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The Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee holds a vigil near the scene of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. |
“Truth has stumbled in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.” Isaiah 59:14
This week, hearing a clarion call for empathy and morality, our scripture offers us a vision that stands in painful contrast to the world many of us currently inhabit. Another George Floyd moment for our nation.
Both grief and hope are accumulating faster than we can metabolize them..When the steward remarks, “You have kept the good wine until now,” during the wedding at Cana, he names a reversal. In God’s economy, the best is not hoarded by the powerful or consumed early and wasted. It emerges precisely when a community is on the brink of embarrassment and loss. Glory, in this story, is not domination or self-display. It is relational abundance. Shame is spared. Joy is restored. The celebration continues.
That vision stands in painful contrast to the world many of us are inhabiting now.
Many of us are still reeling from the murder of Renee Nicole Good, a life taken by a federal ICE agent, followed not by humility or accountability from national leaders, but by a manufactured narrative designed to justify the unjustifiable. Within hours, she was labeled a terrorist, despite video evidence that clearly contradicts those claims. Truth did not matter. Control of the story did. The opportunity to spread intimidation is taken. We're shown the bloody airbag. Don't try to protest or resist or else.
Before that grief could even settle, more blood was spilled. In our own East Portland neighborhood, two additional people were shot by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation. Once again, officials claimed necessity. Once again, communities were left stunned and terrified. Governor Tina Kotek named what many feel in our bodies: the federal government is causing chaos in our cities and shattering trust across the nation.
Power rarely admits its own violence. It re-frames it. It renames the dead. It insists the victim deserved what happened. James Baldwin warned, “It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent.” And yet innocence is precisely what this administration claims, through repetition, spectacle, fear, and declarations of absolute immunity. When the state kills and then lies about why, it asks the public to participate in unreality. That demand is itself a form of violence. In such moments, lament becomes refuge for the sane.
In the Hebrew scriptures, lament erupts most fiercely when truth is under assault. The psalmists cry out not only against suffering, but against falsehood. The prophets rage when injustice is paired with deception. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,” Isaiah says, not as poetry, but as a diagnosis.
This moment carries many layers of sorrow: the killing of innocent people; the terrorizing of immigrants; the erosion of law and accountability; the steady drumbeat of a masculinity that confuses domination with strength and cruelty with order. These are not separate events. They are expressions of the same moral corruption, the replacement of truth with power and care with control.
Grief, in this context, is discernment. As Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. Lament is the refusal of indifference. It is what keeps conscience awake when institutions fall asleep. It is what keeps us human when lies attempt to numb us.
Anger, too, is warranted. Rage rises when accountability is mocked, and victims are erased, something our African American and Native American siblings know all too well. But lament gives rage a different shape. It slows it. Grounds it. Keeps it from becoming what it opposes. Lament says: This mattered. This life mattered. Truth matters.
Faith traditions do not rush toward closure. They let lament linger. They understand that before repair comes truth-telling, and before truth-telling comes the guttural cry: How long, O Lord?
So let us say plainly: calling Renee Nicole Good a terrorist does not make it so. Repeating a lie does not transform it into justice. Defending violence with propaganda deepens the wound it claims to heal.
Cana reminds us that the common good is not secured by control, scarcity, or performance. It is discovered when we notice one another’s needs, submit ourselves to shared practices, act together, and trust that God’s abundance is meant not for isolated selves, but for all of us, together.
We are allowed to cry.
We are allowed to rage.
We are allowed to say this is wrong, without qualification.
And we are allowed to keep believing in the long, unfinished work of goodness and justice,not because outcomes are guaranteed, but because surrendering to lies would cost us our souls.
Be kind to your tender hearts. Let them grieve. Let them tell the truth. And then, together, we return to the slow, necessary work of building a more just and generous world.
Bishop Curry Issues Statement on ICE Shooting in Minneapolis
Reflection on Creator's 1/11 Worship
Pastor Emillie's sermon was heartfelt. She preached how John writes of signs rather than miracles. Jesus began his ministry in a public celebration of joy. He blessed it with an abundance of the best wine. She helped the congregaton understand this was the beginning sign of the ministry that would end on the cross.
Kelly played piano. Old memories were shared, voices blended singing familiar music about light and Christ. The Gathering Song, in fact, was "Christ, Be Our Light" and the Sending Song was "This Little Light of Mine". When Kelly played "All That I Have" the congregation sang with a special and familiar reverence.
Creator hosted a MIGRA training, with Storyline facilitating right after worship. We learned more about what is going on in our community and how to respond to ICE actions. This training was open to all and felt particularly relevant to what happened this week.
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