“Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like  the waters
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:23-24

I find myself praying Amos’s words these days, “Let justice roll down like the waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

We are living in a hard time. It feels like  my  state has been invaded by thugs, using tactics that could just as easily be used working for the mob. The past week has been anything but normal, where I live in Minnesota.

For many of us, these last weeks have felt something like an invasion. ICE Agents, presumably sent here to keep law and order,  create chaos instead. Reminiscent of Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s, ICE agents go door to door, searching for that one person, who might be an undocumented immigrant. Or follow drivers, detaining anyone who looks like they could  be an immigrant . . . Meanwhile, causing fear and chaos for people of Somali or Latino heritage. Because in the world of 2026, ICE enforcers, with quotas to fill, care little about the person they detain.

In great irony, our large Native American population in Minneapolis,  is being harassed and detained, because of the color of their skin. ICE agents circle schools, hoping to find a parent dropping off or picking up their child, who might be an immigrant.  It doesn’t matter if the person has legal status or not, in this unlawful era of immigration enforcement.

I see pictures of a teenager, who ICE thought was an immigrant, when he was working his shift at Target a couple of days ago. I see a bruised face and think of how much that must hurt. He and another teen were roughed up, taken to a detention center and waited for hours to be released, as is the way it goes here. ICE agents arrest first, and care little for the injury or the status of  a person who happens to look like an immigrant. I can only wonder what cruel treatment is given to the actual immigrants, who thought they were here legally, until ICE showed up and told them they weren’t.

The death of citizen protestor Renee Good, last week in the streets of our city, has only increased the fear and the anger.

At what point, did the country decide it was okay, for people to go door to door looking for  one undocumented immigrant that might be living there? What right has been given, to demand proof of citizenship, when a person is simply getting some gas? Why does it take six ICE agents to throw one, potential immigrant, to the floor in the middle of a Walmart store? What possible justification can come from roughing up a naturalized citizen, from West Africa, and detaining him, after ICE agents refuse to acknowledge the identity of the person they have found?

People are angry and rightfully so. I feel for our local police, caught between our resident’s righteous anger, and the destructive and cruel actions of ICE agents, as our local police work to keep the peace, and protect us.

Amos named the evil of his day. He did not mince words. He knew that injustice destroys a nation. He knew that when Justice fails, the moral compass of a nation is corrupted.

And so I pray for change. I pray for a righting of this egregious wrong. I pray for decency and compassion, to lead the way. I  pray for changed hearts, in an administration that has chosen to persecute people,  whose heritage is not the same as theirs. And I continue to  pray that “Justice rolls down like the waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream,” in this nation, and in particular for my neighbors who have come from other lands. For Justice is in the center of God’s heart.

Seek good and not evil,
that you may live,
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you. Amos 5:14