Feet Fitted with the Gospel of Peace

(Clockwise from top left: Welcomia, Denis Tangney Jr, captain_galaxy, YT, all via Getty Images)

Feet Fitted with the Gospel of Peace 

A prayer walk, a prophetic dream, and a call to stand with our immigrant brothers and sisters

by Sarah Blumenshine, Director, Intercultural Ministries

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One of the beauties of my work is connecting deeply with immigrant communities in and around Boston. This summer I’ve been attending regular morning prayer calls led by the Agencia ALPHA team over Zoom. On a recent call, Pastor Sergio Perez of Harvest Ministries in Weymouth invited us to join an upcoming prayer walk in the city of Lynn. About a dozen of us showed up the following Saturday. Pastors joined hands with families and seniors. We were all there for one purpose: to pray protection and blessing over the city.

Before we broke into groups and began our walk, Pastor Sergio shared a dream he’d had more than 15 years ago. This dream took place on a particular street corner in Lynn. Exactly what is happening now across the country was playing out in his dream. Officers were rounding up immigrants and loading them into a bus. Families were terrified, trying to get away. In his dream, Pastor Sergio approached the officers and told them that they needed to take care. He asserted that immigrants have dignity and humanity and deserve decency. The officers seemed to pause and were somewhat affected, and then Pastor Sergio woke up. The dream felt so real that it stuck with him.

When we paired off and picked a direction to walk, Pastor Sergio headed in the direction of the street corner he’d seen in his dream. I teamed up with Patricia Sobalvarro, Executive Director of Agencia ALPHA, and Pastora Ramonita Mulero of Iglesia Hispana de la Comunidad. Together we began walking together toward a nearby Market Basket grocery store, where many immigrants find employment. We prayed through Ephesians 6:10-18 about putting on the armor of God, asking for truth, for faith, for the protection that comes not from our own efforts but from the astonishing goodness of God.

Something struck me that I’d not seen before. I’ve always associated this passage with spiritual defense. But this time, the instruction to stand firm “with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace,” landed in a fresh way. Even in battle against spiritual darkness, we are told to wear shoes that can bear us quickly elsewhere to share the good news of peace! Such hope, even certainty. 

As we walked, we passed immigrant-owned shops, houses, and apartments. We recalled the passage in Exodus where God told the Israelites to paint the blood of a lamb over their doorframes as a sign for the angel of death to pass, thereby sparing their firstborn sons. We covered homes and businesses and sidewalks and churches with pleas for physical protection, praying that violence would pass them by.

Patricia shared a reflection on the story of the Israelites finally expelled from Egypt, only to have Pharaoh change his mind. He sent chariots and soldiers to pursue and enslave them again. Meanwhile, the Israelites were approaching the Red Sea with nowhere to go. Patricia remarked that she has often wondered how she would have felt had she experienced that moment. Every step closer to an impassable body of water would have seemed like impending death. When things seemed most desperate, God made a preposterous way through the sea. We prayed for these kinds of miracles, admitting we could see no way through, but God surely could.

“Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

— Ephesians 6:13-15

When we returned to the church parking lot, each group offered a few words about their experience. Another pastor who was present started sharing, first to the whole group, and then he turned and spoke specifically to me. Because I am still learning Spanish, I only understood a fraction of his testimony, but I know our hearts saw each other. He spoke with deep passion, such that he started weeping.

When the pastor finished speaking, Pastor Sergio asked how much I had understood. Seeing my uncertainty, he kindly translated the pastor’s words. He explained that my presence—and what I represent as a U.S.-born citizen—carried a certain weight. He related how many immigrants feel isolated and unseen by others. They feel invisible to their Christian brothers and sisters in this country. The fact that someone from that context would see their suffering and journey with them was overwhelming to the pastor who shared. Pastor Sergio compared it to the story of the British politician William Wilberforce, who, despite his privilege and comforts, identified with the plight of enslaved people and became an advocate for the ending of slavery.

I was stunned. I hadn’t done anything extraordinary; I had simply shown up to pray, side by side with my sisters and brothers. Truthfully, it felt like the bare minimum my spiritual siblings should expect. Jesus told us to love one another as we love ourselves. Geography, international boundaries, human laws—these are all important. But not one of them stops us from being part of the same family, the same body.

“The parts of the body will not take sides,” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:25-26. “All of them will take care of one another. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.”

Lately, I’ve had an image in my head of the Church in the United States as a human body suffering from neuropathy. Our nervous system, the network that carries sensation and information and generates feedback, is damaged. Our ability to perceive one another is scrambled. I imagine someone standing next to a hot stove, hand on the burner, completely unaware that skin and tissue are melting until they smell the burning—but by then, the damage is done.

Friends, parts of the body of Christ are on fire. I do not exaggerate. I am one nerve that transmits impulse and effect. I bear witness to that agony. We are poor in relationships that cross cultural lines. Our relational distance allows us to dehumanize the “other.” We forget that we’re kin. We fail to see that our thriving is enmeshed.

“This body of Christ desperately needs healing. It is at war with itself. Healing starts within each one of us. What kind of fruit am I nurturing with the substance of my soul? In the communities I am part of, are we together seeking the flourishing of all people?”

The current level of chaos in the federal government is a smoke screen that further obscures our view. Some of us have swallowed the lie that law and punishment are righteous, but compassion is only for those who deserve it. This falsehood is antithetical to the life and ministry of Jesus.

Laws have their purpose in a well-functioning society, to be sure. If we are fueled by love and joy, filled with the fruit of the Spirit, we will work with others to correct immoral laws and apply them with fairness. 

In contrast, today the fruit of our policies and power is on grotesque display. Every human being suffering in a detention camp with no legal recourse, every person deported to a country that is not their own, each careless arrest, every child who cries for their missing parents—these we cannot brush off as collateral damage. They are the fruit of fear, resentment, self-righteousness, and a will to dominate. They are what happens when laws are weaponized as instruments of oppression.

This body of Christ desperately needs healing. It is at war with itself. Healing starts within each one of us. What kind of fruit am I nurturing with the substance of my soul? In the communities I am part of, are we together seeking the flourishing of all people?

We remember our kinship by listening to one another. We dedicate the time and attention required to understand each other. We choose to take simple but significant steps, such as joining our hearts in prayer. These habits are transformative, and they give rise to new points of connection that slowly help us repair what has been broken.

As we commit ourselves to this way of life, everyone doing their part, honoring one another’s pain and celebrating each other’s joys, we begin to experience the body as God intended. God’s design is for the Church to be an agent of hope, healing, and reconciliation both within and without. May it be so.