I love being part of something larger than myself. I love belonging to an expansive view—to lift up my eyes and know that my small life is not all there is. There is a world and a God so much bigger and more expansive than I can even dream or imagine.
I love God—Creator of the Universe, who has been here before the beginning of time.
I love Jesus—Son of God, born of an ordinary woman, who surrendered his life to a violent regime on a cross.
I love the Spirit—wise, comforting, counselor, ever present.
I have had the incredible privilege to walk in many places on this earth. As I have lifted up my eyes in Manila and Moose Jaw, I know that God has the whole world in her hands.
A few years ago, I got to stand on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city of Jerusalem. I couldn’t help but remember how Jesus wept over Jerusalem and how the Psalmist reminds us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. So, we stood on that mountain and prayed for the peace of Jerusalem. But we also prayed for the peace of Gaza. And the peace of Bethany, Bethlehem and Hebron, too.
We prayed for the peace of the cities where we make our homes.
The places around the world that have our hearts.
I prayed for the peace of Cape Town and Khayelitsha and Manenberg.
I prayed for the peace of Surrey and Vancouver and Langley and White Rock.
I prayed for the peace of Bubanza and Chisinau.
In North America, this is the week we celebrate the national days of Canada and the United States. Flags are draped, national anthems are sung. We wear the colors of nations we love.
And yet … If we listen to the pain, we know there’s so much more to these stories.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said: Without justice, there can be no peace.
No justice, no peace.
Our nations cannot be beacons of Hope and Justice and Faith—carriers of the heart of Jesus—until we also reconcile with the shadows of our past.
As I sat in church yesterday, I heard how the church is the hope of the world. It can be. But we cannot be the hope of the world if we don’t acknowledge, repent, turn away and walk humbly towards something new. I love the Church, but this very Body has also created some of the most horrendous atrocities in history. There are stories that now run through my mind when I hear the word “church.” I can’t un-hear them. How much more then for indigenous people who experienced these horrors firsthand or still suffer from intergenerational trauma?
I am part of this Body.
History has shown us that conquering territories, even in the name of Jesus, is not the Way of Jesus. Even his disciples wanted Jesus to be a conqueror, a hero, rising up against Roman occupation. The way he chose to do that, was by surrendering to oppressive power. He didn’t mount a horse and rise up to defeat Rome. He was nailed to a cross to defeat our nationalistic tendencies, rooted in our love of power.
We cannot build church if we don’t recognize the damage done in the name of church.
In fact, the more I think about building this church Jesus loves, the more I think it is going back and sitting with the wounded. It is repentance, lament, sitting in the places of the deepest divides and honestly acknowledging the pain that our earnest and often good intentions caused.
In May, I attended the Atamiskakewak National Gathering in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I cannot un-hear the pain I heard at that gathering. These stories of indigenous people in North America are a very real part of the history of this continent. It is not a proud history. It is a painful and destructive history. It is the shadow side of the story.
If we are people of faith, this pain is part of our story.
If we want to build the church, we need to acknowledge the foundations of pain, the injustice of the very land on which we’ve built buildings. We’ve built so much on the pain and exploitation of others.
We need to take that to our mountains and weep and pray with Jesus.
I would love to stand up and proudly sing the national anthem. At this point in my story, I cannot. I cannot sing it if we do not first acknowledge that we sing that very song on unceded indigenous territory.
We can sing our anthems as loud as we want to sing, we can lift our hands as high as we may want to lift it to the God of Heaven and proclaim it as prayer. Our prayers are as ashes before the Creator of the Universe, unless we acknowledge the pain that go along with our words.
The land cries out. There are relationships that need to be healed.
The quality of your relationships is who you are, says Richard Rohr in The Divine Dance. The Trinity is our powerful example of holy relationship. The quality and energy of relationship that exists between the Three, is where we can look for the kind of relationship we are called to have.
If that flow of relationship is blocked between indigenous and non-indigenous, we have work to do.
If that flow—the quality and energy of relationship—that exists between black lives and white lives is blocked, we have work to do.
If there is pain in that flow of relationship between me and a friend, I have work to do.
I am called to reconcile, make right, listen to truth, acknowledge the shadows in my personality, confess, turn away, repair and keep doing the hard and humble work.
I cannot tell you how much I just want to celebrate largeness and belonging to a nation under God. But I cannot celebrate it until my indigenous friends are celebrating right alongside me.
My allegiance is with a God who loves all nations.
My allegiance is to a God who frowns upon children being separated from their families—whether for residential schools or at borders.
My allegiance is to a God who cares for the poor.
My allegiance is to a God who sets the lonely in families.
My allegiance is to a God who cares for the widow and the refugee.
My allegiance is to a God who dismantles oppressive systems.
My allegiance is to a God who loves justice.
My allegiance is to a God who makes peace and calls us to do the same.
No justice. No peace. Yes.
But this we also know: When we do know justice, we may also know peace. When justice rolls down like a river, peace can also come. It is not cheap. It asks us to lay down all our preconceived ideas about power and might and what we think is true and right.
It asks us to come humbly …
More than ever in this season, I cling to these instructions in 2 Chronicles 7:14: If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
I long for the land to be healed. AND I want to build the church. I don’t think these ideas can be separated from each other.
I want to see people rise strong and beautiful, healed and full of hope. I want to see people become alive with the hope and love of Jesus. But I remember, too, how the name of Jesus has been used to abuse and terrorize.
I acknowledge the pain that has been caused by nationalistic pursuits, treaties that were never signed, false promises, broken promises, residential schools and cultural genocide.
I know Jesus weeps over this. I know my Jesus weeps over the role of Church in this story. I long to see healing come. I long to see a quality of relationship emerge between us that will be right and good and beautiful.
Jesus was a Jew, but he never lifted patriotism up as a virtue. He did not pledge allegiance to an earthly kingdom. He honored government and earthly authority, but he understood that God’s kingdom was not of this earth.
This was not popular and in the end, he was crucified for these and other beliefs. This Jesus sees pain, died for peace and empowered each one of us, by the Holy Spirit, to continue the work.
Jesus did not choose a horse, a flag or an anthem. Jesus chose a donkey and death with criminals on a cross.
This is the Jesus I follow.
My name is Idelette and I live on the unceded territories of the:
Katzie
Channel
Lummi
Semiahmoo
Tsawwassen (sc̓əwaθen)
W̱SÁNEĆ
Hul’q’umi’num’ / Halq’eméylem / hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓
and Tsawwassen nations.
I am honored and grateful to be an immigrant and a guest on this beautiful land.
I am a follower of Jesus. I long for a kingdom to come that is not of this earth. I long for it to come—not by might or money, not by power or patriotism, but by the Spirit.
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EXPLORE FURTHER:
- Why does it matter that we acknowledge the territory we live on? Check this out.
- Here’s how to acknowledge the territory.
- If you would like to know which territory you live on, check out this site.
- Please add your best resources in the comments.
OUR THEME FOR JUNE IS “TERRITORY.” We look forward to exploring with you the many ways we interact with this word through our stories, ideas and our lives.
If you only know one thing about me, I’d love for you to know this: I love Jesus, justice and living juicy.
I also happen to drive a minivan and drink my lattes plain. (My life is exciting enough!)
Nineteen years ago, I moved from Taiwan to Canada to marry Scott. We have two teenagers, a preteen, a Bernese Mountain dog and a restaurant. (Ask Scott to tell you our love story.)
In 2010, I founded SheLovesmagazine.com and it has now grown to include a Dangerous Women membership community, a Red Couch Bookclub, events and gatherings. I’d like to think of it as curating transformational spaces for women in community. I long for women to be strong in our faith and voice, so we can be advocates for God’s heart for justice here on earth.
As an Afrikaner woman, born and raised in South Africa during Apartheid, my story humbly compels me to step out for justice and everyday peacemaking. I have also seen firsthand the impact injustice has had on the lives and stories of women around the world. I refuse to stay silent.
I am anti-racist and also a recovering racist. I am a Seven on the Enneagram, an INFP and I mostly wear black, with a dash of animal print or faux fur.
