We are grateful for our brother bishop, the Rt. Rev. Craig Loya, bishop of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, for his wise words that we share below in the aftermath of yesterday’s fatal shooting in Minneapolis. His clear and passionate affirmation of a Gospel-centered response to the ongoing presence of immigration forces in our local communities is a reminder of our call, as followers of Jesus, to stand in solidarity with those who are made vulnerable by the actions of those in power. More and more we are all being made vulnerable by state-sanctioned violence: by patterns of intimidation, use of brutal and deadly force, and willful disregard of laws intended to keep all people safe. Love calls us to speak out, to stand together and insist that the way of love is stronger than the force of fear.
Faithfully,
Bishop Sam Rodman and Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson
Bishop Craig Loya’s Statement
Beloved in Christ,
Matthew’s account of Epiphany, the feast we celebrated yesterday, shows that there are two responses to the manifestation of a poor, helpless, migrant child lying in a feeding trough as the place where the God of the whole cosmos resides: fear and joy. King Herod meets the news of King Jesus with fear that quickly turns into a murderous rage as he slaughters an untold number of infants to eliminate the threat to his power. The wise men who had been watching the skies for a sign are overwhelmed with joy at the good news that Herod’s campaign of terror through violent force has met the unstoppable power of God’s love.
The Herods of the world, and their fear driven campaigns of terror, are ever with us. Today in Minneapolis, after deploying thousands of federal immigration agents in recent days, an individual was shot and killed by those agents. The news is crushing, to be sure, but we ought not be shocked. The federal government has been making good for a full year on its promise to enforce immigration policy through a racially narrow lens and with a cruel delight. An incident like the one today in Minneapolis was inevitable, and such violence is likely to remain a feature of our common life as long as federal agents are being deployed to cities seen to oppose the current administration for the sole purpose of provocation and intimidation.
As people of the Epiphany, our call is to stand in the midst of a world where Herod continues to flex and posture, not in outrage or with reciprocal violence, but gazing in wonder and expectation for the joyful manifestation of Jesus wherever the poor, the outsider, the weak, and the oppressed are to be found. As people of the Epiphany, in the midst of a world where cruelty tries to pose as power, we continue to rejoice in the assurance that absolute and final power resides in poor and crucified Jesus, who alone is the true king. Our Epiphany joy is not some naive and shallow notion that everything will be ok, when everything is so obviously not ok. Our Epiphany joy is the deep, defiant, revolutionary hope we have in the assurance that love is the most powerful force in the universe. Like the wise ones searching for Bethlehem, we wait, we watch, we follow where love leads, knowing that only God’s action in the world can finally and fully heal all that the lust for a false and hollow power had broken down, world without end.
