Note: This is the text of the sermon I preached on August 13, 2017, following the devastating events in Charlottesville that weekend. You can find the audio of my sermon here.
So
today is World Indigenous People’s Day, and I have at least two former pastors
in the room today. I don’t know if there’s more , nut I know there’s at least
two, and so I hope I don’t speak out of school, but typically the way I prepare
a sermon is to, throughout the week, just kind of think on it, and then write
down notes. And then, typically, Saturday at 10 PM I begin to write.
Fortunately,
this week I started earlier; I started Friday at 10 PM because I knew I had a
busy Saturday. And so really, by Saturday morning, the sermon was almost done.
And then,
yesterday happened and I felt like I needed to make a change.
So I
began, yesterday, to scribble down some more notes, some sermon notes as I like
to call them, on what I would preach about. But what happened is that I had so
long a time of writing notes, that I never actually got to write a sermon; so I’m
just going to share my notes with you today.
This
is World Indigenous Peoples Day, but this sermon must put Charlottesville and
white supremacy at the center.
This sermon must juxtapose the wisdom
and beauty ff indigenous culture with the violence and bigotry of white supremacy
that quashed indigenous folks always.
This
sermon must reflect on the indigenous natural methods ff healing disease without
harming the environment, and how white supremacy seeks to control drugs and
medical access to fill their pockets with money.
This sermon must be an angry sermon.
This
sermon must denounce the emboldened Neo-Nazi/white supremacist movement.
This
sermon must draw a line, must show how the thread of white privilege-that was
first sewn into this land’s quilt over 600 years ago-has been the constant thread
that has led to the horrific acts of violence, terrorism , and hatred that we
saw unfold on our television, our laptop, our ipad, our smartphone’s screens.
This sermon must dare to connect the
dots of the election of a man who openly spewed racist, misogynistic, homophobic
screeds, whose campaign speeches could be classified as hate speech, whose
utter disregard for the planet that indigenous people consider kin, whose
complete lack of empathy for those who don’t fit into his narrow vision of what
constitutes someone of worth and dignity--which, by the way, doesn’t include me,
as a queer person--or anyone else who is
queer, or a person of color, or a woman, or an immigrant, or refugee, or trans,
or poor---
this sermon must connect the dots from this man’s election to yesterday’s
carnage, as heard in the remarks of former Grand Imperial Wizard Of the Ku Klux
Klan, David Duke, who said in an interview yesterday, with the Indianapolis
Star, “This
represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to
take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s
what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s
going to take our country back and that’s what we’re going to do."
That connect-the-dots-image
reveals a gross perversion of justice, of democracy, of what has really made
America great in the past.
Those
dots connect to a flashing neon sign that says Make America Hate Again.
And too many are too
willing to comply. Not just in Charlottesville, VA, but in Bloomington, MN, where
the Dar
Al-Farooq Islamic Center was bombed on August 5,
and in our own town, where the “n” word was
spray-painted onto cars in the neighborhood next to mine, and where the Jewish
synagogue was defaced with swastikas and Nazi statements.
This sermon that I’m going to write must, of course, show how
those dots go all the way back to the genocide of the native folks, the
indigenous folks of this land, carried out by white people far from here, who
already had firmly embraced the idea that their way was the best way; that
their desire for land, for power, for wealth superseded the indigenous folks
right to simply dwell in peace on the only land they had known for generations.
This sermon must point out we lost so much when we destroyed entire
nations of peoples, even while we engaged in human trafficking, bringing over
and enslaving other nations of people, other peoples of color; as is white was the
only true humanity, as if white really did make might.
But this sermon must also speak about hope.
This sermon cannot end with despair, with an
overwhelming feeling of hopeless.
No, this sermon must also speak of the
pockets of beauty that are waiting to be picked by our seeking hands:
The Love
Lives Here rally that was held in Bonforte Park last Sunday in response to
the vandalism in the North End where so many people of so many faiths gathered
together; where Muslims mingled with Jews, and the neighbors of the Old North
End joined the liberals of downtown.
This sermon must remember the tear-inducing
video ff clergy of many faiths standing arm in arm
in Charlottesville yesterday, facing the
armed domestic terrorists who swaggered down the streets in the combat fatigues,
and overly compensating semi-automatic weapons.
This sermon must speak about the bold words
of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, who said what the president did not; who clearly
said to the white supremacists and the Neo-Nazis:
Go home. You
are not welcome here. You are not welcome in America.
This sermon must also tell how Minnesota
governor, Mark Dayton, unflinchingly called the bombing of the mosque an act of
terrorism, and said, Let’s face it, if it had been the other way around, we would
have already been calling it that, if Muslims had bombed a Christian church.
This sermon must talk about how already, by
Monday morning, just two days after the attack, over 900 people had contributed
over $36,000 to help with the repair of the Mosque.
This sermon must mention the 3 plus hour
meeting I attended yesterday, along with
Isabel, and Charles, and Jan, and Rick; how we gathered with members of the
Colorado Springs Sanctuary Coalition, as well as members of the Metro Denver
Sanctuary Coalition; how we talked with those who fear being ripped away from
the lives they’ve made for themselves here, from the families they created
here; how we know that today, Foothills UU Church in Fort Collins is on the
cusp of a vote to become a sanctuary church, as well.
And how--even though we were talking about
such dire things as men and women in fear for their freedom, in fear of what
will happen to their families, should they be snatched up off the streets and
deported--how I felt suddenly, in the midst of that dire conversation, a small
spark of hope, of comfort, a certain joy that I was not alone, that these men
and women were not alone, that our small, intrepid coalition of a rag tag band
of folks from different organizations and faith communities were not alone, that
the counter-protestors in Charlottesville, VA, and the Love Lives Here rally
last week were not alone.
We are, none of us alone. We have others who
are showing up with us, showing up for justice, for peace, for equity in human
relationships.
We have an entire seminar coming up in
Boulder, an entire seminar on Dirt. There’s a youtube video that shows how
simply composting, creating dirt, can save our planet, even if our government
will not; that she is not alone, that we have not forgotten all the wisdom of
the ancestors of the indigenous folks who once lived, and who still live among
us, ready to share their wisdom, ready to introduce us to our mother, Earth, whenever
we are ready to truly meet her.
This sermon needs to call us back to a
simpler understanding of the interdependent web of existence of which we are a
part.
But not is some schmaltzy, kum-by-yah way that
attempts to sugar coat the ways that we have been complicit in the system of
white supremacy, that allowed nations of indigenous folks to be murdered, or
forced off their land, or forced to adopt a culture that wasn’t theirs, that
profited from the selling of humans in the most inhumane chapter of our history,
that allows us to turn away from the rhetoric coming from the White House, or
the violence spilling over in the streets of not just Charlottesville, but
every city in our nation, with a simple click of a button.
This sermon needs to be a clarion call to action! To rise up! To
speak up!
But also to shut up! And to sit down! And to
listen, listen deeply. Listen deeply to the voices of the indigenous people of
all cultures, to the voices of the marginalized peoples in our own town, to the
voices of hope and peace, and a way out of the shadows of bigotry, and hate, and
oppression, and hopelessness.
This sermon needs to remind folks that there is a way. It is
the way of love, of never-ending love, of love which never gives up, or gives
in, of love which is embodied in our words and actions, in how we protect one
another, and learn from one another.
Of
love that recognizes we are , each of us, indigenous citizens of this planet
earth and we cannot survive, until and unless, we embrace our diversity, and
embrace our Mother, and channel our consciousness and spirit to tend the garden and not destroy it.
That’s what this sermon needs to say.
Now, if I can only find the words to say it.
Now, if I can only find the way to live it.
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