There is blood on the ground in Biddeford. On Monday morning, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero left his home to go to work. He was a young Colombian immigrant. A husband. A father. A man working two jobs to care for his family. He had authorization to work in this country and a Social Security number issued by this country. And he was shot and killed by an agent of this country.
ICE agents were watching a residence because they were looking for someone else. Johan was not the person they had come to find. Yet within moments, an agent had fired into his vehicle. The government says the officer feared for public safety and believed Johan was using his car as a weapon. Witnesses and community members have raised serious questions about that account. The agents were not wearing body cameras. There is no body-camera recording to tell us what happened. There is only a dead man, a grieving wife, a three-year-old daughter who will grow up without her father, and a government asking us to accept its account of why his death was necessary.
We do not yet know every fact. But we know enough to mourn. We know enough to demand the truth. We know enough to say that an immigrant’s life is not disposable. And we know enough to refuse the lie that asking for accountability is somehow an attack upon law and order. There is blood on the ground in Biddeford, and like the blood of Abel crying out from the soil, it asks us a question: Church, where is your brother?
This morning Jesus tells us about a field. A farmer has planted good seed. But while everyone is asleep, an enemy comes and plants weeds among the wheat. When the plants begin to grow, the servants see what has happened. They are alarmed. They are angry. They want to act immediately. “Do you want us to go and gather the weeds?” It is an understandable response. Something is wrong in the field. Someone has deliberately corrupted it. Surely faithfulness means identifying the weeds and ripping them out. But the farmer says no. “For in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”
This parable has often been used to counsel patience. And sometimes patience is holy. Sometimes our certainty about who is wheat and who is weed is nothing more than prejudice wearing religious clothing. Sometimes our desire to purify the field becomes an excuse to destroy our neighbors. Human beings have done this repeatedly. We have called Indigenous people savages and taken their land. We have called Black people inferior and built an economy upon their enslavement. We have called gay and transgender people disordered and driven them from families and churches. We have called immigrants criminals, invaders, animals, and enemies. Then, having assigned them the role of weeds, we have treated their suffering as acceptable.
This is exactly what the farmer forbids. “Do not tear them out,” he says, because your hands are not as discerning as you imagine. Your judgment is not as pure as you suppose. Your violence will not remain confined to those you have decided deserve it. You will uproot the wheat as well.
This is the terrible arrogance at the heart of authoritarian power: the conviction that some people may be classified as weeds and removed for the supposed health of the nation. Once that conviction takes hold, papers may not protect you. A work permit may not protect you. A Social Security number may not protect you. Citizenship may not protect you. Innocence may not protect you. Even being the wrong person—the person the authorities were not seeking—may not protect you.
When agents of the state conceal their faces, operate without cameras, seize people without transparent accountability, and use deadly force while the government controls the story afterward, the field is endangered.
When elected leaders teach us to fear migrants, mock the vulnerable, threaten political opponents, defy courts, punish truth-tellers, and demand personal loyalty above constitutional duty, the field is endangered. When cruelty is marketed as strength, lies are repeated until they become policy, and human beings are reduced to categories, the field is endangered. And the church must not be asleep.
Notice when the enemy comes: “while everyone was asleep.” There are forms of sleep that have nothing to do with closing our eyes. We are asleep when we decide politics is too unpleasant for church. We are asleep when we retreat into private spirituality while our neighbors are terrorized. We are asleep when we say, “It is complicated,” and use complexity as permission to do nothing. We are asleep when we become so accustomed to cruelty that another detention, another disappearance, another shooting, another death barely interrupts our day. We are asleep when preserving our comfort matters more to us than preserving another person’s life. The purpose of this parable is not to lull us into passivity. Jesus does not say that wheat should stop being wheat. He does not command the good seed to surrender the field. He says that final judgment belongs to God.
That is not the same as saying that moral discernment does not belong to us. We must not condemn another human being as beyond redemption. But we must condemn actions that crush human beings. We must not imagine ourselves qualified to decide who is worthy of life. But we must resist systems that act as though some lives are worth less than others. We must not become executioners in the name of righteousness. But neither may we stand silently beside the executioner and call our silence patience.
The righteous, in Matthew’s Gospel, are not those who correctly identify all the weeds. They are those who feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the prisoner. They are those who enact the love of God and neighbor. They are those who recognize Jesus in “the least of these.”
So where is Jesus today? Jesus is in the immigrant watching an unfamiliar car outside the house. Jesus is in the child afraid that her parents will not come home. Jesus is in the worker carrying papers that may mean nothing to someone holding a gun. Jesus is in the detainee whose family cannot find him. Jesus is in Johan’s grieving wife. Jesus is in his three-year-old daughter. And Jesus is asking his church whether we will recognize him.
The reign of God that Jesus proclaims is not an escape from politics. It is a direct challenge to every empire that claims absolute authority. The empire says power determines truth. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” The empire says protect yourself from strangers. Jesus says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” The empire says mercy is weakness. Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful.” The empire says some lives may be sacrificed to maintain control. Jesus lays down his own life rather than take the lives of others.
Every generation of Christians must decide which kingdom it will serve. We cannot serve the kingdom of heaven while blessing the cruelty of empire. We cannot pray, “Thy kingdom come,” and then support policies that make our neighbors live in terror. We cannot receive the body of Christ at this altar while ignoring bodies struck down in our streets. And we cannot love democracy only when it delivers the outcomes we prefer. Democracy requires truth, accountability, equal protection, due process, freedom of conscience, a free press, independent courts, and restraints upon executive power. These are not perfect guarantees of justice. But without them, the vulnerable are left at the mercy of those with badges, guns, money, and political authority.
The church must therefore speak. Not because we possess perfect knowledge. Not because one political party is the kingdom of God. Not because we believe ourselves morally pure. We speak because silence in the presence of organized cruelty is not neutrality. We speak because lies grow when truth-tellers are intimidated. We speak because fear spreads when neighbors are isolated. We speak because democracy dies when people decide resistance is impolite. And we speak because love is not merely a feeling. Love places the body between the vulnerable and those who would harm them.
What, then, shall we do? We will learn the names of those whom power would reduce to statistics. We will say the name Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. We will listen to immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people and any other vulnerable and marginalized people rather than merely speaking about them. We shall support organizations providing legal aid, food, transportation, shelter, and accompaniment. We shall contact public officials and demand independent investigation, public evidence, body cameras, lawful procedures, and accountability for the use of deadly force. We shall accompany neighbors to hearings and appointments. We shall teach our children that no human being is illegal. We shall protect those who are targeted without surrendering our own humanity to hatred. And we shall examine ourselves, because the wheat and the weeds are not always neatly separated even within our own hearts.
The temptation to dehumanize can inhabit any movement. The desire for vengeance can corrupt even a righteous cause. We must oppose cruelty without becoming cruel. We must resist lies without surrendering truth. We must confront our opponents without denying their humanity. That is not weakness. That is the costly discipline of following Jesus.
The field is not abandoned. The farmer has not surrendered it to the enemy. The good seed is still growing. It grows wherever a neighbor opens a door to someone who is afraid. It grows wherever a lawyer defends due process. It grows wherever a journalist refuses intimidation. It grows wherever public servants honor their oath rather than the demands of a ruler. It grows wherever people stand outside a detention center and say, “You are not forgotten.” It grows wherever a congregation chooses courage over comfort. And it grows whenever we refuse to accept death as the inevitable price of enforcing an unjust policy.
There is blood on the ground in Biddeford. We cannot wash it away with official statements. We cannot cover it with euphemisms. We cannot restore a father to his daughter. But we can refuse to let his death disappear. We can demand truth. We can protect the living. We can stay awake. We can bear fruit. And we can trust that the God of justice sees what governments conceal, hears what grieving families cry, remembers every name the empire tries to erase, and will finally gather from the field every cause of sin, every instrument of cruelty, and every power that destroys God’s children.
Then, Jesus says, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Church, this is our hour to shine. Not with self-righteousness. Not with hatred. But with courage, mercy, truth, and an unrelenting love for every person whom God has planted in this field. Let anyone with ears listen. Amen.
