Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! - Emma Lazarus

These words, penned to raise money for the pedestal that houses the Statue of Liberty, hark a kind of welcome to the immigrant, to the fearful, to the migrant that couldn’t feel more distant from reality. Perhaps it’s right to remember that this country has always held the balance between creative, expansive imagination and brutality. We live on stolen land. We stole forced labor and separated people from their families, from native culture, land, and language.

Yet, throughout time, we have seen the impact of resilience as people have turned cities into thriving communities where difference is celebrated, people share resources, and wealth is built through sharing, not taking. In too many places, these are ideals to be lived into, not yet realities, but I refuse to lose hope that our country can heal toward the ideals that we are shaping every day through resilience and having bigger dreams than our founders.

Most importantly, I refuse to lose focus on our mandate as a people of faith to “proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free… “ (Luke 4:18-19).

In light of the cold-blooded murder of same-gender-loving mom and poet, Renee Nicole Good, 37, by ICE I couldn’t agree more with what Rev. Cameron Trimble wrote of this moment:

“What we are witnessing now is what happens when fear is institutionalized.

When enforcement becomes militarized, judgment collapses into reflex. When people are reduced to targets, the possibility of restraint disappears. When a system is designed to move fast, to overwhelm, to dominate, death becomes not a failure but a risk casually accepted.

This is not law and order. It is yet one more moral rupture.

It places an unbearable burden not only on migrants and communities, but on those tasked with carrying out these policies. Systems that reward aggression and punish restraint deform everyone inside them. Violence spreads outward and inward at the same time.

For people of faith, this moment asks of us more than outrage. It demands clarity.

Clarity that a person’s life cannot be collateral damage in the pursuit of policy.
Clarity that public safety cannot be built on terror.
Clarity that borders do not erase humanity.

We must, all of us, see this clearly: a nation that responds to migration with lethal force has lost its way.

And yet, even after all the trauma we are absorbing, I must encourage us. Faith refuses despair.

Faith insists that heartbreak is not the end of moral responsibility—it is often the beginning. It calls us to grieve fully, to name what has gone wrong, and to labor for a different way. Not a naïve way. A human one.”

So, if you are feeling full of rage, that’s good. Jesus flipped tables at the ways people were exploited. Let your rage fill your belly so you speak out in the face of injustice.

If you are feeling full of grief, that’s good. Job’s friends tore their garments in solidarity with their friend who lost everything. Let your grief draw you near to those who suffer and to your own suffering.

If you are full of despair, that’s okay. You are like the disciples who stayed paralyzed in the Upper Room after Jesus’ death. Let your despair find home in a journal or prayer, but let it not be the last word.

Remember, God stands with the just, God speaks to us in the whirlwind, God returns to us in our sorrow to show us the way toward peace and creates a pathway to liberation.

Dear ones, I don’t know what the days to come will hold, but I do know we will get through them with faith, with peace that demands courage, and with love that is stronger than fear. If you want to be around others tonight, meet us on Manchester and Sarah at 6pm.

In Deep Rage, Deep Grief, and Deep Faith,
Pastor Lauren