening to the whole 17-minute sermon. It is masterful in its practical counsel, open-armed compassion, and it transcends institutional obsession with exclusive authority. In short, I think this sermon gets closer to the Christianity so many of us claim to want than any of the denominations we traditionally settle for. Good food for thought heading into a new year.

Reverend Budde quotes a New Testament passage from Paul, available in the KJV here, and in the more readable NRSVUE here.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

—Paul, Romans 8:38-39, The New Testament