Darkness can not drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate can not drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King Jr
By now you have seen images and heard words coming not only from Minneapolis, but Maine and Ohio, and you have seen images of resistance from all over the county. It may look mighty dark right now, it may feel like Good Friday, but Sunday is coming. That’s what we’ve taken to reminding ourselves as we embrace hope.
The reality is that we in Minnesota are living under occupation. We have witnessed Immigration and Customs Enforcement removing people from homes, work, and school based on door-knocking in random neighborhoods and swarming schools, health care facilities, Mexican restaurants, child care centers or gas station parking lots all in hopes of finding someone, anyone, to detain. And murdering protectors and kidnapping observers in the midst of it. We are witnessing a spectacle of cruelty and brutality. Again, this is our reality.
As people of faith, we must step into the breach with faith, love, and most of all hope, to do what the gospel compels us to do - welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, protect those who are at risk. I don’t have to convince any of you of that. This past Sunday’s Old Testament reading was from Micah, a passage with which you are so very familiar. “What the Lord really needs of us is to do justice, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.” In the midst of the chaos I am observing, I have also witnessed incredible acts of justice, kindness and mercy, walking humbly with God.
Friday morning a week ago my clergy colleague Susan, and I, with a wonderful handful of people from Grace Episcopal Church, were at the airport to raise our voices demanding that Delta and Signature stop being complicit in removing people from our state to detention centers God knows where. That action was about disrupting the flow of money and commerce. We cheered, and we prayed, and sang as 100 of our colleagues were bused off to jail after kneeling in the cold for at least an hour.
Then, with at least 50,000 of our closest friends, in -20 cold, we gathered downtown Minneapolis, we watched out for each other, we shared hand and foot warmers, we sang, and were kind to one another as we became Minnesota fierce. My colleague Susan, and her partner Brian, went to US Bank downtown, one of the leading financial institutions in Minnesota, to be part of a sit-in, to ask that they lead the way in standing up to injustice.
This past Friday morning we gathered at the BIshop Whipple Federal Building, where those who are kidnapped off the streets are first taken. We again stood in the cold and spoke out for those who have been taken because they were witnessing - taking video, blowing their whistles. And just that morning two journalists were detained. People stand outside the Whipple building so that when they let someone go, there is someone waiting and prepared with warm clothes and a ride home. Last Saturday I delivered food to families who no longer leave their homes to go to work, or to go to the grocery store or the gas station for fear of being grabbed by ICE. That food ministry has over the last two weeks has tripled the number of people that still come to the church and to whom groceries are delivered. You can help with that, Rev. Jessie has that information for you
A statistic I discovered this week, and a reflection for you to consider. 90% of the community activation in Minneapolis is neighbor care. Not protest. Not legal observation. But community response work: feeding the hungry, protecting schools, getting medicines to people who need them. Singing in the neighborhood so people stuck indoors, fearful of authorities, will know they are not alone. When what is happening in Minneapolis, and soon in Maine, in Ohio, and all over is called protest, you flatten the level and diversity of the response. You play into the framing of a violent regime.
We are resisting, and there is something else happening here that’s not just resistance. It's a paradigm shift. Minnesota has been abandoned by the federal government, so the people have taken over, and it is incredible.
We are the hands and feet of Jesus in the way of embodied, fierce, resilient, defiant, love. We show up with compassion and resolve. The grief is palpable. And what do we see? People, neighbors, clergy, gathering together in neighborhoods and breweries and being community, increasing the light, rising up, with hope. There are candlelight vigils in every neighborhood. This occupation is nowhere near over, I just read that eight more observers were arrested at gunpoint yesterday morning, but we will continue to love fiercely, and walk the way of Jesus, together.
Five year old Liam Ramos and his father were finally released. There is reason to hope, light in the darkness is dispelled in and through neighbors and community. We show up for each other, Jesus shows up in flesh and blood, we show up for our neighbors, God in our midst, the one who stoops to pick us up off the ground. This is where hope lives.
Friends, we follow Jesus because we are convinced of God’s love for us, God’s love for all of creation. We follow Jesus because we are convinced that Love wins. We follow Jesus because we are convinced that embodied, resilient, defiant love is what God offers, and we in turn offer to our neighbors.
We come here, to this place and we offer our own brokenness to be forgiven and healed, we are filled with bread and wine that are Jesus’ body and blood. In the mystery that is God’s love for us, we recognize blessing, we receive mercy, and we enact justice. And together we are emboldened, we can be brave and courageous as we witness to God’s amazing love for all God’s people.
And therein is hope. We build hope in ourselves and in our community as we intentionally walk with Jesus. We build hope as we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. We build hope as we recognize the blessedness that is all around us. Everytime you carry God’s light and love you conspire with God to hope. Everytime you carry this light out into your community you participate in God’s beloved community.
No comments:
Post a Comment