When we took our family to the Poconos (“river between two mountains”) this summer, we talked quite a bit about First Nations and Indigenous people. We talked about how the region being called Shawnee (“southerner”) was the misappropriation of Indigenous people who lived there, who were actually Lenape (“original peoples”). We talked about the same river we canoed that day was traveled by people who were eventually forced out. We talked about kindness and theft, belonging and power. We talked about how the water had a story to tell if we dared listen.
It wasn’t as profound of conversation as you may imagine, but it was just that. We talked and acknowledged and learned together about where we lived and who used to call this land home before they were exiled out.
Every year, I am reminded of where we live and the Indigenous names often overlooked…and mispronounced. Again, this land is not our land.
A few week's ago, our family went for a Mother’s Day walk along the Schuylkill River trail in Philadelphia. Among all the art, historical storyboards, gardens, skate park, and graffiti, were an abundance of statues- mostly celebrating white male “contributions” to this nation. Shocker.
Then there was this one, which encompasses strength, resilience, resistance, and a “we can do all the things” spirit. I confess, I have run past this statue infinite times. I have never once stopped to ponder the significance. I don't think I actually knew it was there at all. It took my ten-year-old daughter to linger in the subversive structure as ode to peoples long oppressed, whose ancestry names so many of the places throughout Greater Philadelphia. Contrasted to the over-feminization with pink, tired gender stereotypes and binary tropes often associated with Mother's Day, I believe Boyle’s description of “Stone Age in America” (1887) says it better:
“You’ll see a bear cub at the Native American woman’s foot, but in effect, you have to look at her threats being governmental and military. The least of her worries would be a bear.” (Read more here.)
Yes! to this brand of motherhood, which works against the many forms of injustices, isms, and oppressions in a still-very-much patriarchal world- all the while caring for their own families. Yes! to this bold elevation of indigenous peoples, especially women, whose stories cry out from this land that is not our land. Yes! to these narratives that often go, not so much untold, rather unheard and dismissed in the name of Western White propaganda of colonization. We must be better at this truth telling, which is often modeled best by the soft hearts and prophetic imaginations of our youngest, children who dare pause and ponder bronze beings on trails previously traveled yet ignored by generations before them. This is our broken, beautiful, and tragic history we must sit with and and learn from- even when on family walks along the river. Kaitlin B. Curtice uncovers this confessional and reconciliatory wisdom in a book our Presbytery is presently reading, Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity and Belonging, and Rediscovering God:
"In my life, journeying has meant telling the truth, coming to terms with the trauma in my own story, and leaning into the trauma and pain of others with honest listening so that, together, we learn how to be a people who walk alongside one another in order to heal."
So how might we work towards such truth telling, story sharing, and celebrating of our indigenous siblings past and present, whose land we call home. In so doing may we acknowledge the trauma and pain, courage and resilience able to lead us towards justice and healing across intersectional lines related to gender, ethnicity, culture, orientation, race, religion, and so much more.
They can be the glory of expedited domestic and international travel. They can also be the symbols of some of our more stressful and anxious moments.
For my recent trip to the 223rd General Assembly in St. Louis, it was the latter. It all began when I was the last to be dropped off at Terminal F by a local shuttle service. When the driver handed me my bag, I froze as I noticed- it wasn’t my bag.
“Where’s my bag?"
"I must have given it to the gentleman at…Terminal A."
Yes, the terminal a half mile before mine.
In what I believe was my fastest mile pace to date, I hauled to Terminal A just in time to intercept my bag from being checked by the gentleman who was unaware he had the wrong luggage and headed to Florida.
Then it got worse- like I was living out the children’s story, Alexander’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day,
Because some days are like this- especially at the Philadelphia Int'l Airport.
My flight was canceled at 11 p.m. because of computer glitches that failed to schedule a flight crew. My bags were lost only 90 minutes later to be found. The hotel offered by airline was in Bala Cynwd. No restaurants were open for post-stress snack. I missed the General Assembly’s opening worship. Then, just as my rescheduled morning flight was about to touchdown in St. Louis, I could have dangled my legs out the window and touched the ground, the plane made a quick re-ascent as an unexpected plane was on our landing strip.
I was never getting to my destination.
Needless to say, I eventually made it. As my Lyft driver drove down the highway, I saw the St. Louis Arch that welcomes you into the city. Then I breathed.
The Arch stands 630 feet high and is a beautiful feat of architecture adjacent to the Mississippi River. Originally designed as a symbol of America’s gateway to glory through Westward expansion, each morning as I ran by the monument I could not help but wonder if there was another side to the story of America’s quest for glory and expansion? What about the Native Americans who had lived on that land long before we arrived? What about Africans who would be enslaved on these lands? Is the Arch really a symbol of glory and a gateway of hope for all? Depends on whom you ask. And in the shadows of this Arch are both a historic courthouse and an old Christian cathedral.
Which begged more questions, hence snapping this photo.
Where is the church in the midst of it all?
Whose glory do we pursue?
What kind of gateway are we daring to open?
Are we a gateway to the glory of empire or the glory of God and the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven?
These were also some of the questions raised in their own way by the faithful gathered for the General Assembly. This was also the question posed by Psalm 24 that called us into worship this morning- fling wide you gates so the King of Glory may come in.
Now for some context. The people of God were called out of Egypt to be an alternative community to Pharaoh and his empire and gifted by Yahweh with their own rituals, laws, and sacred practices that hinged on the worship of God who will be who God will be. And who will this God be? One who cares for the poor and oppressed, widows and orphans, hungry and enslaved, and all who look for refuge and safety from emperors, empires, and their own expansive quests for glory. This God was also calling out a people to fling wide their gates to this God’s glory and become an archway of jubilee for those so often exploited by the Pharaohs of every generation. This is why the Psalmist writes, “who shall stand in God’s holy place? Those with clean hands and pure hearts and who do not lift up their souls to what is false.”
I could go on. But the lectionary story to be engaged this morning comes to us from the Gospel of Mark Chapter 6, with the likes of Psalm 24 as backdrop for the events leading to the rather gruesome beheading of John the Baptist.
“Our people were decimated by war and disease from some 50 million in 1400 to barely 230,000 in 1895. There are numbers of documented cases where small pox infected blankets were sent to villages (biological terrorism) and bounties were paid for the heads and scalps of Native men, women and children. Today we are 2.4 million in the USA and 1.2 in Canada. But, perhaps what makes the story most tragic is that so much of this was the result of the misappropriation of the biblical narrative that was co-opted as a tool of colonial imperialism. However, the story is not finished” (Richard Twiss, “All My Relatives”). [1]
Is this really a cause for celebration every second Monday in October? How is it that we can have a federal holiday that commemorates Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in the beginning of the year and another towards the end that underscores ignorance in regards to one of the most heinous demonstrations of genocide in recorded Western and human history? Again, we are reminded that at the forefront of both these movements were confessing Christians and the Church. Said differently, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so” (James 3:10).
It seems that it is not much different in the theological arena, where the voice of Native American and First-Nation Christians continues to be left out of the conversation in favor of Western, white theological colonialism. And I am guilty just the same. Richard Twiss is the founder of Wiconi International, a community of First-Nation Christians, and a leading voice in First-Nation Christian theology. Yet I confess, his address to the World Communion of Reformed Churches Uniting General Council was my first real exposure to this significant attestation to the on-going activity of God’s Spirit and the gospel of Jesus. Moreover, Twiss reminds us that our cathedrals and churches, fellowship halls and sanctuaries, sacred spaces and youth rooms are built on land that is not our own:
"A close examination of the national Christian speaking platforms across the land reveal the glaring absence of native men and women who are ascribed a place spiritual stature in our own land. And I repeat in our own land. And I repeat again, in our own land!"
The Christian hope is not for a monoculture, hegemonic kingdom of God whereby everyone looks the same, worships the same, prays the same, interprets the same, or even thinks the same. N. Gordon Cosby, founder of Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., once wrote, "The Church of the Holy Spirit is full of variety. Sameness and conformity are the demands of alien spirits." [2] How tragic, then, that our versions of Christian theology strive for such sameness and assume the posture of Western, white theology, i.e. Anglo-Protestant theology, as the way, the truth, and the life. This is not to say that Western theology has neither a place at the table, nor a valid contribution to the Christian faith, for indeed it does. Even more, I am deeply grateful for the traditions and confessions made by the likes of Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Barth, for they are my own. We just must not assume for a second that any one person, culture, or system “can write theology for all times, places, and persons” (Cone xi). To do so would be yet another demonstration of cultural imperialism headed by individuals and communities of faith naïve to the plurality of truth that is not a hindrance, rather witness to the cultural mosaic called the kingdom of God. And this kingdom is already here and yet to come, if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
So Columbus Day- a cause for celebration or a call to confession? Maybe both. Christians must confess the realities of an oppressive history that has paralleled ecclesial traditions, missions, and confessions. We must repent of the expansion of the faith that has often come through the abuse of power, the co-option of local cultures by Western ideals, and the exploitation of indigenous and tribal peoples. It should also be a cause for celebration. However, instead of the second Monday in October commemorating Columbus’ stumbling over “new” territory, it should be an opportunity to acknowledge the first-nations and Native Americans, many who are our brothers and sisters in Christ, whose history, tradition, culture, and gospel witness have so often been trumped by the stranger and foreigner in their midst, i.e. people like me. It is about time I listen to their theological and ecclesial contributions.
Notes:
[1] For the full text of Richard Twiss' address: http://www.reformedchurches.org/docs/RichardTwiss-English.pdf
[2] See O'Connor, Elizabeth. Eighth Day of Creation. Washington, D.C.: The Potter's House Bookservice, 1971. This is yet another beautiful publication from the communities apart of Church of the Saviour. This missional church community has been around since the early 1950's and is a brilliant example of incarnational, intentional, and holistic faith communities: http://www.inwardoutward.org/
[3] See Cone, James H. A Black Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990.
