With an apparent reference to his critics, President Obama quipped at this morning’s Easter prayer breakfast about less-than-Christian things he hears.
“On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned. But that’s a topic for another day,” Obama said, prompting laughter and applause from the audience.
“Where there is injustice — I was about to veer off. I’m pulling it back,” he quipped. “Where there is injustice we defend the oppressed. Where there is disagreement, we treat each other with compassion and respect. Where there are differences, we find strength in our common humanity, knowing that we are all children of God.”
Obama was introduced by Vice President Biden, who said “we live our faith when we nurture the hope and possibilities that have always defined us as a country.”
“And that’s why I’ve been so honored to work every single day for the last six-plus years with a man who encompasses that faith to his core,” Biden said. “A man who knows what it is to enter into the mystery with a deep and unyielding conviction that it’s within each of our reach to make real the promise of the ongoing miracle that is the United States of America.”
Obama thanked the audience for their prayers “particularly at a time when my daughters are starting to grow up and starting to go on college visits.”
“We hold this Easter Prayer Breakfast every year to take a moment from our hectic lives for some fellowship, friendship, prayer and reflection. I know pastors here have had a very busy Holy Week, and so for you to travel here and take the time to spend with us is extraordinary after what I know is difficult. I can’t say that our work during this season is comparable, but you should try dealing with thousands of people in your backyard on an Easter egg roll,” he quipped about yesterday’s White House event.
“I am no preacher. I can’t tell anything to this crowd about Easter that you don’t already know,” the president said. “For me, the celebration of Easter puts our earthly concerns into perspective. With humility and with awe, we give thanks to the extraordinary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Savior. We reflect on the brutal pain that He suffered, the scorn that He absorbed, the sins that He bore, this extraordinary gift of salvation that He gave to us. And we try, as best we can, to comprehend the darkness that He endured so that we might receive God’s light.”
Obama quoted Pope Francis: “He says that we should strive ‘to see the Lord in every excluded person who is thirsty, hungry, naked; to see the Lord present even in those who have lost their faith… imprisoned, sick, unemployed, persecuted; to see the Lord in the leper — whether in body or soul — who encounters discrimination.'”
“Isn’t that how Jesus lived? Isn’t that how He loved? Embracing those who were different; serving the marginalized; humbling Himself to the last,” Obama said. “This is the example that we are called to follow — to love Him with all our hearts and mind and soul, and to love our neighbors — all of our neighbors — as ourselves. As it says in the first letter of John, ‘Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.'”
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