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Good afternoon. Imperialism is on the rise in today's world. This form of power organizes itself around conquest of people and places deemed inferior. Without question, US imperialism is not behind us.

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It is alive and at work again. In fiscal year 2026, defense funding reached about 1.06 trillion. And now, according to the U.S. Department of War, the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget surges to nearly 1.50 trillion, the largest military allocation this nation has ever seen.

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These are not abstract figures. Our tax dollars are funding the current iteration of U.S. empire. Whether we like it or not, we who pay into this tax system are participants in these investments.

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As seminarians, this is the world you are called into. A world wounded by imperial violence. And it is not unlike the world of the eye in Psalm 31. As we look ahead to the May 30th lectionary reading that anchors this sermon, we must also attend to verse 21 just beyond the assigned text

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which discloses the speaker's social location, a city under siege. There in the Hebrew, we hear, Blessed be the Lord, for he has made wondrous his hesed, his love in action, to me in the midst of a besieged city, Li Beir Matzor. The Hebrew presents this location not as a metaphorical place, but rather as a lived reality. And if that is the world that the Psalm names, then it also teaches us how to care for those who live within it.

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To read this Psalm as a lived experience is to resist overly spiritualizing its wisdom. What emerges instead are practices of care for people wounded by colonizing forms of power. And this is the world you are stepping into.

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A world of empire building. where caring for wounded people is at the heart of why you are here. The first wisdom of care in our assigned portion of Psalm 31 is the personhood of the eye. Even in a city under siege, the eye has a will.

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Even when wounded, the eye still speaks, still desires, still insists on life, refuses to disappear, refuses to be reduced, refuses to be erased. For the eye, faith, and the art of psalmody give expression to both lack and longing. In verse 1, the lack created by war violence is refuge, a place to be settled, a space to dwell in safety.

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And yet, refuge is not only what is lacking, it is also what is longed for. A refuge for personhood, for memory, for a life lived with others. And that longing tells us something about what it means to be human. To long for refuge is to long for a life where dignity, memory, and relationship can endure.

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To be without refuge, to have no place to live and flourish with loved ones is a devaluing force. The psalmist names it shame. It is a shaming force.

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Such a force is at work in our society today. We see it in deportation regimes that ravage the refuge of vulnerable people, people who have already fled war and violence. This lack is not distant. It is in our midst.

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To care, then, is to help create refuge. to stand with those devalued by forms of power that seek to separate them from family, memory, and the possibility of well-being. In January, I had the privilege, my wife and I had the privilege of visiting an alum from this seminary, Reverend Gerald Osorto. He is currently the senior pastor of St.

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Paul's Lutheran Church, a bilingual ELCA congregation in the heart of South Minneapolis. We were there when Alex Preddy was shot and killed by Federal Border Patrol agents. And in the midst of this violence, in the midst of this shaming force,

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Reverend Osorto was providing, and still does, refuge to those trying to avoid capture by ICE. They have a very sophisticated system where laundry can be washed and returned back to families, where they can have access to hygiene, resources for their young children. In a city under siege, the eye in this Psalm is the target of capture and confinement.

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As stated in verse 4, quote, Take me out of the net that is hidden for me. The Psalm names it as a net. In our world, we see systems that function in similar ways, tracking, pursuing, and confining human beings. To be hunted is a colonizing act.

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To be hunted is a colonizing act. Those who are hunted are made to feel less than human. And their capture leads to confinement and even death. We live in a society where people are hunted.

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where people are confined. Two hours from here, you can be at a family detention camp where we hold the largest population of children detained. We must tell the truth about those faces. In recent years, dozens of people have died while in immigration detention.

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with deaths rising to the highest levels in decades. These are not places of refuge. Too often, they are places where bodies are neglected, where dignity is diminished, and where, for some, life does not endure. To care for the colonized, then, is to help create refuge.

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Physical spaces where faith and life can still take root and grow. Material spaces strong enough to resist shaming and colonizing forms of power. But care is not only about protection. It is also about listening.

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It is about hearing how the wounded themselves name liberation. As verse 2 of Psalm 31 cries out, The eye longs to be heard. Incline your ear to me. Rescue me speedily.

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Liberation for the psalmist is urgent. It cannot be delayed. It is relational. It emerges from within the lives of those who suffer.

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It is spoken from within suffering. To care for the colonized then is to listen for their vision of liberation, not to impose a prefabricated template, but to attend to what each community names as freedom. Wherever people are hunted and their refuge destroyed, they also are speaking. Care listens.

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Care listens, especially when the world has refused to listen. Care holds their truths as part of the work of healing. And in the end, the Psalm reminds us that liberation is chesed, an act of steadfast love, verse 16. It delivers from the hand of oppressive power, verse 15, not as domination, but as love in action.

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This is the world you are stepping into. A world where people are still hunted, still displaced, still denied refuge. And you must decide what kind of ministers you will be. Will you echo the logic of empire?

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Or will you embody a different way? The Psalm shows us the way. Honor the I. Create refuge.

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Listen for liberation. And trust in God's chesed. This is not optional. It is the work before you.

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And that is the kind of care you are being called to embody. Thanks be to God.