Repair and Restore: Daily Lent Devotions by Minnesota Christian Clergy, and Weekly Devotions from Phillips Theological Seminary

People in Red Wing have been practicing hope together in a weekly rhythm of presence, prayer, and song. Again and again, we have chosen to show up…not because the pain is resolved, not because the answers are clear, but because community itself is an act of resistance in a world that so often tells us to look away.

One image that has held my attention and my heart is the votive cross we lit at our very first Friday vigil: many small lights arranged in the shape of the cross. Each flame is fragile on its own, easily extinguished by a sudden wind. But together they rise steady, radiant, and strong. In that simple shape, we are reminded that our light is stronger when shared, that our solidarity is grounded not in outrage or fear but in servant love shaped by the cross. The votive box is also what we use to mark the remembrance of those in the congregation who died the year before, on All Saints’ Sunday. A reminder that the whole communion of saints joins us in these faithful acts of resistance.

Paul writes in Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” This is not a call to fix one another’s pain or to rush past grief. It is a call to presence. To stay and dwell with one another. To refuse isolation. To let our lives be woven together even when the threads are heavy with sorrow.

In showing up for one another, mourning with families and neighbors, lifting up voices for justice, and holding candlelight when the world feels dim… we live into God’s call to be present with one another in every season of life, even through such tragedy. Our shared light does more than comfort; it tells the truth. It exposes the harm and cruelty that have unfolded as a result of Operation Metro Surge and this administration’s abuse of power. It demands repentance, repair, and restoration for our neighbors and communities. And at the same time, it illuminates the cross, reminding us that God meets suffering not with abandonment, but with faithful, self-giving love.

In community, we discover that hope does not deny suffering. Hope refuses the lie that suffering is the final word.

May this image of the cross of lights remind you that when we show up for each other, when we weep together, witness together, and stand together, we embody a hope grounded not in power or control, but in Christ’s love. A hope that is quiet, persistent, and strong enough to endure.

So today I invite you to light a flame and let it join the ancient blaze.

Prayer: (Every Moment Holy)

Lighting a Candle: Shera Moyer

Jesus, you said that we, your followers,

are the light of the world.

May this flickering candle remind me

not to hide, but to live out the life

you have lit in me through your Holy Spirit.

May this flame also remind me of your presence here,

for this world is dark without you.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Over the past year, I’ve noticed a common sign at protests: “I need to be able to tell my grandchildren I did not stay silent.” It hit me square in the heart…but differently now than just four months ago.

The week of December 1, when Operation Metro Surge began, I had a major knee surgery. The recovery meant six weeks with no walking or driving. It meant that the week that the government descended to terrorize our neighbors, I was stuck in a chair, unable to march, to carry groceries, or patrol. And as the weeks went on, that familiar sign stopped inspiring me and began to haunt me.

I began to find myself conjuring my imaginary grandchildren and their disappointment at my lack of heroics in this time. As others found ways to make change for Lent, I found myself more ashamed that I wasn’t doing enough. That whatever goodness we offer… is never enough. Our culture wants us to believe this: but, of course, this was never the point.

Perhaps this is why the Ash Wednesday text is always about doing your good works in secret: to remind us that our good works are not the Gospel. It is not our goodness that keeps the world, or the resistance, going: It is God’s goodness. And we are not God. We are an important part of creation called to serve our neighbor, but we are not expected to be the savior of the world. Because we already have one of those.

As I have slowly returned to society, I have been able to commit two measly bus patrol shifts a week. It feels small. I have not encountered ICE directly. My shifts have been quiet broken only be squirrly kindergarteners bounding off the bus.

If I told my grandchildren about these shifts, they might not remember the details. But, our Lenten journey reminds me that it is not about me. I am part of our web of resistance actors who are creating a powerful, protective network. I am one string in a web that, together, creates a stronger community for all our neighbors. One member of the body of Christ that works for transformation in the world.

You are part of that web. Part of that Body of Christ. Whether God has called you to deliver grocery bags or raise funds, to pray for those in hiding or organize protesters, whether you preach with courage or talk to kids about loving your neighbor, your single string in our web of resistance is an essential one. Keep going; the work of the Body of Christ matters, whether we see it each day or not.

When our proverbial grandchildren read the history books, they may not read about any one of us. But, they will read the stories of thousands of strands of silk who acted together to create a web that was strong enough to be God’s good news in the world.. And when they read of that web, I am confident: our grandchildren will be proud of us. Amen.

“When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”

Matthew 21:10

On Palm Sunday, Christian congregations across the country plan to be in the streets. Just as Jesus organized a procession countering Roman forces, we will be confronting this administration and their white Christian nationalist agenda. We will bear witness to the real Jesus of scripture, who stands for feeding the hungry, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger, loving the neighbor and the enemy, and liberating us all.

Given this, our congregation is shaking up the usual order of Lenten worship. This past Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent, we began where we normally end, reflecting on the Palm Sunday story. This narrative will frame all of Lent for us this year.

There’s one particular line in the Palm Sunday text that’s grabbing me: “When [Jesus] entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil”. The word turmoil is the same word that is used to described an earthquake.

The holy city trembled with a power that was both disruptive and generative, the power of a different kind of leader. Roman power was rooted in fear; it was a force of domination that sought to subdue and silence. Jesus’ power arose from among the crowds chanting “save us!”; it was power held with and for the people. His planned demonstration astride two donkeys- one grown and one small – mocked the emperor’s war horses, chariots, and gleaming swords. The passage from Zechariah, which Matthew quotes, goes on to say that this humble donkey-riding King “will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” (9:10) So Jerusalem was in a turmoil because peaceful resistance was shaking the foundations of tyranny.

It strikes me that our experience in these days of ICE occupation has been kind of like an earthquake — a clashing of opposing values and powers. The intensity of this confrontation has completely upended our daily lives; we’ve been in a continual state of alertness, responsiveness, and creative adaptation. And, like an earthquake, this time has opened cracks in the way things are, fissures that give us new glimpses of what is possible, rifts that could be permanent, that may well serve as portals into alternative futures.

A few weeks ago, I drove up to a stop sign at an intersection a half a block away from our church. I squinted to read the words that had been spray-painted on the sign: “A neighbor was abducted here” I have since learned that ICE has kidnapped four people in the immediate vicinity of our church. One of them was taken from a bus stop; no one knows their identity. Whenever I go by that intersection, I am reminded of the need for faith communities to in fact seek confrontation, as Jesus did: to be outside, in public, visible and vocal, bearing witness to both the pain and the potential of these times.

My friends, in this Lenten season, may we walk with Jesus, who teaches us to confront tyranny with humility, fear with love, community with isolation, individualism and greed with the gifts of mutual care. Let us welcome the tumult, the cracks, the fissures, the portals, he shows us, laying down our branches, our cloaks and our lives to usher in the new world that is possible.

I waited patiently for the Lord;

he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He drew me up from the desolate pit

out of the miry bog,

and set my feet upon a rock,

making my steps secure.

He put a new song in my mouth,

a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear

and put their trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40:1-3

February 24 is the day, 4 years ago, that Russian forces invaded Ukraine. (I know you’re expecting a story from Minnesota concerning ICE– please bear with me.)

I recall a conversation early in 2022 with a retired ambassador, someone who kept close tabs on foreign relations to the end of his life. He said, in essence, “Putin would be crazy to invade Ukraine.” And yet, it happened. Like so many things in the past decade, we found ourselves surprised that such a power grab would really happen.

The day of February 24 was likely chosen with some intentionality: February 24 is also Estonian independence day. It is quite likely that Russia invaded one neighbor while intentionally sending a signal of threat to another. Empire likes to throw its weight around in ways that say, “you’re next.”

Estonia, like all of the Baltic states, was part of the USSR for decades, deprived of real democracy or sovereignty. While the resistance movement in Estonia had diverse political philosophies, they were united in their commitment to nonviolence. The “singing revolution” of the Baltic states began in Estonia. Nearly a quarter of all Estonians took part in the Talinn song festival in 1988, and in 1989 over 2 million people from all three Baltic states joined arms to sing of their longing for self-determination.

The nonviolent resistance to ICE in Minnesota has learned from a host of saints before us: those who marched, those who knelt and refused to move, those who publicly spoke out, those who quietly protected their neighbors without public confrontation, and those who sang. Not everyone has come to this work from a faith perspective, but in the Singing Resistance we see the full flower of a state that is saturated with a choral tradition that unmistakably has its roots in the church. The paperless songs being composed and sung over these weeks also have their roots in church song. This past Sunday, the Singing Resistance movement joined Brandi Carlisle on stage and led over 15,000 people in singing to ICE “it’s okay to change your mind.”

When empire says “you’re next,” people of faith look to the past about how to resist. For our faith, that means singing songs, old and new, trusting that God hears, and so does the world. So what song is going to shape your preparation and resistance in the coming weeks and months? How will you let that song form you, and how will you let others hear your songs of hope and peace?

1 Corinthians 12:14-19 (ESV)

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The occupation of our state and city by federal agents has corresponded with my own final steps in becoming ordained as a priest, and the intensity of this time has shaped both strengths and challenges in how I am growing into my own role as a pastor.

In our rapid-response networks, not everyone can respond to every incident; our strength lies in people responding to the calls that make sense for them at that moment, leaving others to respond to the next ones.

Yet I’ve struggled with what it means to be faithful to my call when the need is so great. Where is my voice needed? Am I called to witness at this event or another? That kind of discernment is important no matter the situation, but the last three months have been a masterclass in it.

Again leaning on the rapid-response metaphor, I need to get in touch with my own “inner dispatcher,” telling me how, when, and where to respond. I’ve learned that I do need practices of stillness and prayer to listen for that Holy Spirit/Dispatcher, but that even in the midst of chaos, I can hear Her by leaning on the role with which I’ve been entrusted.

On the morning of a very intense day of ICE abductions in Minneapolis, I was on my way to do a patrol shift at my son’s middle school when traffic slowed and I heard whistles. I pulled over, parked, and stood alongside several other observers, filming agents push a young man into their SUV while two young women, each holding a preschool-aged girl, looked on in fear. Eventually, I crossed the busy one-way street and put my hands on the shoulders of the women as the agents drove away.

I walked with the women back onto their porch, and then knelt by the little girls while their mothers worked with neighbors to get the detained man’s car parked safely. I couldn’t remember any children’s songs in Spanish, so I sang Jesus Loves the Little Children (ALL THE CHILDREN, AHEM), and then I admired the little penguinos on their leggings and asked them their favorite colors.

The man abducted was a friend who was there to take the little girls to daycare so that their mothers could go to work. As I found out that evening, one woman’s husband had been abducted a couple weeks ago, and the other even just that morning at a shop nearby.

I mostly just gathered the little girls in my arms. They were shivering with both cold and fear, and, in that moment, all I could give was my comforting presence and touch.

As I helped the mothers and children inside to get out of the cold, I remembered that, not only had I intentionally put my clergy collar on when leaving to go patrol, but I have also been keeping my anointing oil in my coat pocket for exactly these kinds of circumstances.

So I asked them if they would like prayer and anointing, and they were eager to gather on the narrow duplex stairs together. My Spanish is not up to extemporaneous prayer, but I stumbled through and they murmured more articulate prayers under their breaths. I anointed each of them, after which point a friend of the detained man knocked on the door to offer more assistance.

I had exchanged numbers with one of the women, and she called me a couple hours later with an ask for suitcases — they wanted to try to travel back to the country they had immigrated from, and all they had for their belongings were trash bags.

Throughout the afternoon, folk from church came together so I could bring over three suitcases, two backpacks, some snacks, and $50 cash. And we weren’t alone; as I walked back, I saw a couple other neighbors who had just dropped off some rice and beans for the family.

“Muchas gracias de verdad de corazon por su ayuda Dios los bendiga,” read the mothers’ text message back to me.

God did indeed bless me that night, both through my encounter with these women and children and with a sense that I leaned into my clergy role and let that guide me, mobilizing others to support in small ways that still made a big impact.

May God bless these women and children on their arduous journey. I wish I could have done more.

It has been so easy to arrive at each evening feeling like nothing I’ve done is enough, and, in one way, it isn’t. The pain of my community exceeds my own individual capacity. As a human, I make mistakes, drop balls, and forget things.

But that is the blessing of Lent: To remember that human limitations are not bad. In fact, Jesus Christ came bound in the flesh of human limitations and showed us that, knit together in love, we are more than enough. Even death is transformed!

We are not called to be perfect, but to be faithful. We are not called to work alone, but as members of community. We are not called to do all the things, but to do those specific things to which we are called, remembering that we are part of a vast story across geography and history that is ever-arching toward the justice and love of God.

Call to Action: Each day, put your hand to your chest and breathe deeply and slowly. Hold in your heart all those who are suffering, especially those without support or witness. Then invite the Spirit to help you discern how you will respond that day to the injustice and pain in your life and the lives of those around you. Ask the Spirit to help you attend to both the short- and long-term needs, and to guide your yes and your no that day. Creating even just a little embodied and attentive space for discernment is the first step toward action in a world full of overwhelming choice and need.

Attentive God, giver of all good gifts, you have given each of us unique strengths and roles in this world, and you have prepared us for the road ahead. Fortify us against believing the lie that we are not enough, and ground us in faithfulness to the diverse work you have prepared for each of us to do. Jesus Christ, tune our hearts to hear the calling of the Holy Comforter and Dispatcher, and help us to know that you walk alongside us in our learning, even as you once discerned your path to Calvary. Amen.

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the

hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and

your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of God shall be your rear guard. –Isaiah 58:6-8, NRSVUE

If this time is teaching us anything, it is that life is short, and how we live into this moment matters not just for us, but for our neighbors, our community, and the world. How we move in this time will shape what is to come.

On Ash Wednesday, we were marked with ashes that remind us of our mortality. In being marked with ashes, we name that life is precious and time is fleeting. We name our sacred belonging to God, to the earth, and to one another. This mortality and sacred kinship is why our hearts break when our beloved community members are stolen from us.

I remember Adan, whose window was smashed, who was pulled from his car in front of his friends and family, outnumbered by 7 masked agents with guns drawn. Adan was ripped from our community, a husband, a father of four, a business owner, a painter. A human being who was deported after 7 minutes in front of a judge. He was robbed all the way back to the Mexican town where he was born, separated from his family and home just in time for the holidays. There are so many more we miss–so many whose loss we feel in our small Minnesota town. He was one of us. He still is. We are not the same without him. We still grieve his absence.

So amid inhumanity, we hold to this holy and sacred kinship. One way we do this is by continuing to love our neighbors. We do not choose a fast of penitence. In our humanity and our heartbreak, we choose something closer to God’s heart: a fast which gives to the hungry and the vulnerable, the sheltering; our friends and neighbors who are profiled and hunted.

However we are able, our community is choosing to be the people who are showing up, by loving God by loving our neighbors in a myriad of ways: delivering groceries from the food

shelf in the dark of night, using our own grocery budgets to make sure families at home have fresh fruit and vegetables, spending the day from 6 am to 12 am as constitutional observers alerting neighbors, driving students to and from school with snack boxes in their car for children who may have missed breakfast or need an after-school snack– so they can focus on homework not hunger, collecting games for children who must stay at home so they can play like children are supposed to, riding school buses to accompany children getting home safely, supporting community resource organizations giving thousands upon thousands in rental assistance, fundraising for habeas corpus filings, packing gift bags for community members in their homes to remember that they are loved, and packing dignity backpacks for community members who are being deported but leaving detention with no clothing, food, water, or means of communication.

Even as we feel the hardship and weariness in our bones, even as we face the reality that life can be harsh and brief, Lent moves us toward spiritual practices that affirm the dignity of the most vulnerable. We choose a fast this Lent that is concerned with justice and restoration. Annie Dillard wrote that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” How then, might we, as Mary Oliver asked, live our “one wild and precious” life?

In small town, occupied Minnesota, together we are choosing what is closest to God’s heart: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke, to share bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into our homes; to clothe the naked, and to not to hide ourselves from our own kin.

Prayer: Holy One, as palm branches alchemize into ashes, alchemize our heartbreak into loving care. Let us mark this season not for penance–you do not need that–but for drawing near to you through kinship and collective love. You are the ground of our being, the source of love. May we risk loving our neighbors as Jesus did, and follow him all the way to Palm Sunday, the cross, and the horizon beyond. Amen.

Psalm 51:15-17

O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you have no delight in sacrifice;

if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

A week before Ash Wednesday, my congregation gathered around a bonfire to burn last year’s palms. For a congregation with low liturgical sensibilities, it took impressive wherewithal to save the palms all year long and unearth them in time for the ceremonial burning. These palms that ushered Jesus into Jerusalem with hope-filled shouts of “Hosanna, save us!” became the very reminder of our mortality.

On Wednesday evenings, anywhere between 60 and 100 people gather for a simple soup supper in our church basement, and then they continue on to kids’ club, youth group, confirmation, choir, or back out into the world, nourished by food and fellowship. When we burned the palms that Wednesday night, there were two-year-olds racing around the fire pit, seven-year-olds sword fighting with dried palms, and octogenarians who had saved their own neatly folded palm crosses to add to the fire. A multigenerational, chaotic, beautiful vision of the kingdom of God. In the background of this scene, but the foreground of our minds, we held another vision of the kingdom of God: our vulnerable neighbors.

We are 150 miles outside the Twin Cities, but we have been a Sanctuary Church since 2017, so our ties to ICE’s operations in Minnesota are close. The week of our palm bonfire:

Several members of our community reported for interviews required by Operation PARRIS, a re-vetting program for already intensively vetted refugees admitted under the Biden administration. This re-vetting process brings up unnecessary trauma and has been costly and disruptive for these beloved members of our community.

Members of our congregation accompanied a loved one to a routine ICE check-in, a required step in the asylum process. This loved one was detained at his check-in and remains in detention. Our hearts are breaking with them as they seek every legal avenue to keep their loved one in Minnesota, safe and loved and employed and independent.

Hundreds of community members were trained in the Sanctuary Schools framework and protocols, anticipating an ICE surge after our local school district signed onto a lawsuit demanding the Sensitive Locations memo be reinstated. Our community is not safer when people are afraid to go to school, to the hospital, and to worship.

As children tossed palms in the fire and watched them be consumed quickly by flames, I thought of all these ways our mortality is more obvious than ever. Some days it feels like everything is ash. This Lent, we need to be reminded that we are mortal – and also divine.

So on Ash Wednesday, we will impose glitter ashes. (You’re reading this on Thursday, but I’m still on the “before” side!) Remember that you are stardust, made of the same stuff as our vast and glimmering universe. Remember that you have God’s divine sparkle within you. There is death right now, yes. But there is also God showing up. In the neighborliness, in the gritty hard work of organizing, in the dirt and the dust of it all. The Psalmist says that God has no delight in burnt offerings, but we may offer our broken spirits, and God will meet us there.

As of today, the Department of Homeland Security is still shut down while our US Senators debate funding for ICE’s operations. Visit https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm to find your Senators’ contact information, thank them for their courage if they’re standing up for our rights and freedoms, and tell these stories and your own stories if they’re fighting to fund this terror.

Prayer

God of dust and ash, remind us in this Lenten season that you also spark goodness in all of us. Strengthen us to hold both death and resurrection, and to seek the gritty hope to which you call us. Amen.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

– Genesis 3:19

Christians begin the season of Lent with truth-telling. I don’t know about you, but my spirit craves some communal truth-telling right now. Here in Minnesota, we are reeling from ICE and CPB terror in our communities – and it feels like gut-punch after gut-punch as government leaders continue to try to gaslight us into believing lies about what our own eyes have seen and wept over. My heart aches, knowing that many in our nation are captive to these lies.

The truths we name on Ash Wednesday are not flashy; they are ancient, simple and foundational. They are not an ice cream sundae; they are daily bread. Each one of us will die. Each one of us messes up and falls short of living the life of love that God intends. Each one of us is called to turn away from violence, hatred, and apathy (all that Christians call ‘sin’) and renew our commitment to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Each one of us finds new life, new strength and new courage in God’s unfailing grace revealed in Jesus Christ.

On Ash Wednesday, we don’t just speak these truths or ponder them in our minds. We wear these truths on our bodies as an ash-smeared cross on our foreheads. Our foreheads become billboards for truths that we and our troubled nation often cast aside for lies – to our peril.

As I receive the ashes on my forehead this Wednesday, I will be carrying one particular story with me – the story of our neighbor Alberto Castañeda Mondragón. This neighbor was pulled from his car, brutally beaten with a metal baton, and taken to a detention center where he endured racist taunts as he was beaten again. He sustained 8 fractures to his skull and has lost precious memories of life with his daughter. God, have mercy and bring healing!

Meanwhile, the federal government maintains that Alberto Castañeda Mondragón ran headfirst into a wall and refuses to investigate. These unconscionable lies cannot stand. May we all seek truth, justice and healing for our neighbor Alberto and for countless others who have endured cruelty, terror and abuse at the hands of our government.

Let us pray. Holy God, have mercy on us. Bring your healing to the hearts, minds, and bodies of your children who suffer terror. Turn our hearts away from lies and hatred and toward your truth and love. Anchor us in our calling to love our neighbors as ourselves. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

I encourage you to join my family in supporting the Yesod Fund, a fund born out of interfaith partnership that directly supports people who have lost income and suffered trauma due to Operation Metro Surge. https://www.yesodfund.org/