Offered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church St Louis on the 25th Sunday after Pentecost November 14, 2021
In 1990 President George H. W. Bush
declared November as Native American Heritage Month. Just like Women’s History,
Black History, Pride, and many more, these designations are meant to bring
attention to those groups of people who have suffered from indignities and
prejudices. It is to offer us a new perspective. So it is today an opportunity to
see from a different view.
The way Indigenous people have been
and are treated is the first of many United States of America horror stories that
show how race determines who is considered less human and therefore expendable.
The transgressions against the native people who first lived with the lands and
the settlers who took the land is just beginning to be truthfully explored.
Richard Rohr's Meditation “Living
with the Land” speaks to the differences in how the Settlers and the Indigenous
people saw the land. I am paraphrasing some of his words today.
Most Christians in the Western World
have been shaped by a culture and faith that tells us that land acquisition is
a normal thing regardless of the cost to others, ourselves, or to the land
itself. God made humans stewards of creation therefore it is ours to use. Rohr
writes “… our lack of attention to the Christ Mystery can be seen in the way we
continue to pollute and ravage Planet Earth, the very thing we all stand on and
live from.” Our relationship with the land is in direct correlation to our lack
of respect for one other.
Theologian, scholar, and Cherokee
descendant Randy Woodley points out that the land itself meant something quite
different to those who settled it than it did to those who first lived here.
The failure of the settlers to tread lightly, with humility and respect, for
the land was the problem. The settlers lived on the land, taking what
they wanted when they wanted it regardless of what might be needed in the
future. The native people lived with the land, always respecting the
natural balance, never taking more than was necessary. It was a sacred
understanding.
This is important because this land we are on – actually, not only the land that
Saint Louis is on but the broad expanse of land from the Ohio River Valley west
to the Red River – is the ancestral lands of the Osage Nation. The Osage
history is important to the history of Missouri.
In a 2014 PBS special, Osage Elder Eddy Red Eagle Jr., Drum
Keeper and Osage history, cultural, and spirituality expert talked about when
the French and French-Canadians arrived in this area of Saint Louis. They “had
very little money but they had intelligence, and a strong family life, communal
life.” This meant a good deal to the Osage because they had common intentions. Not
only did they trade together, but old Cathedral records show that there was
intermarriage and that leaders of both groups supported their mutual
grandchildren. They were community.
The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 changed everything.
As we all know,
the US government regarded Native Americans as “savages”, fully expendable, and
moved them from their ancestral homelands whenever more land was wanted. In
addition to the forced migration, epidemics of European illnesses ravaged
Native American populations. In 1808, to maintain peace and care for their
people, Osage leaders handed over their Missouri lands and hunting grounds to
the U.S. government at the Fort Osage Treaty.
A little bit of history: We all know of Cahokia Mounds in
Illinois. Yet, did you know that the area of St Louis was home to at least 25
mounds, 14 of which were in the area we know as the Great Basin?
The purpose of these mounds is varied yet all were considered
sacred. Many tribes consider the mounds as symbols of Mother Earth, the giver
of life, the womb from which humanity emerged and was formed.
A November 8 article in the St Louis Post Dispatch gives a history
of the mounds. There were 25 mounds from Biddle Street to Mound Street east of
Broadway and north of today’s Laclede Landing. Big Mound was the largest. It
was north of downtown on the rise overlooking the Mississippi River. It was 319
feet long, 158 feet wide, and 34 feet high.
Although archaeologists determined that these mounds were built
between 1000 and 1450 AD, between 1830 and 1869, all those north of downtown were
removed. Any evidence of previous lives inside of the mounds were unceremoniously
discarded. A quote as Big Mound was being destroyed: “Men are digging on every
side. And what should have been purchased by the city and preserved inviolate will
soon be known only in location tradition.” While there were some objectors,
they were overwhelmed by what the St Louis Dispatch called “the grasping
money-making spirit of our age.”
Sugar Loaf Mound, which stands at 4420 Ohio Avenue less than two
miles from St. Paul’s, is the last sacred mound. The Osage Nation was able to
purchase the top half of the mound a few years ago. The bottom portion of the
mound is owned by someone who is still living in the home that sits at the base
of the mound.
Due to misinformation, false histories, and glorified tales
meant to embellish the idea of Americana, we are woefully ignorant of what has
been. Were it not for the recent discovery of unmarked graves of native
children in Catholic and Anglican Indian Boarding Schools in Canada, the traumas
endured by indigenous people of North America might remain unknown. Presiding
Bishop Curry and House of Deputies President Jennings have called for a full
understanding of what happened in the Episcopal Indian Boarding Schools. There
remains much to be learned both in Canada and those US schools.
The discovery and opening of the graves in Canada are ongoing
tragedies, a catastrophic loss of a generation of children who were removed
from their families, mistreated by the Church, traumatized and abused by those
who were in charge, and then, too many, dying and hidden in unmarked graves. Those
families who lost these children or those who survived the trauma of the
schools and deculturation of indigenous traits continue to feel the pain today.
Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
opened in 1879 as the first government run boarding school for Native American
children. They had a motto – Kill the Indian Save the Man; meaning, strip the
native children from their culture and language, replace it with “Christian”
values and they stood a possible chance of become good American citizens.
The values that the Catholic, Anglican, and Episcopal schools
were attempting to erase from the Indigenous children are those same values
that will save this creation – living with the land in respect, humility and
using only what is necessary, understanding that all of these speak to the
sacred nature of God’s Creation.
How do we begin to talk about reparations for these sins?
Stolen lands and children, genocide, desecrated graves,
ancestral bones placed in museums, sacred lands turned into golf courses and
pathways for oil and gas pipelines, water poisoned, mounds destroyed — these
are just some of the sins committed, not only by the settlers of North America
but continuing today.
These sins belong to each one of us, just as the sins against
those African peoples who were stolen from their countries and enslaved for
labor and used as a resource for future labor. It does not matter that none of
us here today were there. We would love to tell ourselves that we would be
different, do differently. Yet, today, in this world where we decry such sins,
how do we contribute to the existing empire and that dominate culture that makes
poverty a crime and rewards the richest?
At all Diocesan events, it is now proclaimed:
“We respectfully recognize and acknowledge that we are on
traditional, ancestral lands of the Osage Nation. The process of acknowledging
the land we stand on is a way of accepting our complicity in a process of
colonization that removed the Osage people from their ancestral lands. We also
make this acknowledgment to affirm our commitment to stand with indigenous
communities today as they seek justice and resist continued threats to their
sovereignty and humanity.”
This is an important statement because first and foremost, statements
such as this were requested by Native American tribes as an acknowledgment of
stolen lands. Secondly, this diocesan statement goes beyond acknowledgement and
calls for more action.
I recently read John Philip Newell’s book Sacred Earth Sacred
Soul and it lays out so clearly so many instances when the Church has
contributed to the empire.
Nadia Bolz-Weber said, “People don’t leave Christianity because
they stop believing in the teachings of Jesus … [they] leave … because they
believe in the teachings of Jesus so much, they can’t stomach being part of an
institution that claims to be about that and clearly isn’t.”
The idea that one race of people could envision themselves as being
chosen by God to expand across North America, converting or killing anyone who stood
in the way is an extreme example of egoism – their self-interest was the foundation
of their morality. That is a flawed ideology that continues today.
We cannot talk about the sins against humanity without
understanding the scope of the damage to not just those who were first on this
land 400 plus years ago but those who exist in our nation and throughout the
world today whose lives are being destroyed by human caused climate disaster
And
not just those who were kidnapped and sold into slavery but
those who continue to suffer from environmental racism here in this city,
state, and nation.
These sins continue. And we cannot talk about the sins of
humanity without trying to understand what this means to this creation –
Creation meaning the WHOLE of us – ALL things that God created.
This is a much bigger conversation than can be had in this short
space. Yet it must happen.
Jesus said, “This is but the beginnings of the birth pangs”. — What
new thing will come from truth?
Truths:
1.)
Our differences do not make us less than; rather, it enhances
the indescribability of God’s diverse creation. Can we imagine only one type of
bird? Only one type of tree?
2.)
It doesn’t matter how much the stories of the wounded hurt us;
we must hear these stories.
We are at a time in our lives where it feels that we are awaiting
the Great Apocalypse. Some interpretations of the Revelation and by Hollywood tell
us that an apocalypse means the end of time is near and it is the final
destruction, a catastrophic event. Yet, theologically, in Greek, apocalypse
means to uncover, disclose, reveal. What does our past reveal to us? What is
being uncovered? What truth is there to learn?
That is what Jesus is doing today in Mark’s Gospel.
Jesus is unveiling a truth — once again he is telling us to pay
attention. Do not be led astray by false prophets or fake news. None of it is
important. Remember what we already know. Don’t worry about when all the great
buildings will be thrown down or of earthquakes. God is making everything new,
offering us new chances to be part of the renewal of all things. God did not
make this mess we are now in but there is hope because we know God is always
with us.
And what do we know about these sins of humanity against
humanity? We know that loving God and loving our neighbor is not a rote saying.
It is a life-line, a way of living. This is what First Nations people
understand so clearly. It means respecting one another and all aspects of
creation. It means that we take care of one another, not in spite of our
differences but because of these. Diversity is a rule of creation. We need
diversity. Living for one another is a rule of nature.
There must be acknowledgement and confession that a sin against
one part of humanity happened because of another part. There must be
conversation about reparation – WITH the people whose truths we need to hear. And
it is only then that there can be reconciliation. And yes. There will be
birthpangs yet what do we anticipate when a mother and child are feeling the
pains of birth? We anticipate new life! God is still making all things new,
just as in the beginning, is now and always will be. We are a part of that new
thing – all of us.
Stay alert. Remember what we already know. Let go of false
prophets and flawed ideologies. This is not about self – one very small part.
It is about the whole of us – all that God created.
Live in the hope that God offers us in the making of all things
new.
Amen.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/American_Indian_Heritage_Month.htm#:~:text=In%201990%20Congress%20passed%20and,as%20Native%20American%20Indian%20Month).
https://cac.org/living-with-the-land-2021-10-20/
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/arts/2014-03-31/osage-nation-leaders-help-explain-st-louis-earliest-days
https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/#:~:text=Carlisle%20Indian%20Industrial%20School%20in,Indian%2C%20Save%20the%20Man.%E2%80%9D
https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2020/09/15/the-black-church-a-day-late-and-a-dollar-short/
