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

Matthew 10:7-8

As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

We are given the opportunity to joyfully serve everyday. Much of this service is mundane; recently though, that mundane everyday work took on a new character as we started feeding those deeply in need – folks in our towns who couldn’t work, or who had lost family members who worked and suddenly needed all the kinds of help. We set up a structure that we call direct accompaniment, paring a church group or family with a family in need, doing their shopping, their errands and generally getting to know each other in community and service.

We didn’t set out to start a whole new ministry, we saw the suffering and intentional cruelty and knew our call was to help our neighbor.

Being a small church we started on our own, but it quickly grew beyond our capacity when we were feeding 40+ families per week, so we worked with other churches. Neighbors working with neighbors to feed other neighbors.

So we GET the opportunity to be the hands, feet and arms of Church this week, in service to others while being an example and following our vocational call.

Call to action

Our call is simple, dozens (if not hundreds) of churches all over the state of Minnesota are doing this same work. Neighbors feeding neighbors. Neighbors driving neighbors. Neighbors providing care and community to neighbors. Work with your local church to find a place to serve. None of us can do it call, but if each of us does something it adds up in a big way. So please, do something for your neighbor.

Prayer

Almighty God, you told us in no uncertain terms to act justly, to love, to behave with mercy, to walk humbly and to cure the sick, and to serve those who can not repay us. Help us recognize the humanity of our neighbor. Help us to learn in our service. Help us to become a community of love through our mercy and humble service. We know who our neighbor is; help us be brave in the face of cruelty, strong in the face of injustice, loving to our neighbor and of service wherever we are needed. Amen.

“…and [God] has filled humans with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs…” Exodus 35: 31-32

My recent photo files are full of screenshots of poetry. Each day during the height of the Metro Surge, and the accompanying Resistance, the artists were active: poetry, art and music was coming from all corners. Andy Pokel, the musician at Spirit Garage wrote a song called “Even If”. Bruce Springsteen spent the Sunday after Alex Pretti died writing and recording the “Streets of Minneapolis” before coming to First Ave to sing it. The Singing Resistance was writing new songs to fit the new moment. Bono and U2 released an EP, and a group of Minnesota artists released an album of protest songs called “Music for Good: A Mixtape for MN Mutual Aid.” The Rebel Loon was created, and subsequently tattooed on many people.

One cold weekend, a group of artists plotted out a communal art project: a huge “SOS” message on a frozen lake, and got hundreds of neighbors to show up to fill the messages in with candlelight and humanity. I showed up with my lanterns and friends and their kids; we met neighbors on the “S” line, talked about where we were showing up and what to do next.

Across the city and around the world, artists responded to the moment.

It seems God the great creator made us into God’s creative image, and that creativity helps us make meaning out of our lives. Art helps us name, interpret and understand what is happening. It communicates comfort and instills pride in a people oppressed, moving the heart and galvanizing the spirit for the work we must do. Art communicates in ways nothing else can, including the worst of the pain and the best hopes for who we can be together. Art is always part of resistance and resilience, and that is a gift from God.

Call to action: Check out some of the art that was created Minneapolis during the Metro Surge: This video/podcast on the Poetry against Ice, or buy this Music for Good album on Bandcamp (supports mutual aid efforts) or write/paint/play some reflections or prayers of your own. Or, if you’re in the Twin Cities area, check out the art that tells of another time with echoes to our own time: The Minneapolis Institute of Art current show “Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945.”

As a closing prayer, I offer a line from a hymn called “God, who stretched the spangled heavens:” “Great Creator, still creating, show us what we yet may be.” Amen

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

-John 10:27-29

On Sunday, December 21, 2025, at 10:29am ICE agents boxed in the vehicle of one of our church members and ushers. His wife was driving. They were on the side of our church building in a public street. They were five feet away from pulling into our parking lot. The abduction took all of five minutes and they were gone before the Children’s Christmas Pageant could begin.

Since then, he has been moved to a county jail in Greater Minnesota and then to the East Montana Camp outside of El Paso, and now he is at the Eloy Detention Center in Eloy, Arizona. He was born in Cuba and came to the US with his family when he was five years old. He was convicted of a felony as an adult and served his prison time years ago. He was rehabilitated in prison and has been a leader in our congregation ever since. He has experienced horrible abuse of his dignity, his human rights, and his freedom while being detained. He celebrated his 50th birthday in the detention center this week. His faith in a Jesus who never leaves us, and is our Good Shepherd, feeds him while he is suffering in detention.

If you would like to write to him with words of encouragement from other faithful folks, please email me at mpohlman@centralmpls.org.

Dearest God, remind us that you call us to care for the prisoners and that as long as any in the Body of Christ suffer, we all suffer together. Bring an end to the suffering of ICE detainees. Keep them safe from all forms of abuse. Return them to their families and communities. Help us to remind them of your promises of care in both this life and the next. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

“Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, ‘sit here while I go over there and pray…my soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed…then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping…” -excerpts from Matthew 26

Staying awake has, apparently, been a problem for a while. Many of our congregations will soon read this passage when Jesus asks his disciples to stay awake with him in the garden of Gethsemane, just days before his arrest, trial, and murder–and not once, not twice, but three times in a row, they fall asleep.

Disciples of Jesus today also face the temptation to fall asleep. I think that’s especially true in these weeks after we’ve been told that Operation Metro Surge is “winding down.” We’re told, in other words, that the project of mass deportation no longer demands our attention, that those who have been taken–or their grieving loved ones–no longer demand our attention, that we can return to “normal,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

But Jesus, whose soul yet again must be “deeply grieved,” says to us: “stay awake with me.”

We’ve been singing a version of these words (you may know the lovely Taize song based on this passage) each Friday night at my church as part of a Lenten rhythm we began this year. After sharing a meal from a local restaurant that has been particularly harmed by ICE raids, we move into the dark sanctuary to pray, sing, read psalms of lament, light candles, and read many of the names of our disappeared neighbors. (I say “many” because there is no official record of our neighbors who have been taken. The only information we have comes from Nick Benson, a neighbor who lives in Bloomington and documents each flight that leaves the Signature Airways terminal at MSP. As of this writing, Nick has documented 81 flights leaving MSP carrying a total of 3,162 shackled neighbors since Jan 1).

We call the gathering in the sanctuary a vigil. From the Latin “vigilia” (meaning wakefulness), this vigil has been one small attempt to stay awake to the pain and suffering, to bear witness to what we are told to look away from or move on from. It has been one small way to name–together–what we know to be true: that our neighbors no longer live in our neighborhoods, that our neighborhoods will never be the same, that we will not be the same. That many of our black and brown neighbors continue to live in fear, and that this fear permeates our shared social worlds: our classrooms, our health care clinics, our food shelves, our grocery stores, our parks, our churches. And so we stay awake.

Indeed, there are many ways to stay awake. There are, of course, the more obvious examples (Nick Benson at the airport, neighbors doing school patrols, etc.), but there are also quieter examples, perhaps all the more important to note in these days when ICE’s tactics are also quieter. I think of the member of my church who regularly drives down to Sherburne County Jail to visit detainees who are often isolated and afraid. I think of those stationed outside of Whipple who continue to document the license plates of the vehicles coming in and out. I think of the grandmother in my neighborhood who had given rides to a family during the surge, but who continues to check in on them (last week’s check-in turned into a conversation at their kitchen table eating homemade namoura that the mother had made for that evening’s iftar).

What are the ways that you will stay awake, keep watch, keep bearing witness–both to the suffering around us, and also to the glimpses of Easter piercing their way into this very Good Friday world?

Even amidst drowsiness that seems to be part of the way sin is made manifest in humans throughout history, we give thanks for the words of Psalm 121, reminding us of the loving wakefulness of our God: “He who keeps you will not slumber…the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.” Thanks be to God.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left…

-from St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. Here in America, we wear green. Some people drink too much. We lift up Irish culture. But what we rarely seem to do is pause and remember who St. Patrick actually was.

St. Patrick wasn’t even Irish; he was from Britain (then under Roman rule). At the age of 16, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates, taken to Ireland and enslaved. During his enslavement, his Christian faith – which hadn’t meant much to him in his youth – became a deep source of strength and solace. After 6 years of bondage, he made his escape and was able to return home.

Years later, he returned to Ireland as a priest and bishop to share the gospel of love and the ministry of reconciliation with his oppressors. He was a foreigner without legal protection. He sought to convert wealthy people and refused gifts from kings. He spread the gospel throughout Ireland, establishing churches and monasteries. Of course, there’s much more to the story.

It strikes me that the way we remember St. Patrick (or don’t) is quite similar to the way we remember Jesus Christ (or don’t) as a broader culture. Today, many Christians seem to associate Jesus with the American flag, guns, patriarchy, and white skin. Just as the real St. Patrick had little or nothing to do with beer and leprechauns, so Jesus Christ as we encounter him in our Scriptures and in Christian community bears no resemblance to the white nationalistic hero some in our country make him out to be.

Jesus did not endorse any national agenda and embraced nonviolence (that is, love-in-action and non-cooperation with evil) all the way to the cross, a form of Roman execution reserved for political enemies. Jesus did not bless patriarchy or endorse a narrow biological view of family – instead, he radically redefined family as those who seek the will of God, lifted up women, and invited his followers to call God “Father” (this is actually subversive!). Jesus was a dark-skinned Palestinian Jew who showed us that ‘greatness’ is defined by love and humble service, not coercive power or human achievements.

I know I’ve been hungry for a bold public witness to our faith in this Jesus, the crucified and risen Christ. Fortunately, after months of organizing, an opportunity is coming to do just that on Palm Sunday, March 29.

On Palm Sunday, there will be at least 25 Palm Sunday Faith Actions across 14 states. Christians from across race, culture and denomination will be coming together to march, wave palms, sing, pray, and do what Jesus did that day – be a visible embodiment of the values of the kingdom of God which are always in sharp contrast to the values of empire. We will root ourselves in our call to love God, love our neighbors as ourselves, care for the sick, feed the hungry, and welcome the stranger.

Call to Action: You can learn more and register for Palm Sunday actions at palmsunday2026.com. Share these memes out to spread the word! Make a plan to attend a local action with friends, neighbors, and your congregation.

Let us pray. Dear God, root us and ground us in your love today. When the world spins lies, strengthen our commitment to speak the truth. Help us also to untangle the lies that wind their way into our hearts and minds. Grant us the spirit of St. Patrick who boldly shared the gospel with his oppressors. Set us free to love ourselves and others as you love us. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Yet even now, says the Lord,

return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

rend your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord your God,

for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,

and relenting from punishment.

Joel 2:12-13

A rare and remarkable coincidence is happening this year: the holy seasons of Lent and Ramadan began on the very same night. For weeks, Christians and Muslims around the world have been observing a season of repentance and renewal through practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Lent has felt particularly poignant for me. As I seek to follow my own, private disciplines through these 40 days, I am surrounded by students at Augsburg University who are daily fasting from sunrise to sunset, going without food and water in profound witness to an absolute dependence on God. I listen from my office window each day around 1:25 PM (12:25 PM before DST) and hear the sung Call to Prayer (the adhan) echoing from Dar Al-Hijrah a couple of blocks away.

Established in 1998, Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque was the very first Somali masjid in Minnesota. Before it became a space for Muslim daily prayer, education, and community life in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, this same building was used (among other things) as a small knitting factory owned by a Scandinavian immigrant. I imagine the elaborately patterned Norwegian sweaters slowly turning with time into the intricate, ornate prayer rugs that today cover the masjid floor.

“Dar Al-Hijrah” literally means “Home of Migration.” In 2000, the imam said that the community’s choice of this name was in reference to “the experience of leaving your homeland to settle in another land that embraces you.” But in December of 2025, the most powerful man in this nation referred to these Somalis (these Minnesotans! these Americans!) with worn out, painful slurs, and dispatched the full force of DHS into Dar Al-Hijrah’s back yard.

The neighborhood resistance to these federal forces is well documented, and important. But less well documented is the total sum of unnecessary trauma, fear, and pain inflicted on my Somali neighbors through racial profiling, tear gas, unlawful detainment, coercion, bullying, and hate. Another untold story has been the ongoing presence of these same targeted Somalis, especially the women, who patrol the neighborhood, handing out warm sambusas and hot tea to us, their frigid neighbors, and educating members of the community about their civil liberties. They have trusted, impossibly, that the guarantees of American democracy are good, and will hold.

It should be no surprise that the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, Home of Migration, is today teaching us what resilience looks like. It’s possible that those faithful refugees through the centuries who have called Minneapolis home – wearing wool sweaters and hijabs, holding Bibles and Qurans – have held fast through challenging times because they have remained grounded in the warm embrace of the Creator, the most gracious and merciful (Joel 2:13).

May our shared fasting in these days continue bearing witness to a people that refuses to worship empire and power but instead daily kneel in the trust of a God who has never left us, and whose love extends far beyond what any of us could ever ask or imagine.

Action item: Consider donating to Dar Al-Hijra/ICSA (https://icsamn.org/donation/) or another Islamic Center or mosque in your community. Call out Islamophobia when you hear it. Attend a Taking Heart Ramadan Iftar Dinner through the Minnesota Council of Churches: https://mnchurches.org/what-we-do/taking-heart (h/t Rev. Miriam Samuelson-Roberts for lifting this up a couple days ago!).

Prayer: Restore us, O God, and renew our trust in your promises to provide for and comfort all your beloved ones. May our neighbors’ faith inspire us to deeper contemplation, prayer, and action, and motivate our shared calling to work for the protection, peace, and healing of all. Amen.

I’m an ordinary American. I am no one special.

I do have power. As a white middle class woman, I possess a certain privilege. As an American citizen, I exercise my right to vote. As a religious leader, I have a pulpit.

I’m also a Minnesotan.

But the title that stirs me since Renee Good’s murder earlier this winter and only grew more significant after Alex Pretti’s death, is rather ordinary. The word is “neighbor.” And I don’t even live in Minneapolis.

In recent months, many have come to call the grassroots movement taking place in streets and towns across our state “neighborism.” As Adam Serwer writes in the The Atlantic, “If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it ‘neighborism’— a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from.”

You can also call it the greatest commandment.

In the gospel of Matthew, a lawyer questions Jesus, asking him which commandment is the greatest. Jesus responds, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.” But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He goes on to add, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:37-29).

Neighborism.

It’s not lost on me that Minnesota is home to a bunch of Lutherans, a Christian denomination rooted in the re-formational theology of 15th century Martin Luther. I am one of them. To be clear – we Lutherans get a lot of stuff wrong. Luther himself made abhorrent antisemitic statements about the Jewish faith in his later years. In the centuries since, we have at times floundered in the face of our own racism, sexism, ableism, and LGBTQIA+ discrimination. Like every Christian denomination, you will find a spectrum of conservative to liberal thought and theologies in our pews.

But what’s been happening in the Midwestern mecca of Lutheran church basements is another kind of “ism.” One that has remained central to our understanding who God is and how God shows up in the world.

Love God. Love Neighbor.

Of course, Lutherans do not have copyrights to this neighborly command. It’s (hopefully) foundational for all Christians. Jews confess the Shema, based on Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might”. It’s a daily confessional invoking an active kind of faith. Muslims have the Quranic decree La ilaha illallah, or “There is no deity but God.” All faith and charity flows from this grounding belief. And it’s not just religious folk who claim this notion of “love thy neighbor.” Humanist thought is steeped in the golden rule and the ethical treatment of one’s fellow human.

Neighborism.

I harken back to my youth and Rev. Fred Roger’s prelude to every episode of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. As he laces up his sneakers, buttoning that trademark red sweater, he tenderly sings:

“I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.

I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day

Since we’re together, we might as well say

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

Won’t you be my neighbor?”

It’s not lost on me that Roger’s shoes were meant for action, and his knit sweater more flexible than a stiff suit jacket. Perhaps he knew that being a neighbor wasn’t a passive act, but an assertive, emphatic, and fundamental part of being a good human. As a person of faith, Rogers knew that loving God always meant something very explicit followed. Namely, an action-oriented and neighborly kind of love.

Love God. Love Neighbor.

So to the majority of you reading this – you ordinary, mediocre Americans just like me – let’s not sit this moment out. Church quilters have been marching in the streets. Neighbors of all hues and shades are gathering in singing resistance. Clergy of all faiths have risked arrest. The Palm Sunday Path will soon be upon us (google it).

This moment isn’t just about human rights, at home and abroad. It’s also about human dignity, human breath, human heartbeats.

It’s about loving our neighbor, regardless of their color or creed, their zip code or citizenship status. Be them American or Iranian. For Jesus said it best, “And – you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

When [Jesus] was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” […] Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Luke 24: 30-32, 35

A couple weeks ago, a neighbor and I accepted a generous invitation. One of our neighbors invited us over for lunch to thank us for having helped his family for the last three months when he was unable to work–he was awaiting the arrival of his green card in the mail while ICE roamed the streets of his neighborhood. His wife cooked us an abundant feast. His daughters, who were not allowed to be educated in their country of origin, translated between us and their parents, and told us about their studies and how they hoped to go to college and then medical school after they graduated from high school, because that’s what their mother always wanted to do, but couldn’t.

In our Christian Revised Common Lectionary, we hear the story of the Road to Emmaus every few years during the Easter season. The story takes place just after Jesus’ resurrection, and he walks alongside some of his disciples on a road. The disciples do not recognize him, and they tell him of their grief, their heartbreak, the dreams that died when their teacher Jesus died.

Then, when they sit down together for a meal, Jesus breaks bread–just as he did “in the night in which is was betrayed,” as we say in our liturgy, and the disciples’ eyes are opened, and they recognize him.

So much of the good, neighbor-centered, care and advocacy that has happened in our state these months has happened because we have broken bread with each other. Relationships that had been formed over coffee hour at church, National Night Out on our blocks, and cups of coffee getting to know our neighbors ended up being seeds of care that could bloom in this moment of occupation and terror.

There are many things we need to resist–to be against–these days: violence, terror, abuses of power. And there are also things we need to cultivate–to be for–these days too: humanizing one another, compassion, empathy, care.

Breaking bread with one another leads to open eyes, the ability to see all humans and all of creation as sacred, and hearts that burn with a desire for God’s vision of a just, equal, compassionate world for all.

Action item: ask a neighbor to sit down with you for a meal or a cup of coffee or tea. Or, if you see this in time, sign up for a Taking Heart Ramandan Iftar Dinner through the Minnesota Council of Churches: https://mnchurches.org/what-we-do/taking-heart. In some way, sit down and break bread with someone you don’t know well. The worst that can happen is that it’ll feel awkward. And the best that can happen is what we’ve seen on the streets of Minneapolis these past months: care, connection, weaving the fabric of our humanity.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15

I serve as pastor of a church in Richfield where people from many different Latin American countries and the United States worship together in English and Spanish. If you’ve been following the news here in Minnesota at all, you will know that we have been under siege as individuals, as a congregation, as a city, state and country. Our people have been under threat at home, at work, at school, at hospitals, getting gas, walking on the sidewalk, waiting for buses. Even at church.

We have so much to mourn.

Many families in the Twin Cities metro area, especially our children and youth, have found themselves living with fear, anxiety, dread, terror, trauma. Many families in our state are experiencing deep, deep sorrow as they have had to determine how to survive under the threat and reality of unjust detention, incarceration, deportation and family separation.

We weep with those who weep. Jesus weeps with those who weep.

But notice that there are two commands in this single Bible verse from Romans. Not just “weep with those who weep,” but also “rejoice with those who rejoice.”

In the midst of this deep grief, we have also experienced as a community of faith and in our city and state a deep outpouring of solidarity, generosity and courage. We have worked hard together to find ways to live into our call as beloved children of God created in God’s image and worthy of love and respect. Together we have prayed for justice and mercy and compassion for and with our neighbors. We have cried out to God to lead us in the ways of true and lasting peace.

We have so much in which to rejoice.

Our community continues to show up! We help each other by delivering groceries, many purchased from local immigrant grocery stores, and in our church, also preparing homemade meals for anyone who enters. We help people pay rent and we join together to play and laugh, sing and pray. We have seen the courage of people in our church community and in our neighborhood and beyond who continue to show up, be present and find the joy in being neighbors to one another. We continue to be faithful in worship together, often because neighbors help with rides, and we trust in God’s tender mercies.

We rejoice with those who rejoice. Jesus rejoices with those who rejoice.

Where we have a tendency to want dichotomies-grief or joy-God brings us to the fullness of our humanity, of our emotions, our expression and, ultimately, to a life where we can weep and rejoice together as one because we see each other as human beings created in the image of a God who mourns and rejoices with us.

Call to action: Attend this conference on Thursday, March 12th and invite a friend or two to join you!

Mass Deportation, Detention, and ICE: How We Got Here. What We Need Now. https://www.facebook.com/share/1FaJa4Se6D/

Prayer: God of compassion, be with us in our moments of mourning and break open our hearts to mourn with our neighbors who mourn oppression and injustice. Open our eyes to see your work in the midst of grief so that we may rejoice in the ways in which you work in and among your people to bring fullness of life in You. In Jesus name, Amen

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/