St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Healing Continues – Rev. David Mundy

Genesis 1-5 Psalm 8 Matthew 28:16-20

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It all began with annoyance and perhaps, if I’m honest, some anger on my part. In 1986 the General Council of our United Church, a national gathering with representatives from across the country met in Sudbury, Ontario. During that meeting the moderator at that time, the Rev. Bob Smith issued a formal apology to the Native Peoples of Canada who had been deeply affected by the colonial approach to imposing the gospel of Jesus Christ on them.

My annoyance was for an apology in my name as a member of the United Church for things I had not done. I was not part of the colonization of North America which had begun centuries before, and I was no way part of the residential school system where thousands of vulnerable children were forcibly removed from their communities and often suffered abuse. Thousands more were required to give up their languages and live without the benefit of family life through their childhoods. But I didn’t do this!

Two years after the apology, our family moved to Sudbury where I began my ministry in the large downtown congregation. And, during the next decade, my annoyance and anger were changed by a growing awareness of the often difficult relationship between the Christian churches of Canada and First Nations peoples. After all, I had grown up in Southern Ontario and rarely saw a Native person. As a child I watched Western movies where the Indians were always the bad guys and they always lost. We played Cowboys and Indians and the Indians bit the dust.

In Sudbury I was part of the discussion in our presbytery to erect a cairn to commemorate the apology and eventually we did so at Laurentian University with the apology in English, French, and Ojibwa. The stones for the cairn were provided by two nearby Native Reserves.

On a number of occasions I spent time on retreat at the Anishinabe Spiritual Centre near Manitoulin Island. While there I chatted with Native people, some who had chosen to return to more traditional spiritual practices, others who were still deeply Christian but also incorporated their Native heritage. It made me aware that the European-based Christianity of my childhood was not the only way of expressing faith in Jesus. I usually stayed in a little retreat cabin named Kateri Tekakwitha, an Iroquois woman who is honoured for her Christian faith. Today she is honoured by the Roman Catholic Church as a patron of ecology and the environment, which is reflected in an icon created by artist Robert Lentz.

Our family vacationed on Manitoulin Island several times and we worshipped in the beautiful Roman Catholic church in West Bay, with its sanctuary “in the round” and sunken into the ground. Around the circle are the Stations of the Cross paintings by Native artist Leland Bell, including the image of the Risen Christ on our bulletin cover this week. The baptismal font in the church was shaped out of wood in the form of a turtle. “Turtle Island” is the name given to North America by several Native tribes or nations.

All this to say that I began to understand the rich spiritual and cultural heritage of Aboriginal peoples and just how ignorant I had been of that culture and the attempts to wipe it out through the years by both governments and religious institutions.

Well, there is a great deal of weight on the shoulders of this sleepy Sunday in June. This is Father’s Day of course and Dads deserve to be honoured. This happens to be Trinity Sunday as well, the celebration of the Trinitarian God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

This is also Aboriginal Sunday, the Sunday closest to June 21^st which is a Day of Prayer for Aboriginal People. It is interesting that the Trinity readings include two passages which celebrate God the Creator, an affirmation of traditional Native spirituality and the fusion of Native and Christian faith. Before most churches began “thinking green” many Native Christian communities were doing so because of their heritage.

In the gospel passage from Matthew we listen to Jesus speaking to his doubting and uncertain disciples after the resurrection, telling them to go into the world and make more disciples, bringing them into a saving faith in the name of God the Father, and Son and Holy Spirit. This is encouragement to move from timidity to an evangelical conviction.

As Christians we should never apologize for sharing the Good News of Christ with others. We have a story to tell of God’s saving love in Christ which is life-changing and world-changing.

We do need to recognize that there have been times we have done so with an arrogance and force that are not consistent with the teaching or the example of Jesus. While Europeans did share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the people they found in North America, they did so in a way that was more imposing than inviting. As the 1986 apology aptly said: “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 for accepting the gospel.”

Again to put this in a personal context, as my eyes were opened I began to see the outcome of that imperial approach to sharing the gospel along with dismantling Native culture.

The downtown park behind the church I served in Sudbury was a weekend drinking hangout for Native people who were adrift in the city, often migrating there in search of jobs that just didn’t exist. I would walk through that park early on Sunday mornings and regularly have conversations with folk who were gathered around picnic tables. One Sunday a group walked up to me and one asked me for money. I never took my wallet those morning and truthfully said I had no money. With that he said “that’s too bad man” and hauled out a fistful of change for me! I heard the comments about “drunken Indians” from people, including church members, but I rarely heard anyone suggest that we actually reach out to this population.

A number of years later the realities of injustice became even more personal. Most of us will remember the terrible events which unfolded in Vancouver when it was discovered that Robert Pickton was a serial killer who murdered nearly fifty sex trade workers. Many of them were aboriginal women who ended up working the streets of Vancouver. One of my cousins, Pauline, is aboriginal, having been adopted by my aunt and uncle when she was a baby. Despite growing up in a loving and Christian family she became increasingly troubled about her heritage and ran away from home as a young teen. She ended up as a prostitute in the same area where Pickton found his victims but by the grace of God escaped his attention. She did eventually leave the sex trade and during Pickton’s trial she reported for a newspaper on the events from the perspective of someone who had been there. Again this situation was a grim reminder that there are people who seem expendable in our culture if they are poor and outside our norms and if they are Native.

These were not events from some distant past. They were unfolding around me and of course my cousin is a member of our family.

So what can we say and do on this Aboriginal Sunday that allows us to be people of Good News in Christ, without having to wallow in regret and guilt? You may have felt some of that annoyance I felt years ago. You may wonder why we can’t just move on. Well repentance for sin is always important in our faith, although it can’t be the end of the story. We can say that sharing and living the gospel can be embodied in our choices for healing and restoration.

It’s important to know that our church has taken steps toward that healing. The United Church has now issued two apologies to Canada’s aboriginal people, the second specifically for what happened in the Residential Schools. Our denomination chose not to deny or legally fight the claims against us and has paid millions of dollars in compensation to those who were affected.

We realize as well that financial settlements cannot buy inner peace and reconciliation, so our church also established what is called the Healing Fund to underwrite projects and gatherings which will help aboriginal people reconnect with their heritage. The Healing Fund was set up in the 1990's with the goal or raising a million dollars through the contributions of its members and groups. In the end a total of 1.2 million was given and is still being used across the country for various initiatives. One of our members at St. Paul’s, the late Doris Craig, was passionate about this Healing Fund.

Some of the grants include funding for exhibits on the Residential School experience, and summer culture camps for children and teens. People are learning their languages again, and learning to dance in the traditional ways again. Inner city programs have been set up in places such as Winnipeg. We can’t undo the wrongs of the past but we are working to mend relationships.

After the Canadian government apologized for the Residential School debacle three years ago this month, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to hear those who were traumatized and broken by the experience. The commission is travelling the country, listening even when it is painful, and representatives from the United Church have been there. It has not been easy for them to hear the stories of suffering and brokeness which extend through several generations, but they have attended the hearings and paid attention. Just so you are aware, the last United Church residential school closed in 1970. It really isn’t that long ago.

The last thing I will share with you today is that the United Church is exploring changes to our traditional crest. The crest has gone through a series of alterations through the years. The new proposal is to incorporate some native imagery into the crest including the traditional colours of the medicine wheel and the four directions. This inclusion can be a symbolic act of healing in itself.

As people of the New Covenant in Christ – as gospel people – we can establish a new covenant or promise, a healing relationship with our brothers and sisters in the Native communities of Canada.

Amongst the many resources our church has provided there is this prayer.

Creator,
We give thanks that you speak to us
in our own ways, in our own Traditions.
Thank you that you also speak through
the traditions of others.
Help us to see your love in all things
and to be guided with loving hearts
to do that which is best in our homes and
in our communities

. From "The Dancing Sun, Volume VI "

The healing continues. Thanks be to God.