Truthsgiving: A Trial of Tears | @kaleophx

Illustration Black fetus in womb by Chidiebere Ibe

LISTEN NOW

〰️

LISTEN NOW 〰️

November 20, 2022

In this sermon, you’ll hear a moving story from our friend, Tahda Ahtone, who's Native roots and knowledge of American genocide made it difficult for her to follow Jesus.
⁠
On this final Sunday of our series "The Violence of Love," I conclude our time in homilies by Oscar Romero, guide us through Psalm 46, and create space for us to sit in what it means to lament and wait on the Lord. ⁠

TRUTHSGIVING

“Truthsgiving, coined by Indigenous activist Christine Nobiss is meant to dismantle common misunderstandings about Thanksgiving with...well, the truth.

Some say Thanksgiving is celebrated at the expense of Native peoples, and while America celebrates a day of thanks with feasts and football, many Native Americans continue to live with disparities and economic hardships.

Since 1970 The United American Indians of New England have carried out a National Day of Mourning. This is what they have to say:

‘Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of the millions of Native people. The theft of Native lands. The relentless assult of Native culture...(the National Day of Mourning) is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.’

These are true events that happened in a place many of us pledge our allegiance. Started by a faith many of us pledge to follow. The truth is hard to hear...but the truth, when we face it, sets us free.'“

So in the name of Truthsgiving, the next 10 minutes will be a true story told by a Native American woman who struggled to follow Jesus. Welcome Tahda Alexandra Ahtone.

————

LISTEN TO HER STORY IN THE MP3

Buy the book

In May of 2020 my friend Tor Hawley asked me to read a book with her called “Unsettling Truths” by Mark Charles and Soong Chang Rah.

I wasn’t an avid reader at the time but decided I would join her by listening to the audiobook. This book was more than I think I was ready for.

Unsettling Truths is a blend of history, theology, and cultural commentary, as the authors reveal the far-reaching, damaging effects of the "Doctrine of Discovery." Much of what our sister talked about tonight.

In the book, they break down how the dominant culture idealizes a history of discovery, opportunity, expansion, and equality, while minority communities have been traumatized by colonization, slavery, segregation, and dehumanization. The history is…fact. The stories are raw and the truths are…as the title suggests…unsettling.

So much so that I distinctly remember weeping one night while laying in my bed because I couldn't grasp how all of this genocide was done…in the name of God. More specifically the Trail of Tears…left me undone.

What was the Trail of Tears?

Taking place in the 1830s, the Trail of Tears was the forced and brutal relocation of approximately 100,000 indigenous people (belonging to Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) living between Michigan, Louisiana, and Florida to land west of the Mississippi River. Motivated by gold and land, Congress (under President Andrew Jackson) passed the Indian Removal Act by a slim and controversial margin in 1830. The Cherokees resisted removal through every possible means. Even Juna-luska, who had saved Andrew Jackson’s life at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, traveled to Washington to plead the Cherokee’s cause, but Jackson would not see him.

I think I wept because as I listened to the account of the Trail of Tears, my imagination turned words into faces of mothers and daughters; fathers and sons; grandfathers and grandmothers; children. And it was like I could hear them crying and so I cried with them…for them.

And then I wept because I wondered how is it that I never knew it was “Christians” who did this to Native people. And what am I supposed to do with that?

And if this is the first time I'm hearing of something like this how many other things have I not heard of?! What am I supposed to do with the reality that one day the offspring of these colonizers would wear white hoods and kill Black bodies.

MY OWN TRAIL OF TEARS

With great respect for Native history, in more of a figurative way, I feel like I’m journeying my own Trail of Tears. The more that I learn about history and the harsh reality of pain that exists there, I'm also seeking out the remnant of people that didn't give up on God there.

Because though it is true that Christians lead a genocide against Native people it is also true that there were also Christians who did not identify with a God of violence and hatred but with a God who advocates for the well-being of all people. There were Christians who did not put on the White hood but sought to show Jesus through love and equality.

I'm teaching myself to find the remnant of God's presence in the middle of despair. In the middle of Injustice. In the middle of wrongdoing, there are still people even if it's one or two that would not give in to the ways of oppression. That would not bow down to the idols of this world but instead say, “I'm going to follow Jesus.”

What's interesting about revisiting the stories of our history is that they look very much so like the stories of our present. And when history keeps repeating itself it’s hard to be hopeful sometimes.

Buy the Book

I’m currently reading a book called “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”

“The bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson gives a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon…how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

She argues that beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate.”

I'm on the fourth chapter, but while reading, I honestly was not expecting to weep AGAIN. I mean…like, what is going on?!!!

I didn't anticipate that the retelling of Injustice towards Bblack people for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years would be an invitation for me to once again put faces to words. Because the words in her book turned into the faces of my grandmothers and grandfathers I've never met. I saw the Great Migration, and could feel the fight against poverty and inequality that my parents have lived through. I wept because the stories that she tells are not just stories…they are...me.

The other day I wept silently to myself and said, “God although things are not what they used to be, they are still not what they should be. How long oh Lord will injustice go on? When will you come and make it right?”

Kendall noticing the slight gasps for air and change in breath leaned in, hugged me, and asked what was wrong. My quiet tears turned into louder gasps…and I said…

there is so much wrong in the world.

When will God come and fix it?
How long do we have to grieve?
How long do we have to keep fighting systems?
How long do immigrants have to flee violence?
How long do Black people have to be shot in the street?
How long must we endure murder, homelessness, the wealth gap, and violence of all kinds?

After several long pauses of silence and embrace, Kendall reminded me that I feel anger and sadness towards injustice…because God feels it.

Which is what led you to do the work that you're doing…because you feel God's heart for people.

When you weep with those who weep it’s because God weeps with those who weep.

I told that story last week at our Kaleo Book Club (side note: I didn’t realize I read a lot. I guess I read a lot)

Because I was struck by this quote by Henry Nouwen in his book called In the Name of Jesus.

“The task of future Christian leaders is not to make a little contribution to the solution of the pains and tribulations of their time, but to identify and announce the ways in which Jesus is leading God’s people out of slavery, through the desert to a new land of freedom. Christian leaders have the arduous task of responding to personal struggles, family conflicts, national calamities, and international tensions with an articulate faith in God’s real presence. ”

I am often challenged with, how do I speak a language that articulates God’s real presence in the here and now…using words that can be heard by those who have lost hope.

Miss Linda Morris, a senior leader here in the city, said something I will never forget. She said, “In the Scriptures we often see Jesus retreating. Not because he was weary of people, but because the people kept trying to make him a King. Jesus instead invited people to join him in what he was doing.

Jesus was saying, “don’t be obsessed with everybody else seeing be as something. Be obsessed with joining me in my mission.

As I reflected on what she said I thoughts two things:

That’s really powerful.
The people of their time were also crying out, “How long do we have to wait? How long will we be oppressed under the Roman empire?”

Then Jesus enters the scene, grows up, begins His ministry…His response to their communal question and cry…is “Come and follow me.”

As it seems, we may not have a time frame on how long injustice will go on, but what we do have is the real ever-present, presence of God that is manifested in our ability to do what Jesus did…

To love our neighbors.
To care for the Widow.
To feed the hungry.
To provide for the poor.
To clothe the naked.
To restore dignity to those whose dignity has been Stripped Away.
To be a voice for those who have no voice.

The 400 years of silence the people of God experienced before the coming of Jesus was answered in Him saying come follow me.

When we practice the ways of Jesus we are manifesting in real-time the very presence of God.

So where is God?

God is in you following Jesus.
God is in you using your voice
God is in you caring for the Widow.
God is in you caring for the poor.
God is in you providing dignity for those whose dignity has been Stripped Away.
God is in you restoring land to Native people.
God is in you giving reparations to Black people.
God is in you making things right that aren't right because that is what Jesus did in his ministry on Earth.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

Jesus didn't come because he was trying to round up a bunch of people in heaven. Jesus came because he was trying to radicalize the way they were living on earth. He was trying to get those in power to lay down their swords and pick up a way of love.

ROMERO’S TRAIL OF TEARS

Buy the book

We’ve spent the last 10 weeks going through homilies by Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who was assassinated March 24, 1980 for preaching on human rights at the rise of governmental power. While serving the people of El Salvador, Romero also faced his own Trail of Tears.

He saw institutionalized social and economic injustice on a pervasive scale. The poorest families had no land whatsoever, and were forced to sleep in ditches and muddy fields. Hungry farm workers were beaten or shot for eating a piece of the very produce they had grown. Mines and factories operated under the theory that it was cheaper to replace a dead or crippled worker than to repair defective equipment. 60% of all babies died at birth, and 75% of the survivors suffered severe malnutrition. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children died from diseases that could have been cured by basic medications.

Romero began to ask his now-famous questions: “How can Christians do such things to each other? What can the Church do to help?” He found his answer in the realization that he had been called to Christ a second time, to the Christ who spoke to him in the Beatitudes. He found it also in the simple yet powerful truth of Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez': “To know God is to do justice.”

On OCTOBER 15, 1978 Romero preached a message to a desperate people…also asking…”How long Oh Lord?”

Romero said this:

“Let us sing a song of hope and be filled with cheerful spirit, knowing that this Christian life, which came to us with Christ through the Virgin Mary and takes on flesh in all believers, is the presence of God, who makes us a promise:

No, brothers and sisters, El Salvador need not always live like this. (for God said) “I will tear off the veil of shame that covers it among all peoples. I will wipe away the tears” of all those mothers who no longer have tears for having wept so much over their children who are not found. Here too will he take away the sorrow

of all those homes that this Sunday suffer

the mystery of dear ones abducted

or suffer murder

or torture

or torment.

That is not of God.

God’s banquet will come;

wait for the Lord’s hour. Let us have faith; all this will pass away

like a national nightmare, and we shall awake to the Lord’s great feast.

(maybe that’s the feast we imagine when we gather to give thanks this week) Let us be filled with this hope.”

IN WAIT FOR ADVENT

On this last Sunday before the season of Advent begins…let us remember what caused the coming of Christ? The cries of the people. The people cried out to the Lord and waited for a Redeemer. Remember that God answered the collective cry of the people. So if you are still crying…remember that he hears you…and collects every tear you shed.

Our passage tonight is Psalm 46

46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

46:2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

46:3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

46:4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

46:5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.

46:6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.

46:7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

46:8 Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth.

46:9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth."

46:11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

We’re going to receive communion tonight.

As the band comes up, I would like to take a moment of silence…ask the Lord, what do you want me to know about the things that I’ve heard tonight? What do you want me to do?

I don’t know what your figurative trail of tears might be…but remember that while we wait for the world to be made right…remember…that God is WITH us…and because we follow Him, His Spirit is IN us…and because He is IN us…He…is…wherever we are.