Don't Look Away! For Jesus is in the Face of the Least of These - A Pastoral Letter

Peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. March 1965

Clergy peacefully protesting outside MSP airport on Jan. 23, 2026

“‘I was hungry and you gave me food… I was a stranger and you welcomed me’…  ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food…when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you’… ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these siblings of mine, you did it to me.’” - Matthew 25:34-40

An image captured during Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965 [3]

Dear siblings in Christ,
         The world feels heavy right now. I know I’m not alone in feeling this, especially when we look around and see the sheer violence being perpetrated against our fellow human beings, our fellow children of God, not just throughout the world but right here in our own backyard. For a lot of reasons this past year has felt heavy and hard and it seems to have gotten even more so just this past month, as government sanctioned agents continue to terrorize communities seemingly without restraint, escalating to murdering law abiding citizens in broad daylight in front of countless witnesses. Based on the volume of videos shared, especially coming from Minnesota, we would be hard pressed to say that these agents are just going after undocumented criminals (being undocumented is only a civil offense not a criminal one), but it seems clear that they are there trying to send a message of the force and power of the current empire while disregarding the constitutional rights of both citizens and non-citizens alike.
         And the sad reality is, this kind of treatment and brutality is not completely new to this country. Our Black and Brown siblings have been experiencing treatment like this since before the birth of this nation. It’s just now, we have witnessed this horror happening by the government to people who look more like the majority of our congregation so it is easier to imagine ourselves in their shoes, we can more easily empathize with those being beaten, we can almost feel the pain and trauma that their bodies must hold after weeks of bearing witness. After story upon story of the horrors, we might either feel the urge to look away because we can not bear seeing another person beaten, another child taken, another neighbor shot dead or we might run the risk of being desensitized to these horrors and begin to accept this as our new reality. And here as followers of Christ, I must implore you to not lose sight of the humanity and God’s divine image in each person. As Jesus once said “just as you did it to one of the least of these siblings, you did it to me” after being asked when we have seen him hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison. Every single person is to be treated as if they are Jesus, that we see Jesus especially in the faces of those who the empire, the powers that be, deem to be the least of us and the most expendable.
         We cannot look away. So many compare our reality today to that of Nazi Germany but the reality is Nazi Germany learned much of the foundation of their tactics from how we Americans had treated those we deemed the least of us, through our horrific study of eugenics as well as the laws of the Jim Crow era [1, 2]. So when we look for moments in the past, we needn’t look to another country's history. As we are heading into February, a month dedicated to Black history, and as we are seeing more and more places throughout our country being stripped of the historical markers of the brutal realities of this country’s own past of slavery and the fight for civil rights, I can't help but think of the first attempted march across the Edmund-Pettus bridge in Alabama in March of 1965, and how it became known as Bloody Sunday. This was a moment where the country had to reckon with the truth of how horrifically some of our siblings in Christ were treated and because that peaceful march was met with such brutality and the fact that it was documented for the whole country to see, that it changed the tied, so many people from all over the country came to Alabama to join future marches, even after seeing what could happen to them. I remember learning much of this history in my elementary music class, having a short unit at age appropriate levels each year from 1st-6th grade, watching the Disney movie based on Ruby Bridges experience as a 1st grader attending an otherwise all white school, along with other movies based on events within the civil rights movement. And I remember wondering how could anyone not stand up for and with those being brutalized and how could people, especially people of faith do such horrors to others, both people of color and the white individuals who walked shoulder to shoulder demanding better of their leaders and this country. Perhaps the most simple answer as to why people of faith can do such horrendous things to fellow children of God, as seen now and all the way back to the time of slavery in this country, that even though most if not all who perpetrated such violence claimed to be Christians have actually taken God’s name in vain. To be followers of Christ, using cheery picked verses and passages of the bible to support their claims that they are superior to those they deem lesser, they take God's name in vain by claiming such horrific atrocities are done in God name and with God’s blessing. They bastardize the truth of God and God's love, claiming it is only for the few for those they deemed powerful enough, or right enough, or white enough, or so on. Jesus, a brown skinned Palestinian Jew, said “just as you did to the least of these siblings, you did to me.” Just as we allow the atrocities to happen to the least of these, we allow them to happen to him. Just as we look away from the violence happening to the least of these, it is still done to him. And so again, I urge you to not look away in the face of the terror and violence our fellow children of God are experiencing but instead listen to the Spirit’s guiding on how you are being called to respond faithfully in this moment.
         I want to share a poem I wrote for a final project in an elective seminary course, American Genocide: African American History and Theology, in the spring of 2019. Perhaps I should update it a bit someday but it still feels pretty relevant. It is titled Don't Look Away
Don’t look away.
     You want to look away
     You don’t want to see that suffering,
     It’s brutal, but you weren’t the one inflicting it, so why should you bear witness to it?
Don’t look away
     The broken, burned, drowned, hung, mutilated, shot bodies seared into your mind
     The strange fruit within our society
     Of our societies creation
Don’t look away
     They are your siblings
     They are part of God’s creation just as you are
     The very creation we are called to be stewards of, to care for
Don’t look away
     Remember the ships upon ships of trafficked persons across the ocean
     Remember that this country is built on the backs of these persons
     Witness to the “strange fruit” throughout the time and space of this nation
Don’t look away
     Emmett Till, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Mary Turner,
     They are people, they have names, they had lives
     It is too late for them
Don’t look away
     Remember these atrocities happened and still happen
     Bring them to light
     It’s not too late for the living
Don’t look away
     Demand change to the systems that let this carnage happen
     Words are a start, But words are just words, action is needed
     Build relationships that grow love in the hearts of those who fear and hate
Don’t look away
          At this moment in time, in our world, in our country, as Christians, as followers of Christ Jesus, we might be left asking, how can we respond? What is the most Christ-like way to respond? What am I willing to risk or put on the line? How uncomfortable am I willing to be to truly follow Jesus’ teachings to love God, love our neighbors, and love our enemies to truly see Jesus in each other, especially those facing the most violence and terror?
God’s Peace,
Pastor Tamara Siburg

[1] The Impact of Racist Ideologies: Jim Crow and the Nuremberg Laws, Holocaust Museum Huston, https://hmh.org/event/the-impact-of-racist-ideologies-jim-crow-and-the-nuremberg-laws/
[2] How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow, by Becky Little, August 16, 2017, https://www.history.com/articles/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow
[3]  'Spider' Martin's newly restored photos reveal firsthand the racist violence on March 7, 1965 in Selma, Alabama, Briana Ellis-Gibbs, https://sncclegacyproject.org/bloody-sunday-restored-photos-show-the-violence-that-shocked-a-nation/

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