A few months ago, I was at an interfaith gathering hosted by Sundance Chief Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh nation. The event was in response to the proposed dredging of the Burrard inlet, which would undo years of careful healing and release an untold number of contaminants into the water where the eel grass, the herring, the salmon, the whales have all just started to come home. At this event there were speakers and participants from not just different churches but from synagogues, mosques, Buddhist temples, all speaking and praying and joined in community together.
So often we focus on how different we are from each other. And those differences, those traditions and ways of being that are unique to where we’re from and who we are, are so important. They shape how we engage with the world, how and where we find hope and faith.
But it is also important to look at what we all have in common. To sit with that belief we all have in something greater than ourselves, no matter what or who that is. That belief in something that is sacred. I love how in every culture that usually shows up as music. And so that day in St. Andrews Wesley, gathered together in God’s love, we sang. And then we listened.
We listened to Chief Rueben George tell us of all he and his people, the people of the inlet, have done to restore the waters of their ancestral home. He told us how they hand tied the eelgrass, how they have been cleaning the waters – how they wrote a 1200 page assessment on the damages of the Kinder Morgan Pipeline based on Tsleil-Waututh Nation law, and just last year collaborated with engineers and environmental scientists to publish the Burrard Inlet Action Plan. He told us how the salmon count had been down to 6,000 and how together over 10 years they brought it up past 10 million. He told us of the reciprocal relationship they have with the waters of the inlet, caring for the water as a mother that has fed and cared for them since time immemorial.
He said that prayer is love. And every action they took and continue to take to protect the waters of the inlet, is from love. Love brought life back to the inlet, but unfortunately it seems greed may drive them away again.
It is increasingly hard to advocate for love and dignity of all life, in a world that seems to only value that which can be quantified. Calculated, optimized, profited off of. I spend the majority of my days in a world of numbers. I decided I was going to be an engineer when I was 15 years old, because I do love spreadsheets, I love work that can be calculated and problems that can be solved. But I come to church because I also believe in what can never be measured. In what we can do with the knowledge we gather and the skills we learn, with the gifts God gives us. I come to church because there is a time to calculate and study, and there is a time to pray. And there is a time for both.
I was thinking of this a few months ago, watching the mission of Artemis II. Onboard the Orion spacecraft, four astronauts achieved the greatest human distance from Earth, breaking Apollo 13’s record. Directly before Orion passes behind the moon and the astronauts are faced with 40 silent minutes completely alone in space, the last words we hear are from astronaut Victor Glover, who tells us that one of the most important mysteries is here on Earth, and that is love. And there, minutes from the farthest point from Earth that humans have ever been, he speaks of Jesus Christ, and his greatest command to love God and neighbour alike.
Next to him onboard the Orion spacecraft, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen has carried a patch with him from Earth farther than ever before – a patch depicting the Seven Grandfather Teachings, designed specifically for him by Anishinaabe artist Henry Guimond of Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba. The heptagon shaped patch features one side for each of the Seven Grandfather Teachings. It includes seven creatures — a buffalo, an eagle, a bear, a sasquatch, a beaver, a wolf and a turtle — each carrying a teaching: respect, love, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility and truth. The emblem represents a decade-long relationship of learning between Hansen and elders and knowledge keepers of Indigenous communities across Canada. Hansen spoke of how Indigenous ways of knowing, Indigenous ways of being, guided him on his journey farther than any human has gone before.
Prayer and love, turned into action and backed by science, brought the seals and the salmon back home to the Burrard inlet, just as they sent the Indigenous teachings of the seven grandfathers to the moon and back.
To pray is an act of love. It is to say that I hold you in my thoughts and in my heart, and I offer you my thoughts and prayers as an act of love grounded in faith and trust in a merciful God. But advocacy, protest, donation, research are acts of love too, grounded in the belief that we are here to protect and carry forth God’s vision of love and justice for all.
Today is a day of listening and a reminder to uplift Indigenous voices and learn from Indigenous wisdom, and it is also a reminder that through love comes prayer but also must come action. A reminder to do what we would do to protect and care for our parents, our children, our loved ones, for the earth itself, for the water and the sky. Our God calls us to seek understanding and grace that we might learn to love each other better, the way He knows and loves us.
In today’s scripture reading, we hear of all the lessons Matthew tells us we can learn from the earth our God created. Look at the birds of the air he says, the flowers of the field. See how they live, see how they grow, without worry or fear, nourished and protected by our heavenly Father.
What can we learn from the world around us? If we stay still long enough, to listen to what the Earth can teach us, to what it has been teaching the peoples of this land and water for thousands upon thousands of years. What happens when we listen and consume intentionally, with thought to longevity and sustainability, with the common goal of keeping our world beautiful and livable for our children, our grandchildren to learn from. What happens when we commit to being the voice for those who can’t speak?
Psalm 100 says “Truly you are good: you are always gracious, and faithful age after age.” God’s love endures forever in us, in our choices to be kind, to stand for what is right, to have the patience and the strength to listen for God’s voice when the world around us gets so very loud. God’s love endures in the love we show each other, the love we show everything God created.
I understand that in this world we can grow so tired of politics, of news and controversy and debate. But unfortunately, to believe in love and justice and care for all God’s creatures, is political right now. Is up for debate, somehow.
To believe in respect for the earth God created and in the sacredness of life itself, all life, is political.
At the PMRC AGM a few weeks ago, Amanda Burrows presented on how the shape of hope is a protest sign, on how to advocate for and listen to those that need us. She said, “Hope without action is just a lot of well wishes”. Rueben George reminds us to love and care for our earth, our water, our sky, and for others as we do for our own families. He says that we need to feed the movement with love. The book of Matthew invites us to learn from the earth that God has created, to love and live as Our Heavenly Creator loves us. To care for each other and the land and the water as they have cared for us.
May we have the wisdom, grace, and patience to listen. Amen.