Reconciliation

Wednesday marked National Indigenous People’s Day. The relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada is complicated. The relationship between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous church is also complicated. Our history as a church is tied into colonization and residential schools.

The United Church was the first church to make an apology to Indigenous peoples. As a response to that apology, the All Native Circle Conference was formed in 1988. With the restructuring of the United Church in 2019, All Native Circle Conference was dissolved, and a National Indigenous Organization was formed. Indigenous communities of faith could choose to be part of both the national organization as well as the geographic region in which they are located. Within the Living Skies Region there are Five Indigenous Communities of Faith.

When major decisions relating to the structure of the United Church need to be made, we use a remit process which gives community of faith leadership teams (boards) an opportunity to vote on the decision. There is currently a question of whether or not to create an autonomous National Indigenous Organization within the United Church. What that organization looks like would be determined by the Indigenous church after the remit.

We hear a lot about reconciliation right now. As a theological concept reconciliation is about being changed. It doesn’t mean everything is perfect and we all get along. Reconciliation allows us to be changed so that we can make sense of differences. James Rowe Adams in his book Literal to Literary writes that reconciliation “is a willingness to give up being on complete control of the situation and to allow inward change to happen.” When I think about the remit that is being asked of us, I have lots of questions about it. What does that mean for the future of the Indigenous church within the United Church? Does it create more disconnection? What would an Indigenous church look like? How would it be funded? Does that mean the non-indigenous church is abdicating responsibility for supporting Indigenous ministries? I want to know the answers to these questions and I recognize that asking these questions is a sign of wanting to control.

One of the things pointed out at the event was that with the restructuring, regions were given permission to organize themselves, but the Indigenous church was not given the same ability. The wider church trusts communities of faith and regions to make good decisions. Why isn’t the Indigenous church beiing given the same level of trust? The non-Indigenous church is being asked to give up control. And that’s hard for many of us. Our history as a country is about non-Indigenous people having control of land, resources, decision making, and laws with Indigenous people having minimal input even when the outcomes directly effect their lives and communities.

With our history, I understand why Indigenous people often mistrust churches and government. I understand why there is hurt and pain in Indigenous communities. We often think of reconciliation as a two-way street where both parties must come together and figure out how to get along. Matthew gives us a different perspective. “If you bring your gift to the alter and remember that someone has a grudge against you, go and be reconciled to them.” What I find fascinating about this is that it isn’t the person with the grudge who is expected to make the first move. Sometimes, the person holding the grudge has good reason to be hurt. They may not trust that the person who hurt them will listen to their story or understing how they were impacted. Sometimes, we don’t realize the impact of our actions until there is a definite break in the relationship.

Once we realize we have caused harm, the scriptures expect us to go and rebuild the relationship that has been broken. This hurt and brokenness may be either personal or collective. Reconciliation with indigenous peoples is an example of collective brokenness and hurt. Our work, as people of faith, and as non-Indigenous people, is the work of reconciling. We need to allow ourselves to be changed enough to give up control. That’s our work. When we are willing to be reconciled with someone, the relationship becomes more important than maintaining control or keeping our power. We learn how to hold the tension of differences. Reconciliation is a commitment to being in relationship in ways that allow each person (or group of people) to be strong in themselves and to bring their full self to the relationship. If there is power over another, violence, or suffering, we have not achieved reconciliation.

Throughout scripture we are reminded that worship without care for the world and without justice is meaningless. In Isaiah 58:6 we hear God speaking:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

This scripture in Matthew 5:21-26 continues the theme of putting our relationships in good order so that we can truly worship. Reconciliation isn’t something we do and tick the box. It is on-going work that requires us to step out of our comfort zone. It requires us to hear the difficult and painful stories. It requires us to dig into complex histories and own our (and our ancestors’) part. It requires us to understand that non-Indigenous communities continue to benefit from colonization. This history can be uncomfortable for us. It might bring up difficult questions for us. How have we personally benefited from colonialism? What are the harms our church has done? How can we not know our shared history?

In order for us to be reconciled, we need to ask some of these difficult questions. We need to listen to and understand the history. We need to be willing to give up our control over Indigenous people and communities. When we are willing to do this work, we will find a new creation in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 reminds us that the old order has passed away and everything is new. Our personal relationship with God cannot be separated from our relationship with others. By reconciling with other people, we find our relationship with God deepens. We find ourselves changed by that work. We are a new creation. The world is a new creation.

That is my hope and my prayer for all of us going forward together.

Celebrating and Lamenting on the United Church’s Anniversary

The United Church of Canada was formed in 1925 as a coming together of the Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Methodists. Their union was a recognition of the things we have in common as people of faith, a good use of limited resources, a shared commitment to spreading the love of God. It started with excitement and energy. We have a strong history of connecting our faith to people on the margins of society and recognizing that our faith needs to be lived in the world around us. The United Church pushed the boundaries of ministry with Lydia Gruchy being the first woman ordained in Canada. In 1988 we openly welcomed members of the LGBTQ+ in ministry. Over the years, the United Church was involved in women’s suffrage, medicare, supporting same sex marriage and banning conversion therapy. These are just a few of the movements and issues in which the United church has participated and offered leadership. We have many things to be proud of as a United Church. These are moments when we have been church in the best way possible—when we have been courageous and stood with those on the margins and worked towards a better society.

As much as we have things to celebrate as a church, we also have parts of our identity and history that we need to acknowledge and lament. We continue to have a complicated history with indigenous peoples. Our shared history is the history of colonialism in Canada. The United Church was involved in residential schools and all the destruction that was a part of that system. In 1986 we were the first denomination to apologize for our role in colonization of Indigenous peoples. The apology was acknowledged but not accepted. There was a sense of waiting to see whether the non-Indigenous church could live into the words of the apology.

Isaiah 43:1-3, 5-11, 18-23 spoke to me of where we are as a people and more specifically as a church at this moment in time. The scripture begins by reminding us that we are called. Each of us is called by our own names and as Christians we are also called by the name of Christ. We are called. A New Creed affirms that we are called to be the church. The Christian church has a history of colonization in Canada and in other parts of the world.
As I read the scripture this particular scripture, I could see the Indigenous children being gathered into residential schools with the intent of giving them new names and new identities. It has been a struggle for many of us in the non-indigenous church to hear the stories from residential schools. Many of us don’t want to hear the horrific stories and don’t want to believe that the stories have anything to do with us.

But we need to hear and recognize the truth in these stories. We have eyes, but can we really see? We have ears, but can we really hear? Our apology to Indigenous peoples includes these words:

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 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.

United Church of Canada

Residential schools destroyed much of Indigenous culture, tore families and communities apart, and caused deep pain and suffering for so many Indigenous people. Indigenous peoples have stories to tell: stories from residential schools and the impact on their society and culture, stories from long before the colonizers and setters arrived, stories of communities healing and growing strong. Those of us who are non-Indigenous need to listen carefully to all of these stories and understand that the stories are not separate from us but are a part of our history as God’s people, as a church, and as a country.

The role of prophets in scripture is to remind people how they get caught in doing what they think God wants, following the rules precisely, being distracted by wealth and power. When that happens, they lose sight of what it means to be faithful and loving and justice-seeking for the good of all God’s creation. This passage ends with Isaiah challenging God’s people. As we look back at the history of residential schools, we might see it in this light: as a church we got distracted by the wealth of this land, the power of colonization and privilege, the call to bring people to Christ. We lost sight of what was really important: seeing the face of Christ in another human and responding with love, compassion and justice.

The prophets are not all doom and gloom though. Even though they accuse and say things that are uncomfortable, the prophets also hold out hope. They hold up in image of the world made right, a world where the resources are shared, where justice has created peace and where God is fully known. We are at a moment in the church’s history where we hear the accusations. How could we not know? How could we let this happen? How could we be complicit in a structure that destroyed so many people and communities?

But we are also at a moment when we can lament our church’s role in residential schools. We can acknowledge and the ways in which we benefit from stolen land and communities destroyed. We can listen to the stories and hear the truth of what this means. Our work is to hear the stories again and again, listening for the differences in the stories, the nuances—each time adding a layer of understanding. Our work is to respond with vulnerability and compassion instead of anger and entrenched power.

We need to recognize that the work of healing this wound in Canadian society and in our church is not just the work of Indigenous peoples. It isn’t just something to get over and move on from. This history and these stories are part of us and we are also wounded. We trust in God. We trust in God who reconciles and makes new. We trust in a God who works in us and others. We trust in a God who calls us to seek justice and resist evil. These are all signs of hope that these wounds can be healed. We need to live into God’s hope for the world.

As I continued to sit with this passage, I had a sense of gathering the children again—the work of finding and identifying graves, finding missing and murdered Indigenous women…this time not to take away from their homes but to return home for the healing of lives and communities.