Monthly Archives: May 2024

Spilling out through the cracks

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Saint Paul equates our humanity to clay jars (2 Corinthians 4:5-12). So, how do you feel in your clay jar today? What’s the condition of your clay jar?  Is it all pretty and beautiful? Or, is there a lot of dust caked onto it? Does it show its age? How fragile is it? Does it have a few chips or cracks in it already? Maybe, many chips and cracks.

But wait! We carry a treasure in our clay jars, did you notice? It’s not to say the clay jars aren’t important. They fulfill, after all, a vital function – to carry the treasure!

What do we first notice? On what do we focus? The cracks, chips, dysfunction, imperfection of our clay jars? Or, will we look for the light, the hope, the promise of the treasure within?

Whatever our answer, we cannot deny, avoid or pretend away our clay jars as if they don’t mean anything important on our journey of faith. Sometimes the cracks, chips, injustices on the outside reflect the nature and purpose of the treasure it holds inside.

Sometimes the un-exceptional reality points to the truth about God’s “extraordinary power” (v. 7) and points us in the direction of our healing and transformation. After all, we are not disconnected, disembodied creatures existing in cerebral, otherworldly abstractions. The clay jars are just as important – these are the means of grace.

In the Gospel for today, Jesus plucked grains of wheat, mentioned King David eating the bread in the temple, and he healed someone with a broken hand (Mark 2:23—3:6). The clay jars are indeed the entry point, the gateway, into a holy journey of healing, growth and communion with Jesus.

An ancient proverb is told of a servant whose duty it was to draw water from the river at dawn when it was still mostly dark, and carry a bucket-full up a winding, rocky path to the mansion where his master lived. Alas! His bucket had a crack in it. And each time he brought water up the path he lost most of it.

Curiously, the servant noticed his master standing at the door of the mansion watching him every day carry this water up the path, spilling most of it. And yet, the servant was able to see a broad, loving smile on his master’s face. Daily, the servant would drop to his knees when he reached the top. At his master’s feet the servant would express his remorse at failing to do his job, bringing only half a bucket-full of water each time he climbed the path. The master listened lovingly, invited him inside for breakfast, and encouraged him to try again the next day. Which the servant did, faithfully, for the entire season.

When the river froze over, and the last half-bucket full was brought up the path, and once again the servant expressed his shame, sorrow and regret, the master invited him inside to share in a special feast to mark the end of the season and beginning of a new one. On the table spread with the finest breads, vegetables, cheeses and meats, he found bouquets of flowers of the most wondrous varieties and colors.

The servant gasped at the heavenly sight and asked his master, “From where did you find these beautiful flowers?”

“Come, follow me,” the master said, “and see for yourself.” The master led the servant back to the front door just as the sun was rising, illuminating the pathway down to the river. And on both sides of the path the flowers were growing, able to do so because of the water that had daily leaked out from the servant’s cracked bucket.

This story describes how God’s grace works. Grace operates through the cracks of our lives. That’s how the precious treasure we carry spills out.

The new logo and tagline for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada was released last week. The tagline replaces “In Mission for Others” with “Living out God’s Grace and Unconditional Love” (ELCIC, 2024). The logo conveys hope and the never-ending circle of God’s love whose centre is the cross. As in the Gospel today and so often in Jesus’ earthly ministry, grace and compassion fuel Jesus’ action (Mark 2:23-3:6).

The journey of faith puts us in tension with all the forces in us and outside of us that seek to snuff out the light of God’s grace. Yes, these jars are indeed fragile, vulnerable, imperfect and we wonder if they are strong enough, durable enough, to withstand the onslaught. We may even get down on ourselves, concluding we are useless, falling on our knees confessing and even dwelling on all that is wrong in us.

But Saint Paul makes clear that when the treasure does spill out to the world, it is God’s doing not ours. After all, the treasure we hold—the heart of Jesus—is not ours to guard and keep. Its purpose is to shine out to the world through the cracks in our clay jars. Its purpose is to be visible in the world as an act of kindness, a generosity and unconditional gift we give because we first have received it. We may even be doing it without knowing it, or when we least expect it.

These clay jars convey the tender mercies and grace of God which is at the heart of Jesus and in the hearts of all who want to follow. Our healing begins when we experience the grace of God showing through those very cracks and chips in our lives. And that’s the extra-ordinary power the world needs to see. May God’s grace empower us on this journey.

Three Sisters

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It’s our congregation’s birthday today! Holy Trinity Sunday is the anniversary of Faith Lutheran Church’s official organization in 1961 when we were still meeting at Fisher Heights Public School. Happy birthday, Faith!

Birthdays are about gifts. On our birthday we receive gifts. So, what gifts do we receive today? And what gifts do we already have? And what are they for?

At this time of year, many are planting seeds, flowers, crops. The gardens and flowerbeds are being cleaned up and prepared for new growth. We have lots to learn from farmers, people who work the land, who are busy at this time of year because of their unique connection to the earth. And we have lots to learn from different ways of farming, because each offers insight and reflects wisdom about gifts.

Nicodemus is a teacher of the law and a respected leader of the faith. Jesus challenges him, however (John 3:9-10). Using a rhetorical question (“Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”), Jesus basically suggests Nicodemus appreciate another way of knowing. Jesus is not condemning Nicodemus’ way of knowing; it’s not bad. But, from Nicodemus’ perspective, he would do well to learn another way and seek its wisdom; that is, the way of the Lord.

By way of analogy, we can do the same and practice thinking outside the proverbial box. Let’s explore Indigenous wisdom when it comes to their relationship with the earth. For example, when colonists settled in the northeast centuries ago and saw First Nations gardens, they were surprised. To the settler mind, a garden meant straight rows of a single species. But that’s not how, for millennia prior to the white man’s arrival, people farmed here.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015, pp. 128-140) describes this gardening style as “The Three Sisters”, where three different seeds were laid in the ground, all in the same square foot of soil (I adapt her words here):

“Once planted in the May-moist earth, the corn seed takes on water quickly. It is the first to emerge from the ground, a slender white spike that greens within hours of finding the light. Corn is the first sister. It is all alone at first, while the others are getting ready … Making a strong stem is its highest priority at first. It needs to be there for its younger sister, the bean.

“The bean seed is the second sister. Only after the root is secure does the stem bend to the shape of a hook and elbow its way above ground. Beans take their time unfurling their leaves out of the two halves of its seed. The leaves then break the soil surface to join the corn which is already six inches tall … The bean focuses on leaf growth, all low to the ground, until the corn stalk is knee high. Then, the bean shoot changes its mind.

“Instead of making leaves, now the bean plant extends itself into a long vine, a slender green string with a mission. The tip can travel a meter in a day until it finds what it’s looking for – a corn stem or some other vertical support, to wrap itself around in a graceful, upward spiral. Had the corn not started early, the bean vine would strangle it. But if the timing is right, the corn can easily carry the bean.

“The squash or pumpkin seed is the third sister which takes its time. They are the slow sister. It may be weeks before the first stems poke out of the ground. It steadily extends herself over the ground, moving away from the corn and beans. Its leaves and vines are distinctly bristly, giving second thoughts to nibbling caterpillars. As its leaves grow wider, they shelter the soil at the base of the corn and beans, keeping moisture in, and other plants out.

“The lessons of reciprocity are written clearly in a Three Sisters garden. No leaf sits directly over the next, so that each can gather light without shading the others … Each plant has its own pace and the sequence of their germination is important to their relationship and to the success of the crop.”

So, what gifts does each offer?

“The corn takes care of making light available. The squash reduces weeds. But what is the gift beans offer? To see her gift you have to look underground … Beans are members of the legume family, which has the remarkable ability to take nitrogen from the atmosphere and turn it into usable nutrients for all the plants. This process occurs on the beans’ roots.

“The Three sisters teach us the important lesson of knowing our unique gift and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and nurtured, because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction, so they can be shared with others. Being among the three sisters provides a visible picture of what a community can become when its members understand and share their gifts …

“The message of this garden is: respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others. And there will be enough for all.

“The Three Sisters embody, in leaf and vine, the knowledge of relationship. Alone, bean is just a vine, squash an oversize leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge which transcends the individual. The gifts of each are more fully expressed when they are nurtured together, rather than alone. In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship.”

Listen to Saint Paul’s words:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 12:7-11)

And, may we be like Isaiah who responds to the Spirit’s nudging, saying, “Yes, Here I am. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). May our prayer rise: Bless the gift you have given to me, to share with the Body of Christ and the world. Empower me, and everyone else in their gifting, to let your gift flourish in and through me, for the sake of the common good. Let this be our Pentecost season prayer.

May the words of Jesus resonate in our hearts this day as the greatest gift we receive, the message that it is God’s love and grace that holds all relationships together. For God so loved the world, that in Christ and in the dance of the Holy Trinity, like the Three Sisters, all will be saved (John 3:16-17). All will have enough. All will share with each other their gift, in Christ, forever.

What is the gift you have received? And what will you do? How will you share it for the common good?

Reference:

W. Kimmerer. (2020). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Penguin.

Candles and campfires

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The sermon today is about containing the flames. Recognizing limits. Respecting boundaries. Without recognizing limits, respecting boundaries and containing the impulse energy, we have problems. Even big ones.

Wildfires are already burning out of control in Western Canada this year (Tait et al., 2024). Hopefully the upcoming wildfire season won’t be as bad as last year’s, when a record eighteen and a half million hectares went up in flames—an area twice the size of Portugal—shattering the previous annual record almost three times over (Milman, 2023). The signs aren’t good. Even locally. I don’t recall ever having a fire ban in effect already at the end of March, as we had early this Spring in the Ottawa Valley.

In the Gospel for today, Pentecost Sunday, Jesus announces limits that we would do well to acknowledge. “I still have many things to say to you,” he tells his disciples. “But you cannot bear them now” (John 15:12). To curb our insatiable desire to know it all now. The limits of knowing everything. The limits of our capacity to understand the whole truth all at once. Can we live with that? Can we live positively in that state of constant unknowing?

What Jesus points to in this Holy Spirit season of the church is our transformation, our growth in the Spirit. And this transformation is not a one-time-event that happens on the surface of things. It is an ongoing process, a deepening journey regardless of our age and life experience. We never stop learning. We never stop realizing that we don’t know it all.

One of my favourite activities year-round but in the summer I can take it outside, is lighting a small flame. Inside, it’s candles. Outside, it’s in a fire pit. But fire pits have a circle of stones or a steel wheel drum encasing, encircling and holding the otherwise dangerous fire.

The shape of the container is important. Most candles and campfires are round. The fire of passion, of love, of deep feeling is contained in the circle. The circular container describes anything we can see in its wholeness and three-dimensional depth, slowly coming into focus. (McGilchrist, 2019, p. 447). How so?

I’ve never thought about it this way, but circular motion actually brings together opposite points. Perpetually. Difference is not something to avoid or deny in striving for unity, for harmony. The unity, the oneness, of which Jesus prayed for his disciples in the Gospel last week (John 17: 11), is not a melting pot where distinctions are suppressed or erased. The truth is quite the opposite.

Two wildflowers growing at this time of year illustrate the value of difference. Canada Goldenrod and New England Aster grow together. Especially when the soil is damp enough, neither normally grows alone in the fields (W. Kimmerer, 2015, p. 40). The gold of goldenrod and the deep royal purple of aster, together. According to botanist, scientist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, each by itself is a “botanical superlative” (p. 41). Together, however, the visual effect is stunning. Purple and gold.

Why do they stand beside each other when they could grow alone? A random event that just happens to be beautiful? But Einstein himself, the consummate scientist, said that “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

According to the colour wheel, of course, purple and gold are complementary colours, as different in nature as could be. In an 1890 paper on colour perception, Goethe, who was both a scientist and poet, wrote that “the colors diametrically opposed to each other … are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye” (cited in W. Kimmerer, p.45).

So, why do goldenrod and asters grow together and not apart, alone? Because, in short, pollination.

Though bees perceive many flowers differently than humans do, due to their ability to perceive additional spectra such as ultraviolet radiation, it is not the case when it comes to goldenrods and asters. “As it turns out, golden rod and asters appear very similarly to bee eyes and human eyes … Their striking contrast when they grow together makes them the most attractive target in the whole meadow, a beacon for bees … Growing together, both receive more pollinator visits than they would if they were growing alone” (W. Kimmerer, p. 46).

To perceive contrast and difference, is better for the whole. In our growth, spiritually, we see the world more fully when we see both, when we recognize and value difference. Belonging to the circle, being one with another is a statement of faith that in our diversity we find unity. In our differences we grow and benefit not only ourselves but the whole world.

The church is not an exclusive country club for a select, elite few who are like minded and all look the same. The church is for all. The church realizes its true identity the more diverse it is, the more variety of people we encounter in the circle is a testimony to the truth of God’s design, God’s reign. It was true on that first day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21). And it is true today.

The circle of our planet’s atmosphere protects us, on a large scale, from the sun’s fire. The northern lights, or the aurora borealis, are beautiful dancing ribbons of light that have captivated people for millennia. Some of you got up in the middle of the night last week to witness this cinematic atmospheric event in Canada. But for all its beauty, this spectacular light show is a rather violent event. 

The northern lights are created when energized particles from the sun slam into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 72 million kilometres per hour. But our planet’s magnetic field protects us from the onslaught (Space.com).

We need containment, as humans, why? Because our love is not perfect. Our love fails time and time again. And we give in so often to the dangerous fires of hatred and impulsive action that excludes and harms others.

Nevertheless, there are moments. Our human perspective can perceive moments of the unbounded, universal, fire of God when we literally and spiritually look to the heavens. This incredible power, witnessed by God’s creation, is a power reflecting God’s love for us all.

God’s fiery love cannot be doused. God’s love reigns. Because the “ruler of this world has been condemned” (John 16:11). The ruler of our hating impulses, the ruler of our retributive justice, our violence, the ruler of the unbridled flames of this fire will be doused. And the reign of God will unite and hold us all in loving embrace forever.

References:

McGilchrist, I. (2019). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world (2nd Ed.). Yale University Press.

Milman, O. (2023, November 9) After a record year of wildfires, will Canada ever be the same again? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/09/canada-wildfire-record-climate-crisis – :~:text=Fire ravaged Canada in 2023,record nearly three times over

Tait, C., Woo, A., Link, H., & Arnett, K. (2024, May 14). Fort McMurray residents to evacuate as wildfire approaches community. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-fort-mcmurray-residents-ordered-to-evacuate-as-wildfire-approaches/

W. Kimmerer, R. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Penguin.

God and Mothers*

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* The preacher’s words today belong to The Rev. Dr. Kayko Driedger Hesslein, Hordern Professor of Theology, at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon. Dr Kayko is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) and provides a personal perspective in this sermon for Easter 7B, May 12, 2024 — Mother’s Day. Thank you, Dr. Kayko.

Well, today is Mother’s Day, and no doubt you’ve seen the cards thanking mothers for all the sacrifices they’ve made, for their boundless love, for the hugs and kisses they’ve shared, for all the work they’ve done for their families. You’ve probably seen the commercials on TV and heard them on the radio – “This Mother’s Day, show her you care, buy her…” whatever they’re selling – jewelry, a camera, a drill from Home Depot (that’s my favourite) – the list is endless. And of course, you’ve noticed the flowers and balloons in the store, covered with hearts, saying Happy Mother’s Day.

Even the church takes part in this celebration of mothers, although it’s not a specifically Christian holiday. Churches proclaim mothers to be God’s angels and saints – the epitome of selflessness, role models of self-sacrifice. Luther himself called motherhood the highest vocation and calling for women – a proclamation that was revolutionary at a time when motherhood was seen as a punishment for Eve’s transgression in the garden of Eden and nowhere near as valued as any of the “actual” vocations that men fulfilled. Since then, in the church, Mother’s Day has been a time to talk about the holiness of all mothers––about Mary, Jesus’ mother, who bravely answered God’s call to carry the Saviour in her womb and then to give him up to die; about Sarah, the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac, who carried Isaac in her old age and fulfilled God’s promise of making Abraham the father of generations of the covenant. We hear about Leah and Rachel, about Hannah who wept in the Temple because she couldn’t have a child, about the two mothers in King Solomon’s court––one who couldn’t cope with the loss of her baby and the other who would rather give hers up than watch it die. We heard Jesus’ words last Sunday, words that God has given us, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I loved you,” and it seems a natural step to connect this to mothers. Who else but a mother could love this way? A mother’s love is the closest many of us get to God’s love for us.

I’ll tell you a secret about mothers and Mother’s Day, though. And maybe this changes the longer you’ve been a mother, and maybe not all mothers feel this way, but this has been my experience. Mother’s Day, as lovely as it is to get cards and flowers and a break from cooking and to hear about other mothers in the Bible, also makes mothers feel a little bit… guilty. Or inadequate. Or maybe a bit ashamed. You see, mothers never feel that we’re doing as good a job as others seem to think we are. Mothers tend to walk around with this pervasive sense of guilt that we are not the mothers we wish we were. We hear about how wonderful other moms are, and we hear God’s commandment to love our children as God loves us, and we know that we don’t. The most common feeling that mothers share is guilt––over things done and left undone––and what those things have done to our children. Often we feel guilty that: 

  • We’re too hard on our children and they’re going to rebel against us.
  • We’re too soft on our children and they’re going to think they’re entitled to everything.
  • We don’t protect our children enough and they’re going to be hurt by someone or something.
  • We’re overprotective of our children and they’re not going to know how to handle the world.
  • We don’t give them enough independence and they’re not going to be able to handle real responsibility.
  • We try to make them too independent and they won’t be able to form close relationships with anyone.
  • We treat them in ways they don’t deserve.
  • We don’t treat them the way they do deserve.
  • We don’t spend enough time with our children. 
  • We don’t spend enough time for ourselves. 
  • We don’t give them enough. 
  • We give them too much. 
  • We don’t do enough of this. 
  • We do too much of that..

The list goes on, and so does the guilt.

Working mothers, stay-at-home mothers, student mothers, single mothers, married mothers––we come to this day with mixed feelings because we know that we have never been able to love and mother our children the way we wish we could: perfectly, as Jesus loves us, as God commands us. All mothers, no matter how well-intentioned (and, truthfully, there are some mothers who have not been well-intentioned), no matter how many sacrifices we have made (and there are always sacrifices), know that we fall short, and on Mother’s Day, this feeling lurks persistently at the back of our minds. We are never always and fully the mothers the cards say we are. We all have had our times of anger, and impatience, and annoyance, and negligence. We have all fallen short of the perfect love God commands from us.

Well, today is Mother’s Day, and so I say specifically to those of you who mother, “As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.” Now, we may smile a bit, but I am serious. Mothers do not hear very often that we are forgiven for falling short as mothers. And so I proclaim to you who mother that the forgiveness that is granted to all Christians through Christ is also granted to you. To you mothers specifically. You are forgiven for all of the mistakes you have made as you mother. You are forgiven for the things that you have done and left undone. You are forgiven for not loving your children as yourselves. You are forgiven for being too strict and for not being strict enough. You are forgiven for not protecting your children from harm and for being overprotective. You are forgiven for not giving them enough and for giving them too much. Through Christ, whom some of the Reformation women called our mother, God forgives you.

God forgives you and God loves you. Even more than we find ways to forgive and love our own children, despite their failings and mistakes, despite the hurt they have caused us, God forgives and loves us, despite our failings and mistakes and the hurt we have caused. It isn’t that God doesn’t see the ways we have failed – it is that God has seen them, and God, who loves our children even more than we do, forgives us and loves us, too, because we are also God’s children.

I have one last good word to share with you today. As mothers, we always hope that our children will not be hurt by the mistakes we have made. We hope that our children will be able to move past the ways in which our mothering has held them back. The last good word that I want to share with you is that God makes this happen. We have heard over the last few weeks of this Easter season, that God makes the branches bear more fruit, and causes fruit to grow that will last. God gives to those who mother the responsibility of watering and feeding and caring for the seeds that we have been given, and more often than not, we don’t get it right. Mothers are human. But God works through and beyond our own efforts, or lack thereof, and loves them in ways that we can’t, sending the Holy Spirit where we have fallen short, and being more committed to them than we possibly could. As mothers, this is our salvation – that God takes better care of our children than we do, and that despite our mistakes, despite our inability to live up to the Hallmark cards’ description of us and despite our failure to love our children as God loves us, God loves our children, God loves us, and God forgives us. Thanks be to God. Happy Mother’s Day. Amen. 

The Gospel meets Red Dress Day

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Last summer I camped with a couple of friends on Cedar Lake in Algonquin Park. We were fortunate to get on the one beachfront campsite on a large island in the middle of the lake. The campsite was on the west side, facing the setting sun.

On the last day we were there, we wanted to satisfy our curiosity to see what was on the other side of the island, on the east shore. And there wasn’t a sandy beach to follow all the way around. So, we had to hike straight across.

There was no trail, no clearly marked path. We had to bushwhack our way through the thick underbrush and dense wood. There was deadfall we had to clamber over, swamp we had to wade through, prickly bushes to push away and mosquitos the size of buses to swat.

By avoiding some of the pitfalls in hiking across it was easy to get turned around and head in the wrong direction. So, occasionally I stopped to check the compass on my watch to keep us headed east. And we eventually found our circuitous way. After enjoying the breeze at the water’s edge on the east side we made a different albeit equally challenging path back to our campsite. All, thanks to my compass.

God gives us instructions. The word “command” appears often in the bible. But these instructions are not to be understood in a command-and-control kind of way that we must mindlessly obey. Commandments are a compass (W. Kimmerer, 2015). A compass gives us an orientation to life, not a map. The work of our lives consists of creating our map using the compass God gives us.

Love is the main theme of Jesus’ speech in the Gospel for today (John 15:9-17). The word appears several times in this short passage. Jesus says, 12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The writer of First John, in the Epistle reading today, echoes Jesus’ words: “2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments” (1 John 5).

The commandment to love is a compass Jesus gives you. You are given the orientation. And it’s up to you now to forge a path forward through the thickets and challenges of life.

Hopefully, not alone. The arduous journey across the wilderness island was possible only because I was not alone. I probably wouldn’t have done it by myself.

In an ethics course I’m now taking, we read about what it means to be in a helping profession. In a relationship of care, the caregiver places their full attention on the interests and needs of the other.

The person in the relationship receiving care determines the agenda, not the caregiver. The caregiver’s needs, though important, are put aside to focus on what the client or patient is bringing forward. The effectiveness and quality of the caring relationship depends on how safe the person feels in the relationship to share with the caregiver what is truly on their hearts.

In practising an active and deep listening, helpers and caregivers also fulfill one of the main ethical principles identified in professional caregiving: “societal interest”; that is, part of all we do for other individuals is also a responsibility we have to act in the best interests of society as a whole (Sorsdahl et al., 2023, p. 8). I was surprised to read this in a secular manual because it aligns with the Gospel of Jesus.

Agape love – the kind of love Jesus taught and modelled – is a servant love. Loving one another, bearing fruit, calling us friends – these phrases speak about community and a responsibility to all people. The Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles as well (Acts 10:45). God so loved the world (John 3:16-17) not to condemn it but so that all may be saved.

And that is why the church on May 5 recognizes the National Day of Awareness for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls and Two Spirit People[1], who have been subject to disproportionate violence in Canada. This day is otherwise known as “Red Dress Day” inspired by Métis artist Jaime Black’s REDress Project installation, in which she hung empty, red dresses to represent the missing and murdered women.[2] Red dresses have thus become symbolic of this “hidden crisis”[3] in our country.

The Red Dress display has travelled across the Eastern Synod this past year. We are fortunate to have the display today on the actual May 5 National Day of Awareness. Last week it was at All Saints Lutheran Church in Guelph and next Sunday it will be at Redeemer Lutheran Church in London, Ontario.

Our church is not just about meeting our own, individual needs, or seeking what’s best only for ourselves. The church, the Gospel, the mission of Christ is to love the world. This is our orientation, our compass. And, admittedly, creating our map and path across this proverbial island is hard work, not easy, and takes us out of our comfort zones. The compass calls us to exercise humility when we make mistakes and exercise perseverance to forge ahead.

In his letter to the Ephesians (5:1-2), Paul writes, “Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. (Peterson, 2021).

It’s appropriate today to give the last word to an Indigenous voice, Melanie Florence, who wrote a picture book with François Thisdale titled, Missing Nimâma, or My Missing Mother.

I’ll read just two scenes from the book. The first is a conversation between the child Kateri and her grandmother. And the second scene is years later when Kateri is grown up and participates in a public memorial for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.

Both scenes include two voices: The first is Kateri’s voice. And the second is her lost mother’s voice.

“Where is nimâmâ, my mother?” I ask nôhkom [my grandmother].

“Lost”, she says. Lost?

“If she’s lost, let’s just go find her.”

Nôhkom [Grandmother] smooths my hair, soft and dark as a raven’s wing.

Parts it. Braids it. Ties it with a red ribbon. My mother’s favourite colour.

“She’s one of the lost women, kamâmakos.” She calls me ‘little butterfly’. Just like nimâmâ did.

Before she got lost.

Taken. Taken from my home. Taken from my family. Taken from my daughter. My kamâmakos. My beautiful little butterfly, I fought to get back to you, Kateri. I wish I could tell you that. And when I couldn’t fight anymore, I closed my eyes. And saw your beautiful face.

…

I wasn’t expecting to see so many people here. Holding signs. Wearing t-shirts. Sharing stories. I’m surrounded by the faces of so many Aboriginal women who never came home. Stolen sisters. I hold my own sign. My own lost loved one. Nimâmâ. Missing. Aiyana Cardinal. Lost.

So many faces. So many lost souls. So many people left behind. Wondering if their loved one will ever come home. Or having to live with the knowledge that they never will. Too many lost and not enough who care. (Florence & Thisdale, 2015)

—

References:

Florence, F. & Thisdale, F. (2015). Missing nimâma. Clockwise Press.

Peterson, E. (2021). The Message: The bible in contemporary language. NavPress. www.messagebible.com

Sorsdahl, M. N., Borgen, R. A., & Borgen, W. A. (Eds.). (2023). Ethics in a Canadian counselling and psychotherapy context. CCPA.

W. Kimmerer, Robin. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed.

[1]  Two-Spirit People

[2] Details about Red Dress Day: https://www.jaimeblackartist.com/exhibitions/

[3]  Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls