C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for November 25, 2007
http://deathandconscience.blogspot.com/2007/11/poverty-usa-native-americans_17.html The South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “When the white man first came to Africa, he had the Bible and we had the land. Then the white man said, ‘Let us close our eyes and pray,’ and when we opened our eyes, we had the Bible and he had the land.” In that short quote, Tutu captured the essence of western conquest of indigenous people around the world. When people and cultures are lost due to conquest, it’s always tragic. When people and cultures are lost in the name of Christianity, it’s an embarrassment. Itching for Jesus I wonder whether some of you have read the Barbara Kingsolver novel, Poisonwood Bible? It is an important novel, and captures many of today’s themes. The title is interesting in itself. The white missionary who went to the Congo to convert the locals to Christianity, decided one Sunday morning that he wanted to preach in a way that would relate to the local people. So he used a phrase that he thought would be meaningful for local people. What he said was “Tata Jesus is Bangala.” What he meant to say was, “Worship Jesus, who is our precious savior.” And so he worked himself up into a frenzy, “Tata Jesus is Bangala! Tata Jesus is Bangala!” Not realizing that it was being completely lost in translation, and what he was actually saying was, “Jesus is poisonwood!” So what the locals heard was “worshipping Jesus is like having a mighty itch”. I can only imagine that for many of the locals listening to his preaching was like having a mighty itch. There is a wonderful scene in the book where a swarm of ants runs through the village. Millions of ants completely take over the village, to the point where everyone needs to escape. There is a poignant reversal, because the white missionaries, who have come to the Congo to save these people from their heathen culture, find themselves needing to be saved by the Congolese. So the white people are panicking and screaming and questioning everything as the Congolese villagers deliver them safely to the river. Along the way the Congolese are actually comforting the white missionaries, telling them it is okay, the ants are doing what they need to do, now we are doing what we need to do, and the upside is that the ants will cleanse the village, clean it out and allow us to come back in and restore our lives. Meanwhile, the white missionaries believe that this is a curse from God, plaguing the villages because of their heathen lifestyle. They are even questioning their own faith, that they would be caught up in the middle of this, never realizing for a second that they have come to the Congo like a swarm of ants themselves. They have moved through this culture and village like an army of insects, devouring everything in sight. The Congolese know how to adapt to their environment. For the missionaries to think they can plop their American culture into the Congo is naive The Christianity that these missionaries brought to the Congo was completely meaningless to the villagers, and was captured so well in the scene with the swarming of the ants through the village. Divide and Conquer Christian missionaries came to this country and offered to the Native Americans the sign of the cross. In the sign of the cross many Native Americans felt a resonance with their own ritual of the four directions. And so many trusted the missionaries. It seemed consistent for them. But before long they realized that what was being taken from them was their lives, their languages, and their land. Many of them realized that the sign of the cross actually was the sign of “divide and conquer.” They realized very quickly that the sign of the cross stood for everything that the church wanted to achieve in their missionary agenda; power, and the oppression of culture. What’s taken place for indigenous peoples around the world is a complete travesty of justice. It’s made even worse by the fact that it has been brought in the name of Christianity. What could be further from the intention of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus than to rob people of their cultures? The whole intent of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus’ teaching was to go to people, even the poorest people, and say, “Retain your culture. Your culture is sacred, your language is sacred, do not give it up.” Jesus, who would have known Greek well, the language of the empire, instead chose to speak Aramaic. Jesus, with his message for Jewish peasants, spoke the common language of Aramaic. And in speaking Aramaic, he empowered Jewish peasants to retain their tongue, to keep their culture. Mammon and Culture There are two Aramaic words I would like to highlight. The first is Abba, or Father, from the gospels, and the other is Mammon. Jesus used the word Abba with Jewish peasants who would not have been accustomed to addressing God at all, other than in roundabout ways. And yet he used this distinctive Aramaic common word, Abba. It is a word that conjures an image of an intimate relationship. The message to Jewish peasants was that they could have a direct experience of God. They didn’t need anyone else to mediate their experience of divinity; not the church, and certainly not the empire. No one can give it to you, and no one can take it away from you. Abba indicates an intimate, direct, inner relationship with God. The second word Jesus used was Mammon, again a distinctive Aramaic word. Mammon was the accumulation of wealth and power with no regard to context or culture. It is the love of money, rather than money itself. It is soulless wealth. Mammon was the unstoppable force of the empire. Jesus’ message to Jewish peasants was, “Do not be seduced by Mammon.” The wealth and the power of Mammon will give you nothing compared to the inner peace of a direct experience of Abba, God, divine mystery, sacred wonder. In a sense, Mammon represents the false allure of western development. Indigenous peoples may need some aspects of western development in order to survive in the modern world, but if the cost of development is your own soul then it is not worth it. Mammon is advancement without inner peace, wealth without soul. These are just two examples, and there are so many more in the way Jesus used Aramaic to empower people to retain their sacred culture. What has happened to indigenous peoples around the world is a tragedy. It’s unforgivable that it has happened in the name of Jesus and Christianity. If the progressive movement has a theme running through it, it is to empower people to retain their culture and to do that in the name of Jesus. Jesus’ primary intent was for people to be self-empowered to find their own sense of the sacred. Now the loss of life and land and language amongst indigenous cultures is a tragedy, and I think that it is a tragedy for all of us. “Mitakuye Oyasin” is very true in this regard. We are all related, and the poverty on reservations is all of our poverty. There are three reasons that this matters for all of us, that the devastation of indigenous culture is the devastation of white, European culture as well. Loss of Identity and Poverty The first is because the levels of poverty that are developing amongst indigenous peoples is becoming so significant and so devastating that it is a national social problem. In the video you saw about Pine Ridge, it spoke about some of the consequences of poverty, including alcoholism and domestic violence. But where does poverty come from? Poverty comes from the loss of identity and meaning. Just in regards to language, the level of loss that has taken place in this country is enormous. When Columbus arrived, there were 300 indigenous languages spoken. Now there are 170. Of those 170, only twenty are spoken by children, which means that we are coming very close to the extinction of indigenous language in this country. Why does that matter? It matters because these are oral traditions. There is not much written down. The culture and spirit of the traditions is passed down orally through language, and if the languages are lost, so will the cultures be lost. There is a direct relationship between the loss of language, the loss of identity and poverty. Poverty amongst Native Americans is worse than any other sector of the community. Over 33% of Native Americans in this country live in poverty. And the situation on reservations is even worse. Over 40% of Native Americans living on reservations live in poverty. That is a horrendous statistic. That is a horrendous situation that is a national problem. We cannot ignore it anymore. Ecosystems Depend on Diversity The second reason it matters to all of us is that ecosystems depend on diversity. The ecosystem is all about relationships. Male-female, the food chain, biodiversity, it all depends on diversity. This loss of diversity threatens the very ecosystem that sustains us. We need Native American spirituality in order to save the planet. We need the diversity of different cultures and different languages, and traditions in order to sustain this wondrous ecosystem, a spiritual ecosystem of which we are a part. Overnight some of you may have heard the news that Australia has a new prime minister. There are two significant consequences, and the first is that most likely the Kyoto treaty will be signed by Australia. The second significant factor is that the new prime minister of Australia speaks Mandarin. I’m not aware of any former prime minister who could speak Mandarin. This signifies a new interconnectedness with China and the rest of the world. It was a very significant result in Australia, and one that speaks to this issue this morning, that of the earth, the respect for the earth, and the respect for language and culture. Christianity Needs Indigenous Spirituality The third reason that this matters to all of us I believe is the most important. That is we need native spirituality to infuse a heart and soul back into Christianity. Traditional Christianity has been expressed and communicated as the categorization of either the saved or the unsaved, this world and the other world, the sacred and the profane. And all of life was segmented into one or the other. Liberal Christianity has deconstructed traditional Christianity. It’s been intelligent, but bland. It’s effectively taken the heart and soul out of Christianity. Indigenous spirituality offers us a wonderful gift, suggesting to us that all of life is sacred. There is nothing that is not touched by sacred wonder. All of life is a resource for spiritual growth, and every moment is infused with sacred wonder. Indigenous spirituality takes us back to the essence of the Hebrew prophets, and Jesus, who taught that compassion grows out of a divine connectedness between all things. We need indigenous spirituality to re-instill a sense of heart and soul into Christianity. We will allow the continued slaughter of indigenous life and culture at our own peril- lest we think that our material advancement in the west is a mighty prize, and has god’s blessing, we will pause one day only to realize that we have left indigenous culture a skeleton of what it once was, the earth a flimsy façade of what it always has been, and in the mirror we will see our own reflection fading from view Skeleton Woman In the Inuit tradition, there is a story of a fisherman who trolls an inlet. When a heavy pull on the fisherman's line drags his kayak to sea, he thinks he has caught the "big one," a fish so large he can eat for weeks, a fish so fat that he will prosper ever after, a fish so amazing that the whole village will wonder at his prowess. As he imagines his fame, what he reels up is Skeleton Woman, a woman flung from a cliff and buried long ago, a fish-eaten carcass resting at the bottom of the sea that is now entangled in his line. Skeleton Woman is so snarled in his fishing line that she is dragged behind the fisherman wherever he goes. She is pulled across the water, over the beach, and into his house where he collapses in terror. The fisherman, feeling pity for her, slowly disentangles her, straightens her bony carcass, and finally falls asleep. During the night, the fisherman has dreams of deep regret, so much so that he begins to weep. Skeleton Woman scratches and crawls her way across the floor, drinks the tears of the dreaming fisherman, and grows anew her flesh and heart and body. When the man woke up in the morning, there was a flesh and bone woman lying alongside him. He realized at that point that he and Skeleton Woman were one. She was an aspect of him. They were never separate. All that she needed was his tears of regret. His heart had broken and his broken heart had fed her and brought her to life. Skeleton woman represents life and death. She is a reminder that with every beginning there is an ending, for all that is taken, something must be given in return, that the earth is cyclical and requires respect. In the progressive movement, we have a wonderful opportunity to bring Skeleton Woman alive in all of us, and in cultures. We have a wonderful opportunity, if only we would shed the tears of regret that are needed. Our tears will build flesh on indigenous spirituality. Our tears will build hope. We will use indigenous spirituality to fill our own religion and tradition with the heart and the soul. If only we would learn that for everything that is taken, something must be given back. My prayer this morning goes out to the four directions. To all people and for all people no matter what their tradition, beliefs, culture or language: I seek blessings from the East, the rising of the sun, a place of fresh perspective, clarity and imagination. From the North I seek the blessings of strength, courage, and resilience. From the West, the setting of the sun, we seek the strength of the elders, those who have gone before us, their wonderful courage, and the knowledge that comes with years. From the South we seek growth and healing. From above we seek the blessings of creative spirit, ground of being, God, whatever name is meaningful for you. From beneath we seek the blessings of Mother Earth, Gaia, the interconnectedness of all things. Mitakuye Oyasin. From the East, North, West, South, from above and below, blessings to you. Like the stars may your love be constant. Like the earth may your life be grounded. Like the sun may your spirit shine. Mitakuye Oyasin. All things are related. close window | ^ top | home |