Sermon: Circle and Cross — What are you bringing to the Circle?
Last October, when the United Church General Council Executive had its first meeting in Toronto as the Executive-elect, I participated in it on-line. When people were having the larger group discussion, one of our members asked, “Can I say I am ‘more’ Christian than my other indigenous people who follow the ancestors’ path?” I found out later that she is very willing to ask good questions from her lived experience as an Indigenous woman and Christian church minister; her question at the time was a very interesting one which might well have led us to engage in a deeper conversation on so many levels. At that moment, I think we didn’t use ‘Christian mindfulness’ fully to take time and engage with the question and open “a heartfelt dialogue of learning and healing together.”
Then, in the next discussion, I learned from the indigenous member that the Trinitarian view of God (God, Christ, the Holy Spirit), especially the concept of ‘following Christ’ as ‘discipleship’, could be understood to be “honouring the Earth”.
This way of creative merging and meeting of the two spiritualities — Christian and the Indigenous ancestors’ path — delightfully stimulated my theological thinking and faith.
Today’s reflection I have prepared and share with you is based on this small booklet, Circle and Cross: Dialogue Planning Tool, published in 2008 by the United Church of Canada. Circle and Cross is a process for dialogue among Aboriginal/Indigenous and non-Aboriginal people in the United Church of Canada. It is intended for people who are seeking ways to live out the desire for healing and reconciliation expressed in the 1986 Apology to First Nations Peoples.
“Apology to First Nations Peoples
Long before my people journeyed to this land your people were here, and you received from your Elders an understanding of creation and of the Mystery that surrounds us all that was deep, and rich, and to be treasured.
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.
We confused Western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and length and height of the gospel of Christ.
We imposed our civilization as a condition for accepting the gospel.
We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred, and we are not what we are meant by God to be.
We ask you to forgive us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ so that our peoples may be blessed and God’s creation healed.
The Right Rev. Bob Smith, 31st General Council 1986, The United Church of Canada”
14 years later, the 36th General Council, in receiving the study document on Jewish-United Church relationships, Bearing Faithful Witness, asked that the model of Bearing Faithful Witness be used to explore relationships with Islam and Aboriginal/Indigenous spirituality. In the page that explains the background and purpose of this document, Circle and Cross, the following statement stood out to me personally: “It [Circle and Cross] also recognized that Aboriginal spiritual traditions were not separate from or outside of the church but integral to the lives of many First Nations people within the church.”
In indigenous understanding and tradition, we must be a circle if we truly engage in dialogue. In other words, if it is to be considered a dialogue, truly, it must be a circle: “The willingness to sit together for a significant period to listen carefully to each other and to bring our vulnerabilities.”
Right now, as we sit in the holy circle here at Immanuel, my hope is that we can experience the circle as the action, rather than as the knowledge. The starting point today is that, as I am a newcomer to this land, and not indigenous, and have not been trained to be a circle keeper, it is better not to teach, but to experience as much as we can, the sacredness of being in the circle, surrounded by people who yearn for healing, justice, interconnectedness and courage.
Let us have a couple of minutes of silence before we listen to Evelyn Broadfoot who inspired Circle and Cross, with her vision.
(Silence)
Evelyn Broadfoot’s Circle and Cross Vision
“In the spring of 1988 I had a vision that had a profound impact on me. I was a student at the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Centre and was asked to attend a course on Native Spirituality and Christianity offered by St. John’s College at the University of Manitoba. While I waited to register for the course, a pamphlet caught my eye. On the cover was a picture of a big cross and a small circle. This troubled me as an Aboriginal woman - how were we supposed to have a balanced discussion about these two spiritualities when the image used was a cross that clearly dominated the circle?
This picture continued to concern me until one day when I was driving to my ministry location. I was thinking and praying and asking for clarity about why I found it so troubling, when suddenly it became clear to me - the images were out of balance.
We, who are created, believe in many forms and many ways. … At the centre of the Medicine Wheel is the Creator; at the centre of the Christian faith is God. One faith expression cannot overwhelm the other. If we are going to talk about spirituality, we have to talk as equals.”
We, who are created, believe in many forms and many ways. One faith expression cannot overwhelm the other. If we are going to talk about spirituality, we have to talk as equals.
There was an article, published in 2006, in the United Church Observer, and I remember I read it when I was in Vancouver and a student at VST. I still remember how meaningful I found the article, as I, too, have various spiritual roots that have slowly found a way of creatively merging with European Christianity over the years. The title of the article is “How can the spiritualities of Indigenous and non-indigenous people co-exist in one church?” (Link)
How can the spiritualities of Native and non-Native people co-exist in one church, when our ways of being are so deeply different, when one cherishes sweetgrass and tobacco and the other bread and wine?
One piece of wisdom from the author, who had experienced the deep learning and respect of her friend, Kimberley Robinson, (Algonquin - her grandmother was from the Golden Lake First Nation and a member of St. Andrew’s United Church in North Bay, Ontario), is that, “You don’t have to be Native to be open to that spirituality.”
Remember, Christianity is largely composed of non-Christian elements from various spiritual roots, traditions and cultures. We need only a “Willingness to be challenged, to see spirituality in a much broader sense than we might have previously learned through Christianity.”
And, (as an important ‘and’; the idea continues to evolve, to stretch…) “Knowing each other well means we don’t ignore either spirituality.”
The former moderator, David Giuliano, whose congregation was near the Pic River Reserve, remembers an elder at a sweat lodge and healing circle to which Giuliano was invited: “When non-Native people come to learn,” the elder said, “I want to ask ‘What are you bringing to the circle?”
“What can I contribute,” Giuliano recalls thinking at the time, “if I don’t bring my own tradition as well?” What is required is offering that tradition “With humility. The mystery is much bigger than we can enact symbolically; two conflicting things can be true. That kind of humility makes the conversation possible,” Giuliano says. Then, well-acquainted, we are able to “Trust that we want good for each other,” and we can be “Citizens of a place we imagine together.”
Now, you are invited to find a pen and the piece of paper under your chair. Let us engage a few more minutes to just sit (“mindfully”), wrapping ourselves in this communal moment of silence and surrounding each other in love. Think about “What are you bringing and what are you hoping to bring to the circle?” It could be the spirituality that has influenced you most in your life - when you were young or in the turning point of your life or now. If it is your faith in Jesus, how do you express it?
What are you bringing to the circle that would invite you, me, and others to the journey of healing, justice and right relations, with you?
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