President Obama and his family attended the service this morning at St. John’s Church (Episcopal), a leisurely stroll across Lafayette Square.
Seminarian Mike Angell drew homiletical duties for the day. He stuck to the assigned lections, preaching on the dangers of being defined by wealth and of being defined apart from one another. He noted, in part,
We do not walk alone. Take a moment and look around this sanctuary. None of us walks this way alone. Christianity has consequences, and none of us can face those consequences alone. There is a danger to read the story of the rich man individualistically. We can make it a story about a man who has to individually choose whether or not he will follow Jesus. When Jesus invited the rich man to follow him, he invited him to join a community, a community boldly living life together in a new way. These followers of the way were later called Christians. Jesus walks beside us, and we walk beside our sisters and brothers, the body of Christ. Christianity has consequences, and none of us can face them alone. So I am excited to be here with you at St. John’s for the next couple of years. I am excited to walk with you and to boldly face, together, the consequences of our Christianity.
He later crowed on his Twitter account: “just preached his first sermon at St Johns…to President Obama.”