Today, as we observe Orange Shirt Sunday and prepare for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we gather to reflect on how we can support Indigenous voices and honor the memories of all those who suffered in the residential school system. We gather to support the message that Every Child Matters, today and every day.
A few hundred years ago, when settlers first came to the shores of the land we exist on today, they came armed with many dangerous things, but of the most dangerous that they carried was a concept called the Doctrine of Discovery.
The Doctrine of Discovery was a legal and religious policy put forth by the Catholic Church in the 15th century that proclaimed the right of Christian nations to take possession of lands inhabited by non-Christians, for the purpose of “saving their souls”. The belief then was that owning land was a God-given right, so how could those who did not worship the same God by the same name and attend the same churches be allowed to exist as equals?
This Doctrine was used to justify, among many things, the claiming of Indigenous lands, the operation and forced attendance of residential schools, the mass removal of Indigenous children from their families during the Sixties Scoop, and the criminalization of Indigenous spiritual and cultural practices.
This idea of cultural and moral superiority was used to justify the removal of a brand new Orange shirt from a six year old girl, taken from her home along with an estimated 150,000 other children, in attempts to erase her entire identity and culture. An orange shirt that would one day become a symbol of remembrance of all those who suffered through residential schools, and all who never came home.
These dangerous concepts may seem ancient, almost unimaginable in their cruelty and brutality. But the last residential school closed its doors in 1997. The United Church formally acknowledged their part in the residential school system and apologized in 1998, the federal government in 2008. The Catholic Church then formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery just 3 years ago in 2023, after innumerable calls and demands of accountability from Indigenous Peoples. Despite any apology, the immense intergenerational trauma from colonial narratives and systems continues to affect communities and individuals to this day.
To hear of the history of Christianity in Canada like this is uncomfortable. Often, it clashes so fundamentally against the experiences we may personally have with religion and faith. But change often necessitates discomfort, as well as opening our minds to the lessons the world has for us, the lessons our God has for us if we open our hearts. In order to commit to telling truths and acting towards reconciliation, the least we can do is try and get a little more comfortable with being uncomfortable. The work of acknowledging the parts of our histories that disturb us, especially while we continue to reside on land that was taken from Indigenous Peoples, is as uncomfortable as it is necessary.
When we talk about unwinding old concepts of superiority and dominance from the way we practice faith today, part of that is confronting the ways in which those actions were justified. And acknowledging the harms that a colonial narrative of inherent worthiness can have and continue to have all over the world. Similar kinds of selective tellings can happen closer to home, in our own worship. Psalm 78, lines 12-16, tells us of what God can do. We are told of miracles, of God who divided the sea, brought water from stone. It is a wonderful passage. However, the great majority of the Psalm is excluded. The parts excluded by the assigned lectionary of the United Church, lines 17-65, detail the disobedience of the people of Israel. The passage describes the eventual “wrath, indignation, and hostility” of God (49), and the deaths that followed.
Often there is an urge to worship the miracles, spread word of the good news of faith, let our eyes pass quickly over the passages that disquiet us. Something I have learned right here, from our wonderful Reverend and the incredible guest preachers we have had, is what great perspective and wisdom we can gain from not being afraid of reading passages that can be a little hard to look at.
To move forward is to acknowledge the pain that those passages have caused. It is to see the links between incredibly literal and recent real world interpretations of ending the days of the disobedient “in futility, and their years in terror” (Psalm 78:33) to those who worship any other than a specific God.
If we are to commit to telling truths, we cannot let the past be erased, and we must acknowledge the effects that these traumas have had and continue to have on Indigenous communities. The Indian Act of 1876, which was responsible for denying Indigenous Peoples basic rights, has been modified and amended, but still stands today, 150 years later. The reserve system is still operated by the Canadian government, with many First Nations reserves existing in remote locations with minimal access to basic services. Indigenous Peoples represent about 5% of the population within Canada, and yet make up 35-40% of the unhoused population, and over 50% of children in the foster care system. Despite many legal cases and continued words of cooperation, the Canadian government is still failing to live up to promises of respecting Indigenous rights and sovereignty, Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing – promises that are older than our cities and any of our histories here.
In Philippians 2:2, we heard that our God calls upon us to “Be like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind”. I do not believe that having the same love means we need to use the exact same words, or speak the same language, or worship the exact same way. To move forward with humility, is to know our God takes many forms, and lives in the love we have for each other and the grace we extend to all those around us. Our God calls us to the Holy work of making space for other perspectives and ways of knowing, of valuing other ways of being as we value our own. More, even.
I have learned so much about my own faith from speaking to those who view the world in a completely different way. My best friend is not a Christian, and we speak often about how regardless of this, we move through the world so similarly and with the same values of respect and kindness. How through completely different avenues and lessons we learned to hold the same things sacred. The other day we were talking about a really emotionally challenging period in her life, and she told me “Just because I did not call for a God doesn’t mean I wasn’t praying.” As is the case with many things that she says to me, I’ve been sitting with it ever since.
Here, we feel faith in this church, and every Sunday this community and the grace found here helps hold me upright for another week. But all over the world people are sustained by what is holy to them, with thoughts of love and kindness and pain that we might call prayer – but regardless of what anyone calls it, the important thing is you act upon whatever moves you to spread that healing love throughout the world. A love that does not just belong to the church.
Since time immemorial, the Indigenous peoples of this land, the many distinct First Nations and hundreds of unique Indigenous communities have had their own connections to faith, to spirit, to creator, to what is sacred. The past few hundred years of Christianity-dominant practices and policies, and of incredible Indigenous resilience and resistance, are really just a fraction of the thousands and thousands of years Indigenous peoples have stewarded this land.
The writer and activist Lee Maracle of Sto:lo Nation once asked “Where do you begin telling someone their world is not the only one?” Because claims that there is only one right way to have faith, that a certain way of believing or practicing devotion can make one community or one people singularly worthy of life and dignity and respect, those claims are disastrously harmful. And not only that, but they make this beautiful and diverse world that our God made for us so much smaller, so unnecessarily uniform and binary. The words of our faith urge us to do nothing out of “selfish ambition or vain conceit” (Philippians 2:3), but rather to act in humility, valuing others and looking to the interests of others.
To me that is inextricable from committing to telling truths and acting towards reconciliation. To speak honestly about what horrors have been enacted against Indigenous Peoples in God’s name, to speak out against active occupations, colonisations, and genocides that are happening now across the world. To name the tragedies that trace directly back to a doctrine written centuries ago and only repudiated three years ago. To not give into the shame, or discomfort, or horror that comes up with these topics.
We may not have been here when these concepts were born, when these systems were put into place and built upon old beliefs, but we are here now, and we can choose differently. We can put in the work and the effort of recognizing and unwinding settler-colonialism from our faith and everyday actions, and work to ensure there is space for Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing. To recognize that prayer is the beginning of action, not a replacement for it.
May we all reflect deeply, and often, and move forward with humility.
May we see God in all of God’s creations. May we heed the words of our faith and have that same reverence for each other, for the land that steadies us, the water that cares for us, the air that sustains us.
Amen.