"What the actual fuck?"
It feels like these days are filled with so much despair. Honestly, it’s all too much. How many times a day do you have to stop, shake your head, and think, “God…what the actual fuck?”
And then today, to watch the killing of Renee Nicole Good. A 37-year-old mother, brutally murdered by a fucking ICE agent during an ICE "operation" in Minneapolis. My heart is with her family, and with everyone in the Twin Cities who is once again carrying the weight of senseless violence—an American citizen dead at the hands of law enforcement.
I just can’t.
And I get it...I could see myself wanting to do the same thing. If ICE agents were doing raids on my block, I’d want to be outside with a whistle. I’d want to slow them down, get in the way, obstruct what I could—using my constitutionally protected rights to speak, to witness, to refuse silence. To use whatever privilege I have against forces that do real harm. Fuck ICE.
And just like that…Renee’s life is gone. A shot fired, and then an agent just walking away from the scene of the crime, whisked away by other agents. No accountability in the moment. No basic humanity.
And again, it all feels like too much.
And this is the backdrop for a very full week of work—finalizing our Lenten materials so pastors and leaders around the country (and the world) can help communities do the hard work of imagination, and fight against the forces of empire, fueled by a growing White Christian Nationalism in this country.
I’m deep in layout mode, which means reading hundreds of pages of beautifully written, theologically progressive material. And tonight, sitting with all the SHIT we’re all carrying, I hit this passage from our devotional—written by Erika Marksbury, who’s been writing for Illustrated Ministry for over ten years.
She’s reflecting on Jesus and the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21–28). You know the story: Jesus doesn’t come off great...a bit of an asshole, really. He calls her a dog. He’s operating with a smaller vision of his ministry at this moment—and he needs her persistence, her refusal to take no for an answer, to help him see just how wide God’s mercy really is.
From our Lenten devotional, Erika writes:
This mother may be outside the tradition, but her reply to Jesus reveals her trust in God’s mercy for her, for her daughter, for all who find themselves without a seat at the table, but hungry nonetheless. There is more than enough, she tells him. Her position far from the table lets her see how very full it is, and for this moment, she becomes the host, beckoning Jesus to recognize the abundance laid before us all.
And I just have to hope there are more “Canaanite women” out there—people who keep pushing our churches and communities, our cities, our country, our world, to see the abundance laid before us all. Because we’ve all seen where the mindset of scarcity gets us: CLOSE THE BORDER. BUILD A WALL. TAKE THEIR OIL. DEPORT THEM ALL. CUT SNAP BENEFITS! BUILD DETENTION CENTERS.
We are operating under a complete and utter failure of imagination.
What could be possible if we actually learned to recognize the abundance laid before us all?
