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Putting Ourselves in the Way of the Prince of Peace PDF Print E-mail
 The word “peace” is one of those church words. You hear it everywhere in the church. Paul’s favorite greeting was, grace to you and peace.  Peace is the word we ponder in the second week of Advent. “Peace on earth and goodwill towards all.” The people of Canada will be thinking about peace this week as they move towards Remembrance Day this Sunday. And let us remember that peace can be big trouble for us because peace for one community can be no peace for another.  

Today marks both Peace Sunday and the official launch of The United Church of Canada’s two-year United for Peace Campaign. The United Church is hoping to enliven the church’s peacemaking ministry and  to awaken the spirit of peacemaking among us. They are focusing on two areas, first of all, peace in Canada and in the world, and secondly, peace in Palestine & Israel. Particularly, locally with the First Nations people in Canada and globally with the peoples of the Middle East. This morning I want to talk locally about our relationships with the First Nations people. 

Thank you to Dorothy and Candace for setting up the trees holding the peace doves.   

As I was thinking about our relationship with the First Nations brothers and sisters I remembered how I began a few years ago. I was teaching at Red River College and there were many Aboriginal students. I would pass these students in the hallways and I could not understand why they would never look up and greet me as I passed by (as others did). In the 15 years I was there not once did it happen. I thought these many but small encounters were good opportunities for each of us to mend our broken relationships. I look back now and realize how naïve I was. But God kept at me and kept nudging me to seek. 

I came to a realization about peace six years ago at an Annual meeting of the Manitoba Conference. The theme that year was “Seeking Common Ground”. An Aboriginal keynote  speaker at this Conference named Malcolm Sadius said over and over in his address, “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.” He made reference to the song many United Church congregations sing, “I the Lord of Sea and Sky”. It goes like this, I the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry. I have wept for love of them, they turn away. …I will set a feast for them. Finest bread I will provide.” [VU #509]  Malcolm said, “Where is the feast? Where is the finest bread? Don’t sing it if you don’t mean it.” Don’t tell us that we have a place in your service if you don’t mean it. The way to peace goes only one way and that is through the hard work of justice.  

In the United Church’s apology to First Nations people in 1986 there is a line that where we confess: “We did not hear you when you shared your vision. In our zeal to tell you of the good news of Jesus Christ we were closed to the value of your spirituality.” From that statement has grown a movement where dialog for healing might begin and the apology might be brought to life. Evelyn Broadfoot had a vision. She was waiting at St. John’s College at the University of Manitoba to sign up for a course on Native Spirituality and Christianity. Her eye caught a picture on a pamphlet and the picture was of a big cross and a small circle. This troubled her but she didn’t know why for days afterwards. Then it hit her, the images were out of balance. If authentic dialogue has any hope of happening one faith expression cannot overwhelm the other. She says, Perhaps this is only a dream but I think and believe this is the only way we can have peace in the world today. It seems that God is up to something in the work of reconciliation and it is in the form of a movement called Circle and Cross. This is what it looks like. First Nations people and Christians sit in a circle and careful attention is paid to a practice called listening. Respectful listening of a talking circle.  And Aboriginal Elder is engaged as a Circle Keeper. One Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal person function as “listeners”, recording after the meeting their observations of the process, mood, concerns and dynamics of the Circle. This Talking Circle is a circle of listening and not a circle of debate. The way to peace is one way through justice. 

Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore  tree to see who Jesus was. That doesn’t tell us a lot. We don’t know why Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was.  We can speculate. Maybe he was lonely, isolated, rejected by his community—after all he was a tax collector. Maybe Zacchaeus was so lost that he didn’t even know why he wanted to see who Jesus was. I like to think that maybe Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was because he Jesus to see who he was. He wanted to put himself in Jesus’ path—where Jesus is going. This lost soul needed to put himself in clear view of being found by Jesus.  

Maybe that is why we are here. These pews and this pulpit are our sycamore trees where we climb into each week because we want to see Jesus and we want Jesus, the Prince of Peace to see us. We all want peace. Maybe we need to watch and wait in these strange trees until we hear Jesus call us down and out across walls that divide White and First Nations people. Perhaps the Circle and Cross is our sychamore tree where we watch and wait. Maybe that is how we move towards peace, following Jesus, because Jesus knows the one and only way to peace, and that is through justice.

May it be so. AMEN