The Second Sunday after Epiphany Year A

Sermon Series Part 2
My Truth

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

I begin this sermon by acknowledging the First Nations in whose territory we live and express my thanks for this opportunity to meet here today. And I put before you two questions. How will you in this parish share in the ministry of truth and reconciliation? And more importantly what does it even mean?

As the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceeded, we have heard the stories of abuse and hardship that our First Nations people have endured. I hope that you have followed those stories as they have unfolded. That is the ‘truth’ part of the equation. As I speak about Truth and Reconciliation I still hear stereotypical responses from people. You know what I mean. Lazy! Welfare bums! Drunks! Dirty! What I hear most of all is that it was a long time ago. “It has nothing to do with me!” people will tell me. “Besides, the Church has already paid out compensation. That should be the end of it.” But here is the difficulty for me. It took generations to make the mess; it will take generations of truly listening to the stories and making amends to undo the problems that were created by our racist attitudes.

Having chosen to preach a series of sermons on the Truth and Reconciliation process, and more importantly having decided that this week I would focus on the truth part of the equation, I found very little in the readings that opened up the story for me. They are for the most part a wonderful list of ‘how to’s’. How to get along as a community! How to reach out to others! How to respond to God’s call! All wonderful topics, of course, but not helpful to me in focusing on my chosen topic. And so I turn to the psalm for today. It too gives us a ‘how to’. It is a psalm of Thanksgiving, but also a lament. It suggests how to find inner strength, how to tap into our hidden gifts and resources. And so I find myself pondering whether it might echo the lament of our First Nations People. Can we see this as a lament turned to praise that First Nations People might use? They have waited patiently for their condition to change. They wait for that sense of deliverance that is God’s promise to God’s people.

The Psalmist, presumably David as this is considered one of his psalms, gives a picture of his life before and after God responds to his plea for help. David was in a miry pit. It was muddy, sticky and difficult to maneuver in. He needed help to free himself from the difficult circumstances in which he found himself. He was ready to give up. “Before,” David says, “my life was terrible. But I waited patiently and God came to my help.”
You can hear the fatigue in his lament.

As I have listened to the stories of truth from First Nations People, I hear that same fatigue. They are tired. They are tired of yearning for what was. They are tired of feeling inadequate. They are above all tired of feeling powerless to bring about change. How do we turn their lament into a song of praise?

I want to share a little of my story, my truth, and of some of the steps that I have taken to reconciliation. My first year of teaching was at St. Philip’s Residential School in Fort George, Quebec, on the Quebec coast of James Bay about two hundred air miles north of Moosonee. It is now called Chisassibi; it is where the James Bay Power Project went in. It was, when I taught there, a rather isolated village. Except for the six weeks or so of freeze up and whatever time it took for the break up, there were three planes a week if the weather cooperated. The moment I stepped off the plane, a “veteran” teacher asked me if I was a “reject” or a “misfit”. “That is all we get here!” he went on to say. Although I do not believe either of those words describes my reason for going north, after all, I was a mere seventeen, I certainly had an idealized view of what it meant to be an “Indian”. My concept of First Nations People came from the pictures of cute little pig-tailed Aboriginal children on the mission boxes that we got at church. I decided it was my mission to go north to teach.

There were seven classes in our school. Not all of the children lived in the residence. Perhaps a third of them lived in the village. It was made clear to all of us that we were there to teach the children English, in fact to turn them into white children. They were not to speak their language. If we heard them speak we were to correct them. I had one little girl, Dora Ekumiak, an Inuit, who, while she did her work just fine, would not say a word. She finally spoke to me out in the schoolyard towards the end of the year. After that she never stopped. I suspect she was simply waiting until she got it right. The children were quiet and very respectful. There was never any need for discipline.

There was not enough room for all of the teachers to have their own apartment in the Teacherage, so two of us, the youngest, had rooms in the residence. We were directly under the primary girls’ dorm. It is heart breaking to me to remember the sobs that I often heard at night as the children settled down to sleep. I know that I felt lonely and isolated away from family for the first time. And I had chosen to be there. How much more those little ones must have felt in that strange environment without the comfort of parents and siblings! I have learned that brothers and sisters were often split up and sent to different schools. Many would not see another family member for years.

What I remember most about teaching the children was their creative ability. They were wonderful artists. Supplies were often unavailable, and so I would beg my family to send me paper. They sent rolls of wallpaper, which became wonderful murals on the classroom walls. I also got them to send me bars of ivory soap so that the children could carve them like soapstone. The results were amazing.

I had to laugh hearing one man’s story about how much time was spent in prayer. The children in the residence went to chapel every morning before going to school. I put together a little choir that sang on Sundays and sometimes in the chapel in the morning. I never could get them to sing up to speed, but they enjoyed it, especially if I accompanied them on the wheezy old pump organ.

Although it was discouraged, I did get to know a family from the village and spent a week during our Easter break on their trap line. It was a life-changing experience, one that I cherish. But on our return, the Principal called me into his office, and threatened me with being fired if I ever did anything like that again.

That is the ‘truth’ part of the story. I would not trade that teaching experience for anything. Yet I lost it! When information began to emerge about abuse in the schools I was horrified, especially when teachers were blamed for the children’s loss of language and culture. I avoided telling anyone about my experience. Then I went to a conference. I found myself signing up for a workshop on the Healing Circle. It was led by an elder, and was attended by about a dozen or so First Nations women and me. We sat in a circle. The elder explained the process. She would pass a feather around the circle. When it came to us we could hold it as long as we wished. We could speak whatever we wished to say. When we were finished we could pass it on to the next person. As it was passed around the circle, most of the women told stories about the residential schools, and about the abuse they had endured. I planned to just sit there without speaking, but when the feather got to me, I heard myself telling them my story. I told them about the children in my class and how much I had cared for them. I told them how ashamed I felt now, but also how I had lost that precious time that was so pivotal in my teaching career. I expressed my sadness at their pain. I passed the feather on to the next woman. Suddenly there was a loud ‘Whoop!’ They all joined in. The elder thanked me and said that I was their sister. That is reconciliation.

The First Nations People have a great capacity for praising God. God continues to speak to them through all of creation. The rocks are grandfathers, rock solid, dependable, ancient. The moon is the grandmother, source of life, controlling the waters of the earth, bringing about life. The feather speaks of gentleness, of the ability to go with the flow. It symbolizes reverence for the Creator and all of life.

It is time for us to start listening to First Nations People. It is time to walk with them. It is time to allow their stories to turn form lament to praise. It is time to hear their stories and learn from them who God is and how to worship.

My hope is that we will listen to the truth, hear with our hearts, and stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters. Let us put our minds together in Thanksgiving. In Ojibway, “Chi-miigwech”! “Thank you very much!”