30th Anniversary of the United Church Apology to Indiginous peoples

Thirty years! Wow, how time flies.  We’ve been working as a national church, to live into right relations since 1986.  Whether we call this land Turtle Island or North America, we have heard words spoken in 1986 and 1988 on our behalf.  Are we ready and willing to own them for ourselves?

I can only speak as a daughter of immigrants and settlers.  I am grateful for my forebearers coming to this country, some of whom came 80 years ago, and some who came more than 200 years ago.  But no matter when they came, they came for land and the promise of freedom.

Like Ahab, they faced a choice; would they respect the people who were already here and their ties to the land, or take what they thought they needed, regardless of the implications.  Jezebel’s evil advice, “Are you the King or not?” was a seductive call to see oneself as intrinsically superior to another, and that an individual can use his greed to justify violating not just another individual’s rights, but his spiritual and cultural ties to land.  The culture in the days of Ahab and Naboth was that land was not something that one could buy or sell, but was a gift from God that was to be nurtured and passed down to the next generation.  That understanding was not convenient for kings and governments. 

Ahab chose power over empathy, and manipulation over honesty.  He chose selfish convenience over the human rights and dignity of another person.

Jesus chose a different way.  He encountered the paralytic man, not with a spirit of convenience or power or greed, but one of empathy.  He could even have felt guilty that he himself was able to walk, he could have listened to the Pharisees and done what was politically expedient to avoid trouble.  Instead, he chose compassion and action.  Just as Elijah had, he named that God cared about those who seemed to be outside society.  The Pharisees may have believed that a man who is paralyzed has offended God and deserves his disability.  Instead Jesus saw the man as one to be treated with dignity and empathy.

So the question remains for us all.  How do we own the apology and live into right relations today in Athabasca?  How do we move out of our fears and disrespect for those who live here who are coming from a different culture?  We non-aboriginals might think it helps to feel guilty, but if that guilt leads to inaction, then we can become paralyzed into non-action.  And of course I can’t speak for indigenous folks, but I can choose to be more like Jesus and less like Ahab.

So I would ask you to take a few moments to ponder some questions:

What is the nature of the paralysis that First Nations communities may be experiencing? That the church may be experiencing?

Who are the persistent friends, determined that Indigenous peoples and the church find healing?

What barriers need to be removed?

What question is in your heart related to forgiveness?

Where do you see yourself in this? 

Where do you find hope?

Hope does not disappoint us

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

I have many questions arising from our scriptures today. The psalmist asks “Who are we that God is so good to us?” “What did Jesus mean when he said “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”  What did Paul mean when he talked about justification by faith? How are we supposed to know what the Spirit of Truth is?  And the biggie, “why are we supposed to rejoice in our sufferings?”

Sometimes it seems like scripture raises more questions than it answers, and some may wonder why we bother at all.  The complicated game we call life means that we are constantly curious about all knids of things, from the number of stars in the universe to the reason why mosquitos exist.  But none is as perplexing to me as why is there suffering?

Why do children get cancer, why do young people get involved in situations that lead to shootings, why does someone’s whole house burn down but the cross for her dead nephew stays standing? Why does a prominent member of Athabasca die in a motorcycle collision?

These kinds of questions are a part of being human, they are part of our struggle to find meaning in a world that all too often feels like the atheists have got it right; life is a meaningless piece of chaos that is one long experience of struggle and suffering.  Or life is what you make of it, get off your chair and get working.  Or buy this miracle pill or try this wonder diet or go to hear this fabulous guru who will answer all your questions, or get your horoscope done now and you will know your future.  We often want the instant remedy that will solve all our problems and eliminate all our suffering.

And there’s always someone with an answer, “If God closes a door, he’ll open a window”, or “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”, or “Everything happens for a reason”, or ‘no pain, no gain’.  The platitudes that we all know seem to work for everyone else but us.

Jesus was speaking to his disciples on the last day of his life, and he didn’t have easy answers for them.  He didn’t tell them that life was going to be rosy, with glorious times ahead.  He didn’t make promises that they were all going to end up rich, powerful and surrounded by friends.  He left them with a mystery. 

He left them with a promise.  He left them with the sense that they would find support.  He left them with an understanding that there was more to come, and that they would grow into that ‘more’.  He left them with guidance, not answers.  But he did promise them truth and peace.

Paul also talked about peace coming from a deep connection with God.  It grieves me when I hear about folks who look for peace elsewhere than God.  The people who put all their hopes in another person, ‘if only I had a boyfriend or girlfriend, that will solve all my problems’, or the folks that turn to suicide or expensive non-medical plastic surgery.  The folks that horde up money but live in run-down housing with less than healthy conditions.  The people addicted to their household items that fill up their homes until their family and friends call a television show to stage an intervention.  The grandparents who dote on their children and grandchildren, only to see those childrens lives destroyed by drugs. So much pain.

So when we hear about ‘boasting in our suffering’, we need to be very careful.  It’s not that we are to go on some massive pity party, seeing who can brag about who has the biggest scars or the longest chemo treatment.  No, we need to look at the culture of the time.  Paul was writing to folks who believed that the stars were the lights coming from holes poked in the big bowl of the sky that let God’s light in to the world below.  There was some basic understanding of some people that the world was more curved than flat, but many sailors still believed that if they sailed too far from land, they would fall off the earth.  The gods of Zeus, Apollo, Hera and Athena quarrelled like humans, took lovers amongst themselves and played with humans like they were toys.  If disaster hit, it was because the humans had done something terrible to deserve that.  So misfortune was a sign of shame and disgrace in the community.  It was something to be hidden and shunned and not talked about.

Paul is not saying we should brag obnoxiously about our health problems or family squabbles.  What he is saying is don’t be ashamed of our faith when we have difficult times.  Don’t hide our pain or our frustration or our anger.  But speak our truth with love and sensitivity.  When we find safe places to talk about our hurt and confusion, our frustration and our fear, we can become transformed.

I have seen several folks this week find a deep sense of inner peace from finding someone safe to talk to about what they are really going through.  It is amazing to watch that transformation and healing that occurs.  It may not be big dramatic healings, but it may be as simple as cutting out a prayer from the bulletin or a quote from the bible and putting it on your fridge.  It may be a little reminder, a thank you note or a pressed flower that you keep in a special place.  It can be a walk in the rain where we are reminded of the amazing mystery of life going on around us, the renewal in the spring when we thought nothing would grow again in our lives.

God still speaks, words that encourage us and help us find peace in the midst of our suffering.  Let us hang onto the promise that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.