Light Shining in ICE Darkness

We’ve all seen the sickening TV coverage.  ICE agents bursting into people’s houses.  No warrant.  Hauling out suspected immigrants in their underwear, forced to lie facedown in the snow.  No warrant necessary.  Car windows smashed as a disabled woman is jerked out of her car and body slammed into its side.  And smirking ICE agents ridiculing her as she struggles for breath.

All with no warrant. 

And Trump’s cavalier attitude toward such Constitutional niceties?  In an interview with NPR’s Luke Garrett, it was evident when he glibly answered the question, did he need to uphold the Constitution, “I don’t know,” he dodged.

ICE is now his private army.  Might makes right.  And the courts be damned.  Where are Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton?  Jane Adams?

The most venerable of us, immigrants are the prime victims of this lawlessness.

This Sunday, the Episcopal Church, nationally, is honoring our immigrant neighbors.  It is Migration with Dignity Sunday 2026.

It is most fitting that the Old Testament selection from Isaiah falls on this Sunday.

The religious folk in Isaiah’s time gathered with great gusto.  Processions in the finest vestments.  Incense wafted to the ceiling.  Praise hymns echoed from wall to wall.  A sermon would challenge no one.  Platitude piled on platitude.  No one walked out in the middle of the homily.  No one was offended.  They got what their itching ears longed to hear.  You are the people of Abraham and Sarah – what could ever be amiss?

And the congregation that Sabbath left self-satisfied that in their solemn assembly they had fulfilled their minimal duty.  Now, off to the marketplace to lie, cheat and steal.  And get filthy rich. To sell the poor for a farthing.

BUT WAIT…WAIT.  Isaiah’s shout interrupts the saccharine proceedings.

Your assemblies of song and holy smoke are to no avail.  They amount to less than nothing.  They are a hypocrisy.  They are a blasphemy… Utterly useless to the Lord of all Compassion.  UNLESS…UNLESS…

UNLESS you have consummated this spectacle in deeds of justice and mercy.  Actions are the completion of your worship.  The final “Amen.”

As Jesus warned, “Don’t say we have Abraham as our father.  That will get you nowhere.  If God wanted children of Abraham, he could make them from the stones on the ground and the cigarette butts trashing our highways.  Same for daughters of Sarah.

Your fast???  “Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly…”

This is the completion of your worship, its fruition.  And in the midst of this ICE darkness your light shall shine as the brightest supernova.

And do our immigrant neighbors ever more need our Light than in this day of ICE terror!?

Here their stories.

I spoke with one of our ICUC[1] organizers who recently returned from the Coachella Valley where ICE has run rampant through the agricultural fields rounding up anybody with brown skin, anybody speaking the wrong language.  Anybody working at the wrong job.

One mother told of finding a note from her four-year-old girl when she returned from a day of drudgery in the fields.  “Dear Mommy, I love you so but I am afraid everyday when I come home from school you will be gone.  And I will never see you again.  Love (daughter’s name).” 

No child should be subjected to such anxiety and mental trauma.  No child!

Minneapolis is under a state of siege.  The city is virtually shut down.  Local merchants have borne the brunt of the economic chaos.  Restaurants closed.  School and church attendance slashed from fear.  And the horrifying pictures of neighbors being brutalized by this army of masked thugs, sadistic federal agents, smirking and laughing at the plight of their hapless victims – it’s beyond the pale.

Is this the fast, the worship, the Lord requires?  It is a travesty of our American values.  A travesty of any nation purporting to be a so called “Christian” nation. We mock God.  Blasphemy!

Have a heart.  Have a heart, cries the Lord of Hosts.  Then your light shall rise in darkness.  Even ICE darkness.  “You shall be as a spring of water, whose waters never fail.”  That very same light shall blaze forth in the hearts of those we welcome.

Hear Paul’s story.

“I asked for asylum at the border station in Tijuana.  That is what the law tells you to do.  I started to worry when border patrol put us on a bus with blackened windows.  When they shackled our hands and feet, I was terrified.”

“They but us on a plane and would not remove the shackles to let us eat or go to the bathroom.  Why this humiliation?  Were we going to jump out of the plane?

That was just be beginning of a regime of fear and torment.  Yes, with this beast, cruelty is the point.  This policy has the mark of the beast written all over it, 666.  The Antichrist, antithetical to the Christ-affirming values of care and dignity.  666 from start to finish.

Consider the case of Junita who was just one of the many who have died in ICE custody due to neglect or murder.

Juanita is an asthmatic and was held in an isolation cell.  Given no mattress, food with worms in it.  The light on day and night, depriving her of any beneficial sleep.  When she began to have difficulty breathing and complained, three guards wrestled her to the floor and held her there while life and breath were slowly drained from her limp, unconscious body.  This, folks, is your taxpayer dollars at work.  666 written all over it.

She is just one of the 30-some in recent months who have died from such cruel neglect and torture. 

The racism of this administration knows no bounds.  In public and private he refers to our Somali neighbors as “garbage.”  This weekend the Orange Felon posted images of the Obamas as chimpanzees or orangutans.  We have become the shameful laughingstock of the world.  The brand of this loathsome racism is 666.

We affirm in our blessing every Sunday that in Christ we can make a difference.  We are that illuminating light that brightens every corner – even the most putrefying, inhumane ICE corner.

Sojourners lists a number of ways we can help the citizens of Minneapolis, and by extension every community besieged by this army of terror.  These are the asks of faith leaders of that city:

Donate!  Even small amounts make a big difference.  They add up and strengthen the souls of the activists on the front lines. They are solidarity, an excellent translation for the biblical term, “righteousness.”

Go to Stand With Minnesota.  That website lists numerous organizations that have been vetted and will efficiently use your dollar.

Wear your ICE whistle.  You may find yourselves on the front line.  You in that moment are being Spirit-called to be Holy Resistance.

Call your elected officials.  ICE defunded and out until proper constitutional protections are in place for our immigrant neighbors and the activists who stand with them.  Such essentials as: judicial warrants for any search or apprehension.  Body cameras.  Remove the masks.  Identifying information on every ICE agent.  Unhindered inspections by congressional leaders of any and all ICE detention facilities.

Raise hell.  Yes, raise hell because our immigrant neighbors are living in the lowest regions of hell.

Sign up for action alerts:  Church World Service, Faith in Action, SojoAction.  Access 5calls.org find sample scripts to use if you’re unsure what to say.

Folks, this is the time to leave it all on the Gospel-field of faith.  How will you know you’re in the right Gospel-groove?  You are feeling a bit uncomfortable, maybe a LOT uncomfortable.

Remember, if you are not ever being led outside your comfort and convenience zones, what you thought you thought was a long-distance call to your heart, was only the salve of local delusion and self-complacency.  Not the worship response Isaiah and Jesus are summoning us to.

Remember, in Christ Jesus YOU are the Light.  As that wonderful hymn puts it out there: “Shine, Jesus, Shine.”  And your brightness in whatever deeds you can muster in His name will shine forth as the noonday sun.  I guarantee it!  Amen.

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[1] ICUC – Inland Congregations United for Change.

February 8, 2026

Epiphany 5 – Migration With Dignity Sunday

Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 112:1-9
I Corinthians 2:1-16; Gospel: Matthew 5:13-20
“Light Shining in ICE Darkness”