Jesus bids us shine, then, for all around,
Many kinds of darkness in the world abound;
Sin and want and sorrow, so we must shine,
You in your small corner
And I in mine.
(From “Jesus Bids Us Shine” Verse 3, by Susan Warner)

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 4:17)

This has been a really hard week, hasn’t it, my Bethel friends.

It feels like we’ve watched the scaffolding of international norms wobble in public. We’ve watched power posture as if it were policy. We’ve watched leaders treat human beings like bargaining chips and “law” like a costume you put on when it suits you.

And then there are the images—because it is always the images that get past our defenses.

We’ve seen pictures of ICE on the streets: masked, anonymous, intimidating—an aesthetic that is meant to frighten people into silence, and meant to keep the rest of us unsure about who to call to account. We’ve seen children standing stunned and helpless as parents are taken. We’ve seen people grabbed in public spaces as though the goal is not only removal, but humiliation.

And then this morning my social media lit up with pictures out of Minneapolis: clergy colleagues kneeling on the pavement in the cold, praying the Lord’s Prayer, wearing stoles and collars and the visible signs of vocation—not because it protects them, but because it tells the truth about why they are there. As they were lifted up and arrested, they kept praying.

The National Catholic Reporter described how hundreds of clergy fanned out across Minneapolis to observe and document ICE activity as part of a broader faith-led pushback—singing hymns on buses, walking in neighborhoods with significant immigrant populations, and, in at least one moment, blowing whistles and livestreaming when unmarked, tinted-window vehicles and masked agents moved in on community members. In that account, the presence of clergy was both practical—eyes, cameras, documentation—and pastoral: when a woman was targeted and then released after showing papers, she was shaken, and she thanked the clergy before leaving. The clergy themselves were shaken too, naming out loud what many of us are afraid to say: that “papers please” is a road we never wanted to travel. There was also a press conference afterward, with Bishop Mariann Budde calling it a “bright-line moment,” insisting that love of neighbor is not optional, and demanding due process rather than arbitrary arrest and detention. A local pastor described immigrant families preparing legal documents so children would not be left alone if parents were detained—quiet, practical, heartbreaking preparedness—and he prayed, “deliver us from evil.” (Source: National Catholic Reporter)

Second week in a row, I confess that I cried.

I cried out of helplessness. These are my colleagues—real people, not headlines. People I have talked with, learned with, disagreed with and loved in the ordinary way you do in ministry circles. People I recognize as “in my corner,” in the sense of trying—imperfectly, persistently—to be faithful.

And I want to name something plainly: it’s not that I feel unsafe. Truthfully, I don’t. Bethel feels like a little protected sanctuary of hope and resilience. Canada often feels that way too—even when I can walk down to the river in Brockville and see New York State across the way. The distance is only water. The difference can feel, some days, like an ocean.

The helplessness is this: my “own little corner” can feel so small against a world that is calling for something dramatic, heroic, immediate.

I would like to be brave. I would like to be influential. I would like to be “the change.” But here and right now? I’m in my sick room, barely able to leave the house, writing to an audience that mostly sees things the way I do. It can feel like preaching into the choir loft while the world burns.

And this is where Matthew’s Gospel won’t let me stay stuck.

Because Jesus begins his public ministry not with a ten-point plan, but with a sentence that sounds simple until you try to live it:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

The Working Preacher commentary for this Sunday reminded me that “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew isn’t a floaty, private, spiritual idea. It’s about the rule of God—a vision of public life ordered by justice and impartiality. In other words: what would it look like if God were actually in charge of how we treat one another? That is not a neutral message. It carries what the commentary calls an anti-imperial, anti-establishment ethos because it confronts every system—religious, political, economic—that normalizes injustice. It isn’t only about individual sin (though it includes that). It is also about the way whole societies drift into cruelty and call it “order.” (Source: Working Preacher)

And then Matthew does something that feels almost too on-the-nose for this week: he quotes Isaiah about people who have been sitting in darkness seeing a great light.

Jesus goes to “Galilee of the Gentiles,” the borderlands, the mixed places, the places respectable people can dismiss as “not really us.” And Matthew says: that’s exactly where the light starts.

So what does repentance look like in a week like this?

It looks like refusing to let our hearts be trained into numbness.

It looks like telling the truth: that when people are terrified in the streets, when families are destabilized, when the threat of disappearance becomes a tool of governance, we are not dealing with “policy differences.” We are dealing with spiritual crisis, moral injury, and the temptation to dehumanize.

It looks like remembering that Jesus’ proclamation—God’s reign is near—is not escapism. It’s a claim on the real world. On laws. On borders. On paperwork. On who gets to live without fear.

And yes—sometimes repentance looks like clergy kneeling on frozen pavement, praying where the cameras can see them, because the vulnerable need witnesses and the powerful need to be reminded: God is watching too.

But most of the time, repentance looks less cinematic.

Most of the time, it looks like shining our light “in our own little corners.”

Not because it’s impressive.
Not because it earns applause.
Not because it guarantees results.

But because darkness depends on isolation. Darkness depends on us each believing our small light doesn’t matter.

And the Gospel dares to say otherwise: that a single point of light can break the spell—first in one heart, then in one relationship, then in one community. And then the corner of the world we can touch begins, slowly, to change.

So, my dear Bethel friends:

In your own little corner, shine.

Shine by praying when you can’t do much else.
Shine by checking on the neighbor who is scared.
Shine by learning the names of the people most affected and refusing to speak of them as a “problem.”
Shine by writing the letter, making the call, offering the ride, donating the funds, accompanying the friend, protecting the child, telling the truth.
Shine by worshipping the God whose “kingdom” is not a brand, but a promise: justice, mercy, and the dignity of every person.

Because that’s what Jesus is bidding us to do—until we can truly hear his call to repentance, and until we can truly believe, even with tears in our eyes, that the Kingdom of God is, in fact, near.

Blessings today, and Remember you are Loved,

~Rev. Lynne