​Come Follow Me
Matthew 4: 12, 17-23
Joint SpringHouse Service-January 24, 2026
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
Come follow me…Come follow me…
 
This morning, I was supposed to share a bit about our justice ministries over the last year. But instead, I want to share a few reflections about the last three days.
 
The core of our scripture for this morning is this phrase: Come follow me. It is such a simple invitation on its surface. But, unlike the disciples who follow Jesus not knowing how the story ends, we know where Jesus’ path of radical love, solidarity, and healing takes him. Come follow me, Jesus invites us… come and share bread and life with one another… come and be healers… come and bear a softness of love…and use this shared bread, this healing balm, this softness of love as we, together confront Empire’s death-dealing.
 
Come follow me…
 
We had whistles, they had guns… Come follow me…
 
We are living through a moment in which the implications of being called into followership of Jesus are quite clear. And the juxtaposition of true followership and the distorted and diseased Christianity that is baptizing ICE’s violence is truly stark.
 
I was here for most of the day yesterday after Alex Pretti was murdered by ICE. SpringHouse was opened as a medic station, warming place, and a space offering pastoral care. There were several pastors, lots of food and warm drinks, street medic kits, and warm clothes for anyone to take. One young person with whom I spoke came in shaking and cold. They had witnessed the shooting and had been teargassed. They kept saying, “I can’t believe they killed him.” We gave them water, charged up their phone and just asked what they needed to tell us. After a while, they felt settled enough to gather their things and head out. As they were leaving, they said to me, “I don’t go to church, but I see why people come here, you all are so kind and it’s so hospitable.”
 
Not fifteen minutes later, one of the people in charge of the medic station came to T Michael, Susie Hayward, and me and said she didn’t know if her transgender child was safe as he had been among the protestors. She couldn’t get a hold of him and asked us to pray with her. With permission, we all laid hands on her and breathed together. Our hands and our breath were our prayer.
 
As I drove home, I passed an armored vehicle just a few blocks east of here and then, the rest of the drive was filled with thousands of candles lining the streets.
 
This is the juxtaposition: Alex Pretti bending to help his kindred human being and being murdered in cold blood;
 
This is the contrast: ICE brutally kidnapping mothers of three month olds and fathers of five year old’s wearing spider man backpacks and neighbors bringing food and keeping each other safe;
 
This is the choice: state violence or kindred washing the tear gas from one another's eyes.
 
My friends, Jesus’ invitation to followership of shared bread and tender love and healing balm may feel ridiculously naïve in the face of Empire’s guns and brutality. But it isn’t an individual call. Though it comes to each of us, and we must all make a decision, the invitation to collective response. What Empire fails to recognize is that when we follow Jesus’ call together… we become an unquenchable, an irrepressible power for collective liberation.
 
Come follow me… may we say yes… and may we go together. Amen.

This is My Child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased
Matthew 3:13-17
January 11, 2026- Lyndale UCC
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel
 
For the past five weeks, ICE agents have sought to terrorize our Cities with Operation Metro Surge… they have attempted to kidnap our neighbors… and this week, they murdered 37 year old Renee Good, a legal observer, right in front of her wife and the family dog. It has been five week of capricious cruelty.
 
In response, so many of us have delivered food, raised money, accompanied school drop off and dismissal, have protested and prayed with our feet. Since Wednesday’s murder of Renee Good, I’ve joined with many of you in the streets…
 
How are we to be in this moment? What are we to do as Christians?
 
Our scripture for this morning declares: And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
 
This is my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased…
 
On Thursday, as I was walking along 34th street coming toward the memorial for Renee Good, I saw a Somali woman, Sophia, with a tray of food standing immobilized in the street. When I asked if I could help she said she was afraid of falling on the ice but she was trying to bring food to the mourners. Another person and I walked out into the street and we all linked arms and walked to 34th and Portland. As we did so she shared that she took the day off to cook in honor of Renee Good because she wanted to honor the white woman who died trying to protect her Somali community. When we got to the memorial, Sophia handed out sambusas. It felt like holy communion to all of us.
 
Then, as I left the memorial, I stopped at the corner of 34th and Portland where baracades had been constructed by the community and there were two fires and a table filled with food. A man stood calling to people to come warm themselves and get something to eat...
 
In the face of capricious cruelty, what are we to do? We choose community, connection, communion, and love as our tools of resistance.
 
Earlier on Thursday, T Michael and I joined clergy colleagues organized by Jewish Community Action in solidarity with secular organizers at the Whipple Building. We were organized into three groups to interrupt business as usual at 3 exits where ICE vehicles were leaving to terrorize our neighbors. I stood with colleagues as we spoke to ICE and CBP personnel and said, you have a choice.. you don't have to cooperate with evil. Our mandate is to love God and love our neighbor...several of the Latinx CBP folks thanked us for treating them like human beings...the moral injury was present in their eyes. We asked them why they were terrorizing our neighborhoods and asked them to leave...These, too, are God’s beloved…
 
On Friday, clergy were asked to be present at the Renee Good memorial site because there were threats that agitators were going to show up as our Muslim colleagues were sharing in Jumaa prayer. As I stood in the crowd, a white man approached me and asked if he could talk with me. He said he thought he probably was on a different side of the issue but he traveled from St Cloud to learn about what happened because he thought his social media feed wasn't telling him the real truth. He asked me to tell him what happened and why I was there. I shared what I knew and thanked him for taking the time to come and have face to face conversation. It felt like a moment of genuine connection and exactly the kind of antidote to the lies, disinformation, and violence.
 
This is my child, the beloved…
 
Yesterday, many of us marched with thousands of kindred Minnesotans in the ICE Out of Minnesota March. I was blessed to do so with beloved movement Chaplain colleagues. We split into pairs and sought to be a non-anxious presence amidst the crowd. That included being asked to help a woman who had fallen on the ice and likely broken her ankle. As a group of six folks attended to her, I helped get a car to drive her to the hospital. The whole group were strangers to each other but drawn together to help where there is harm. Because that's what we do here...
 
The crowd stretched for blocks and blocks carrying signs that declared "radicalized by human decency," "everybody deserves to live," "Minnesota stands for Good," and “ICE out for Good." There were puppets and rosaries, there were neighbors sharing sambusas, and hundreds of hand and toe warmers.
 
Today’s text declares "this is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased." And I am so struck by the contast between the capricious cruelty of this moment and how so many are resisting by refusing to let go of their own and others' belovedness...
 
This is the only way...only love can cast out fear and death. Only love.
 
My friends, hear these words, You are my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased… may we go and do likewise. Amen.