Our neighbors in Minneapolis

Downtown Minneapolis skyline

It’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like to live in an occupied territory, where I hardly feel safe leaving my house, where neighbors occasionally go missing.  But I’ve been told this is what it’s like to live under an occupation in Minneapolis right now, with the occupying force known as ICE (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement) roaming the streets. 

One of our neighbors, Pastor Meagan McLaughlin from Christ Lutheran Church in Webster Groves, is originally from Minneapolis, and when she found out this week about a public action for clergy to protest the presence of ICE, Pastor Meagan knew she had to be there.  She joined over 600 other religious leaders for a day of training and preparation, with prayer and singing as well as storytelling from resistance leaders and sharing practical information about how to be safe and how to keep others safe in the tense climate of the city. 

She told me she didn’t personally observe any ICE vehicles or personnel in the short time she was in Minneapolis.  But because of the network of communication among people throughout the city, reporting on what they witness, Pastor Meagan learned there was an ICE abduction that happened two blocks away from the church where the clergy were gathered for training. 

Residents of Minneapolis who seek to keep their immigrant neighbors safe have organized themselves to deliver groceries to people unable to leave their homes, to accompany children to and from school, to blow whistles when they see ICE in the area, to support businesses that are struggling because the shop owners are afraid to open their stores or because there are drastically fewer people walking in the streets. 

“It struck me,” Pastor Meagan said, “how much their lives are structured around this.”  Yet spending a couple of days in training workshops and physically showing up in support of peaceful protests, Pastor Meagan also said that hearing people’s stories of creative nonviolent resistance felt like hearing preaching.  Building community is what builds resilience and growth.  She recalled lines from the songs they were singing: “We are stronger than we think we are.”  “No one gets left behind this time.”  “We get there together or we don’t get there at all.” 

It sounds a lot like proclaiming good news in the face of great fear.  Pastor Meagan said members of her own family told her she was crazy for going to protest in Minneapolis right now.  Her testimony could be the same as what Paul writes to the early Christians in Corinth—“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”[1] 

What would make someone put their safety at risk for someone else?  Why not run away from those who would use violent force?  What’s in it for you?  Could it be love? 

It sounds impossible, but that’s the story of the late Congressman John Lewis, who was drawn to the civil rights movement because it was grounded in love.  In an interview, Lewis said,

“It’s one of the highest forms of love. That you beat me, you arrest me, you take me to jail, you almost kill me, but in spite of that, I’m going to still love you. I know Dr. King used to joke sometimes and say things like, ‘Just love the hell outta everybody. Just love ’em.’”[2]

This may sound like a terrible strategy for dealing with violence, but that’s the genius of nonviolence—reminding us that we are all human.  Pastor Meagan came away from

Minneapolis asking how much violence is done to people who witness the brutality of ICE abductions?  How does it affect other ICE agents when they see one of their own co-workers committing acts of violence?  Pastor Meagan said that some of the protesters she met in Minneapolis told her about occasionally getting close enough to an ICE agent to ask some honest questions, like “How did you get here?” and “How is your soul?” and “What do you tell your kids about what you do?”  Not everyone answers, but sometimes they do. 

Jesus lived with his own experience of occupation by Rome.  How did Jesus feel when John the Baptist was arrested?  He could have run away, or followed John into jail, I guess.  He could have armed himself for battle, maybe he could have built up his own army of soldiers who were also fed up with the system as it existed.  The story could easily have ended there. 

Instead, what Jesus did was he withdrew.  The Greek word used here, anachoreo, “to withdraw,” is used ten times in Matthew’s Gospel, and every time, “to withdraw” is Jesus’s response to violence or conflict.  And lest you think that “to withdraw” is a weak response, it’s also a steadfast refusal to be drawn into violence, a commitment to non-retaliation.  Nonviolence can be a stubborn position of strength, a refusal to give up one’s humanity, grounded in love for God and for all the people God created and for creation, too. 

And of course Jesus didn’t simply withdraw and stop.  He kept moving, and he didn’t hide.  He didn’t wait for people to hear his preaching and follow him: he hand-picked fishermen to join the movement, starting with workers and gradually adding more people as they were healed of “every disease and every sickness.”  Healing is the power that violence can never have; resurrection is the power that death can never have.  This is how love is stronger than hate, which is the good news of the kin-dom that Jesus brings.  Peace is still possible, and may God have mercy on those people committing acts of violence, and may God bring healing to the hearts of those who mourn. 

Pastor Meagan returned to St. Louis with stories and some practical nonviolence skills, as well as a new goal: to have a block party in her neighborhood.  It’s important to know your neighbors, she said—to build community in spite of fear or any sense of hopelessness.  This is what it means to refuse violence so completely that your actions are grounded in love, to “love the hell out of ‘em.” 

Be on the lookout, friends: Jesus is calling, and the kin-dom of heaven has come near.  Amen. 

Pastor Cheryl

[1] 1 Corinthians 1:18

[2] Interview in On Being podcast in March 2013.