Breathe. When you don’t know how to respond or your hatred is rising up, focus on the most basic of human actions: breathe in, breathe out. Our breath is a prayer, even when we do not have the words to speak.
Most of you know I was in Minneapolis this week. Last week (Thursday), siblings in Minnesota put out a call for interfaith clergy to come and join them, supporting their demands to get ICE out of Minnesota now, to bring accountability to the officer who murdered Renee Good, and for no additional federal funding for ICE in the federal budget. After some discernment, I felt led to answer this call. On Wednesday, I traveled to Minneapolis 1) to witness what is happening: occupation, federal harassment, racial profiling, tear gas, beatings, abuse, illegal arrests, and general indifference and disregard for the dignity and beauty of human life; 2) To be in solidarity, to remind our siblings that they are not alone, to reinforce the testimony that people of faith, that Christians, that pastors, are against this violence being done each day.
I flew home from Minneapolis yesterday morning and by the time I got home, federal agents had already murdered another person observing ICE activity. On Friday, I marched with about 100,000 people, filling the streets of downtown Minneapolis, chanting, ICE OUT! I spent two days learning from brave people organizing with MARCH (Multifaith Antiracism, Change & Healing).
MARCH is a pro-queer group of multiracial clergy and faith leaders who cross faith traditions and spiritual practices to organize for freedom and liberation on Dakota land in the Twin Cities. They describe their work, saying they have “lived into front-line relationships during the fight for marriage equality, for justice alongside the Black Lives Matter Minneapolis Chapter, at Standing Rock and Line 3, in the Minneapolis Uprising, and now, during Operation Metro Surge.” Certainly, they are people traumatized by the violence in their community – by numerous instances of police violence, even before the present ICE occupation. Yet the people of Minneapolis are resilient and persistent in their commitment to justice, love, and the protection of their neighbors.
DC’s ICE surge pales in comparison to what is happening in Minneapolis. Imagine federal agents flooding DC at numbers that greatly surpass our local police. Minneapolis is *swarming* with ICE.
On Thursday, I participated in ICE watch with other interfaith clergy, walking down Lake Street (a hotbed of ICE snatching and a beautiful immigrant corridor). Much of resistance is mundane, keeping persistent presence amidst ordinary life, until crisis comes and there are swarms of heavily armed and armored agents ready to beat and spray and snatch and shatter (literally and figuratively). In a minute, ICE sweeps in and out. Some clergy folk saw ICE harass a pregnant woman with several children, a dozen agents looming.
Again and again, community responses organize to keep people safe, because hospitals are not safe, schools are not safe, grocery stores are not safe, churches are not safe.
There are miracles each day: grassroots medical care, congregational safety practices, community food deliveries, and so much more. When hundreds of interfaith clergy answered the call to come to Minneapolis, mountains of warm clothing and gear were donated to help care for out-of-towners not prepared for Minnesota cold. When we were stuck in a church because of ICE activity, somehow enough soup and bread for more than 100 people emerged, steaming and nourishing to sustain us after a morning of -40 Fahrenheit with the windchill. A Minneapolis Rabbi organizer said, “It’s not my tradition – but this was loaves and fishes, everyone,” invoking the miracles of Jesus feeding the multitudes.
Alongside these miracles, there is also grief upon grief every day. One organizer was late for our training because she was delivering breastmilk for a 3-month-old whose mother was kidnapped by ICE, leaving no one at home to care for the infant. When we were stuck in church, observers had their car window smashed and they were pulled from the vehicle and beaten by ICE. A makeshift medical clinic at the church tended the wounded, since hospitals are literally not safe spaces. Parents have been seized from a NICU, a neonatal intensive care unit. People have been taken from emergency rooms. While I was in Minneapolis, sweet Liam Conejo Ramos was abducted, a child made a prisoner – even though the government says, “we’re going after the worst of the worst.”
One beloved colleague carried a fantastic sign, “Hail Mary, full of grace. Kick ICE out of this place!” In the legacy of our ancestor Mother Mary, we too call on God to scatter the proud, bring down the powerful, send the rich away empty, lift up the lowly, and fill the hungry with good things (Luke 1:46-55). Minneapolis is filled with ordinary people doing brave things each day, doing the work of God’s Kingdom, protecting the vulnerable, feeding those trapped in their homes, pulling people out of the clutches of federal agents, tending the literal wounded and tear gassed, and organizing mutual aid for families and businesses.
Last Sunday in PA, I preached from Luke 4, where Jesus starts his ministry. He declares what his mission is all about, reading from the Isaiah scroll that
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The Kingdom of God transforms the spiritual and the social – as Jesus followers, we are called to continue the work of Jesus, building a new reality of just economies and freedom for prisoners and deliverance for people who are oppressed.
As Christians, how do we equip ourselves with the courage and wisdom and power to do the work of Jesus, in our city and in spirit alongside those in Minneapolis and elsewhere? One of the key pieces for equipping ourselves for this work is prayer. You may have heard the saying, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” When we ourselves are depleted or burnt out, when we’re disconnected from God’s presence and love, it can be hard to do the work of justice, and it can feel impossible to do that work in love.
In Romans 12 we read, “love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.” Just as our love must be sincere for others, so too must we be sincere in the knowledge that we too are beloved by God. Too often we might believe that we aren’t good enough or holy enough, not to mention fit enough, rich enough, smart enough, or any other type of expectation this world might have for us. By praying for ourselves, we can remind ourselves that our worth and our value come from the fact that we are God’s beloved children, made in the image of God. By doing so, we can “hold fast to what is good.” Sincere love for others flows best out of an awareness that we, like all people, are beloved by God.
One prayerful practice that I have found very beneficial is that of mindfulness. During the MARCH training in Minneapolis, we took moments of breath, of mindfulness, of brief meditation to center our hearts and reorient our nervous systems. Panic is not helpful for the cause of justice. As we were talking about nonviolence and noncooperation, when direct action is taken and unexpected circumstances occur, one trainer said, “We almost always have time to take one breath.” Breathe.
Mindfulness is the practice of awareness, of tuning in to what we are feeling in our hearts and bodies, of observing what is going on around us. It is the practice of paying attention. Mindfulness is a practice used in dealing with mental and emotional distress, but it is also something that can foster health and well-being for all people. In Romans 12, Paul exhorted the early church in Rome to be “Joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.” I think that mindfulness can be one piece of this. Mindfulness and breathing are not about “not reacting” (that’s impossible) but about noticing our reactions to act intentionally.
There is a mindfulness practice that is referred to as a lovingkindness meditation. There are multiple versions of lovingkindness meditation. I am sharing a Christian version this morning. In Christian practice, we understand meditation to be a centering on God. It is about finding that still, quiet space. It is meditating or ruminating on the truths that God has revealed through Scripture, through Jesus. By making the words of a meditation simple and easy to circle on, we can calm and center our hearts on the truth of God’s love. The lovingkindness meditation is a type of prayer, one that where we ask for God’s love, God’s rest, and God’s peace. It involves slowly praying the following phrases: “May I experience God’s love. May I experience God’s rest. May I experience God’s peace.” [repeat]
I invite you to take a moment to try this with me, if you are willing. Straighten up your back, plant your feet on the floor, and either close your eyes or soften your gaze. Take a few deep breaths, in and out. Notice what you are feeling in your body, what is achy or tight. Breathe again. If you like, repeat after me or pray silently with me: “May I experience God’s love. May I experience God’s rest. May I experience God’s peace.” [repeat again]
This lovingkindness meditation can be a prayerful practice to utilize for centering ourselves in the wholeness and love of God. When we are centered in God’s love, God’s rest, God’s peace, it can enable our love for others and empower us in courage.
Lovingkindness practice can be directed towards the self and can also be directed outward. We can pray for the beloved ones in our lives, in our communities, and in our world: our family, our friends, the people in our church, our pastors, co-workers, and neighbors. We can pray freestyle or we can utilize the lovingkindness meditation to do this, circling through different names or groups of people prayerfully. For instance, if I was praying for my spouse, I could pray, “May Nathan experience God’s love. May Nathan experience God’s rest. May Nathan experience God’s peace.”
In our Romans passage, Paul exhorted the early Christians to love sincerely, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep. Prayer – whether meditative prayer or intercessory prayer – is one way that we can love, rejoice, and weep with the beloved people in our lives. We can pray for the beloved ones in our local networks: our family, friends, church, neighbors, and more, we can pray for the beloved doing holy justice work other places, like those at work in Minneapolis.
We have touched on praying for ourselves, that may be challenging at times, and praying for our beloved ones, which maybe a little easier. Next, we move on to praying for our enemies, those near and far. Difficult stuff.
Love for enemies is a hallmark of our Romans passage, and it was also at the core of the nonviolent struggle during the US Civil Rights Movement. It seems fitting to have at least one reference to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s teaching this week. In an early sermon, Dr. King taught, “As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” (sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 6 November 1956). In Romans 12, the early church was exhorted to “not repay anyone evil for evil,” and to not take revenge. Instead, Paul said, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink… Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” We see this call for enemy love other places, such as in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus also called on his followers to both love their enemies and to pray for them (Matthew 5:43-48).
Who exactly is an enemy? Perhaps an enemy is someone with whom we’ve had serious interpersonal disagreements, someone who has wounded us emotionally. Or perhaps we have political or theological enemies. Increasing polarization has led to a social tendency to frame our opponents as our enemies.
Enemies are also those we see doing injustice. As a follower of Jesus called to love my neighbors, when I see someone hurting vulnerable people, those doing the hurting are “my enemies,” my opponents. ICE agents are my enemies. Honestly, when I was in Minneapolis this week and ICE was down the block from a church, my gut reaction was to curse them out. After having just done pilgrimage to the place where George Floyd was murdered (a neighborhood corner store) and then having processed prayerfully by the site of Renee Good’s murder (a snowy neighborhood street, not far away), I think my body and spirit were defaulting to something that did not align with my values. It was something out of rage at injustice – something that I hold has human and understandable. We do need to acknowledge and make space for rage, but then to center ourselves and choose nonviolence with intention. Nonviolence involves nonconformity, takes discipline, and involves practice internally and externally.
We are called to not conform but to be transformed. To let love be genuine. To hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good. To rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep. To practice hospitality. To be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. To associate with the lowly. To not repay anyone evil for evil. Judgment will come from God, surely, and we will also work to hold the doers of injustice to accountability. Yet we can choose not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. For me, a crucial part of this is centering in prayer and practicing nonviolence and prayers for myself, for beloved ones, and for enemies.
As we discern what is ours to hold in a world full of need and grief, may we be mindful of our hearts and bodies, may we center ourselves in God’s love, rest, and peace, and may we lift up both our beloved ones and our enemies in prayer. Amen.
