Today’s message begins with four snapshots.
The first is the most recent, and it features mustard. In the parable we heard this morning, the amount of
faith/trust that we have in God is likened to a tiny little mustard seed, which
when nourished by sun, rain and soil nutrients is sufficient for the seed to flourish.
Having walked through mustard fields six years ago around the Sea of Galilee, I
can tell you firsthand that mustard easily grows to shoulder height; perhaps
not a tree, but BIG. And when we were
walking through that field, I can also tell you that the bees of Galilee like
mustard, A LOT, so the field of mustard was humming as if to proclaim, “when
mustard-seed faith blooms and grows to its full height, it is not silent!”
As I share the other three
snapshots, we keep that little mustard seed in mind, and the potential God
places within us that is intended to grow and flourish and create life that is
both healthy and expressive.
The second snapshot comes from the Rev Dr Chief John Snow Sr., in his book,
These Mountains are our Sacred Places. He wrote, “Our philosophy of life sees the
Great Sprit’s creation as a whole piece…. It is not enough to say that the
Mountains were the Stoney’s’ traditional place of prayer because…reverence for
nature, which revealed religious truth was woven throughout all parts of the
social structure and observed in conjunction with every activity…..[In our
traditional ways], everywhere the spirits of all living things were alive. We talked to the rocks, the streams, the
trees, the plants, the herbs, and all nature’s creations. We called the animals our brothers…and at
times [these siblings] revealed important events or visited us on our vision
quests to the mountain tops. Truly, we
were part of and related to the universe, and these animals were a very special
part of the Great Spirit’s creation. And
in the very rocks themselves, we sense the presence of the ancestors”.
I first read those words in my undergrad days, and John Snow Sr’s
description of Stoney spirituality planted seeds of curiosity in me. Little did
I know that some thirty-five years later, living in Canmore, I would enter
relationship with those same sacred mountains and would get to know and work
with many members of John Sr’s family, including his children Rev John Snow Jr,
Rev Tony Snow, and student minister Gloria Snow.
The third snapshot comes from 1986, when the United Church of Canada
issued its first apology to Indigenous Peoples, spoken by our Moderator at the
time, the Very Rev Bob Smith. It said, “Long before my people journeyed to this land your
people were here, and you received from your Elders an understanding of
creation and of the Mystery that surrounds us all that was deep, and rich, and
to be treasured. We did not hear you when you shared your vision. In our zeal
to tell you of the good news of Jesus Christ we were closed to the value of
your spirituality. We confused Western ways and culture with the depth and
breadth and length and height of the gospel of Christ. We imposed our civilization
as a condition of accepting the gospel. We tried to make you be like us and in
so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a
result, you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted,
blurred, and we are not what we are meant by God to be. We ask you to forgive
us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ so that our peoples may
be blessed and God’s creation healed”.
The words of that first
apology were, to me, the most powerful, necessary and faithful words that our
denomination has ever spoken. The good
news of Jesus Christ is good seed to plant in our lives, but when the good news
of Jesus gets tamed and intermingled with the invasive species of colonialism, the
end result both misrepresents the liberating love of our Lord and Saviour and
disrespects the first inhabitants of the land and their sacred stories.
The fourth snapshot comes
from the same time frame as the third one: In the early to mid 1980s, the
United Church of Canada worked with local Indigenous leadership to create a
series of Indigenous Presbyteries within the new All Native Circle Conference. At that time, Shannon and I had the huge
privilege of travelling to the Peepeekisis nation,
treaty 4 territory (Saskatchewan), and visiting with Elders who had been involved
in this work – Wilf and Walter Dieter, and others who came in and out of the
discussion. They spoke openly, with pain and humour and a humbling degree of
grace, of their interactions with the Church and the punishment received at
Residential School. And while they
couldn’t fully understand why or how, there was something so deeply true, so
deeply kind and loving and empowering about Jesus, that they remained within
the Christian faith, and not just in some nominal way, but as leaders in the
Church.
The good news, the divine
urge that causes the mustard seed to burst open so that new growth may emerge, found
fertile soil in their lives. The Church
had a lot to apologize for, from decimating their family structure, forbidding
their language, and dismissing the teachings of the elders, and yet… and yet…
there was something so totally GOOD in Jesus – his life, teachings, healings, his death and resurrection which defeated all
that oppresses us in life and even death itself – that these Indigenous Christian
Elders chose to have the risen Christ play a central role in their lives. My mustard seed faith, just starting to
germinate, did not look so grand in the presence of their faith which was
sturdy and resilient and dignified and defiant. The
saving grace of Jesus found a home in them. And yet, even there, where my faith
was dwarfed by another’s, Christ tapped me on the shoulder and said: you have
what you need. Just stay open, keep listening
and engaging, and keep trusting my power to liberate and reconcile and make
life new. //
In the Theological Banquet
model that is our framework for these June and July Sundays, we look at the
various things we DO in response to God.
Today, we hear from the EVANGELICAL table setting and its imperative for
sharing the good news of Jesus Christ: his preaching, healing, dying and
rising, his longing to be in relationship with us, and everything in this world
and the next from which we need to be saved.
Yes, that sounds at odds with the Indigenous Day of Prayer, but then I
recall my visit with Wilfred and Walter Dieter. Today I want to fully honour
the sacred vision carried by our Indigenous hosts on this land, articulated in
the sacred stories of each first nation, specific to their experience with the
Creator. I also want to lift up the good
news of Jesus Christ, unfettered by the suppressive power of empire, as a
statement of God’s own desire for liberation and life in all abundance.
In her sermon last Sunday,
Amy stated it so well: “Jesus’ defeating death means that the powers and
principalities that alienate us from God and from one another have been
defeated, even though they continue to assail us in the present…. What we have
- what the Church has always had that differentiates us [from the type of belonging
that we find elsewhere] is the gospel.
This saving message of Jesus birth, life, ministry, death and defeat of
death by resurrection.” That is the
gospel imperative of the Evangelical table setting of the Theological Banquet
from here forward: a desire to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, and God’s
endless desire for liberation and everlasting hope. We must become disentangled from colonial
vestiges of Christianity, In order to assert that the seed itself is good, and
the evangel, the glad tidings of Christ’s change-bringing love, is not only
relevant but essential.
It would be naïve and
arrogant of me to imagine that it’s easy to peel back centuries of ill-intent,
for which the Church remains accountable, to share only a pure version of the
good news of Jesus Christ which has been freed from all that other detritus. Our story as Church for at least 1600 years
has been one in which the power of empire has so often, too often, travelled
with and misinterpreted the gospel of liberative love, and there are habits of
comfort that we’ll not easily let go of.
Yet I do believe in the enduring and eternal power of Jesus. I do
believe that it is God’s intent to set us on a path on which the captive is
freed, truth is spoken to power, and transformative love is expressed. And, on this Indigenous Day of Prayer, I also
believe that in the act of sharing all that Christ Jesus has meant to our
lives, we have a lot of listening to do. At a time when this planet is in such
a precarious state, we have so much to learn from our Indigenous hosts on this
land about the sacredness of all places, and the family connection forged by
the Creator between us and all that surrounds us. Reconciliation, and hope for a new day, begins
with listening.
Friends in Christ, may the
road ahead indeed be God’s good road, lived with respect, and humility, and resurrection
hope. In Christ, Amen.
Ø Hymn from WCC Assembly in Vancouver 1983, VU 588 Many
are the lightbeams
References cited:
Snow, Chief John. These Mountains
are our Sacred Places. Toronto: Samuel Stevens, 1977.
https://thechildrenremembered.ca/school-histories/file-hill/
United Church of Canada. “All my relations” - http://www.united-church.ca/community-faith/being-community/all-my-relations and “The Apologies” - https://united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/reconciliation-and-indigenous-justice/apologies
© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Scarboro United Church, Calgary AB.
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