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Sermon November 8, 2020
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers,
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 27, Year A, Track 2
http://lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp27_RCL.html#ot3
Audio Only: /documents/Service_November_8__2020
Video: https://youtu.be/ItGPkBdpDKw
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream. Amos 5:24
I grew up in Cumberland County. Just six weeks after I was born, my parents and I moved to Carlisle, so my father could use the GI Bill to attend Dickinson School of Law, now Penn State Law School. My brothers were born in Carlisle. Then when I was 3 ½, we moved to the Mechanicsburg area. All of that to say, that with my father as a lover of history, I learned quite a bit about the history of the area. I knew about Molly Pitcher who fought in the Revolutionary War. I knew about the Carlisle Indian Boarding school, mostly about its most famous student, the tremendous athlete, Jim Thorpe.
Yet, it has been only as an adult, that I have truly understood the horror of that Indian Industrial school. The Indian Industrial School movement began in 1879 with the school in Carlisle, under the leadership of Captain Richard Henry Pratt. His idea was a shift from the physical killing of the indigenous people of this nation to killing them emotionally and spiritually. The overarching principle was to “kill the Indian, but save the man.”
Native American parents were forced to send their children to these schools, which were often many miles away from home. Jim Thorpe, for example, was from Oklahoma. If they did not send their children, they were penalized.
Conditions at the schools were harsh. Sometimes there wasn’t enough food and the food that was provided was not what they were used to. Discipline was abusive. Children experienced physical and sexual abuse. All cultural connections were severed with hair being cut and uniforms having to be worn. Children were punished for using their native language. There were no native ceremonies or spirituality. In fact, many religious denominations, including the Episcopal Church, ran these schools and the goal was forced conversion to Christianity.
Students were not allowed to return home and even if their siblings were in the same school, they were prevented from seeing each other. In the summer, the children were sent to live with families as free and forced labor. These summer sojourns were called “outings.” One child was sent to Philadelphia to put prices on jewelry at the Wanamaker store there. He was put in a glass room, so customers could watch him. Information about children from the Carlisle school and where they were sent for their “outings,” is available in the online archives at Dickinson College.
As you can imagine, sometimes the children died from disease or even from loneliness. If they were on their “outing,” they were often buried in the town where they died. Carlisle Indian Industrial School has a cemetery where children were buried. In recent years, the remains have been returned to the trial nations from whence the children came.
While the Carlisle school closed in 1918, it is estimated that there were 380 such schools around the country, some operating into the 1970s. When I lived in Kansas, I was familiar with Haskell Indian Nations University, adjacent to the University of Kansas. It was begun in 1884 as a boarding school. In 1967 it became a 2-year college and then finally a university in 1993.
In our reading from Amos this morning, we hear a well-known piece of scripture. Amos, the prophet, is chastising the society of his time. Yes, they did all of the commonly-understood actions to worship God. They brought the proper offerings of thanksgiving and atonement. They prayed for the day when God would rule the world.
Yet, Amos cautions them. Do they really want this day to come? While they have done all of the seemingly “right” things, their daily actions were unjust and unrighteous. The Day of the Lord would be a day of judgment and they would be found lacking. Amos provides vivid pictures of what that day would be like…fleeing from a lion, only to meet up with a bear or going in your home to get some cool rest, leaning against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake. No, these people think they are doing what is right by God. But Amos brings the word that what is necessary is justice and righteousness. “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
We know the rolling of waters and the might of streams. We live along streams and rivers. We know the power of water.
So what does justice and righteousness look like for the tribal nations still living on this land we call the United States?
Apparently every two years a conference is sponsored by the Cumberland County Historical Society about the Indian Industrial School. This year I happened to find out about it and attended a virtual presentation by Professor Denise K. Lajimodiere. She is an enrolled Citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in Belcourt, North Dakota. For many years, she was a professor at the University of North Dakota. In 2019, she published a book, Stringing Rosaries: The History, the Unforgivable, and the Healing of Northern Plains American Indian Boarding School Survivors. The book documents qualitative interviews of 16 adults who were forced to attend a boarding school. Professor Lajimodiere’s parents also were forced to attend such a school.
The experiences are horrifying. Most of the survivors had never spoken to anyone else about their experience. Yet, the legacy of the schools had been passed down to their children.
A group called the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has been formed to bring these stories to light. To stop the silence. In order for something to change, it has to be brought out into the light.
On September 29, a bill was introduced in the United States Congress by U.S. Representative Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). According to an article in the online Indianz news site run by the Winnebago nation, the bill “seeks healing for stolen Native children and their communities. The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policy in the United States Act will establish the first formal commission in United States history to investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices of the federal government’s cultural genocide and assimilation practices through its Indian Boarding School Policy. The commission will also develop recommendations for Congress to aid in healing of the historical and intergenerational trauma passed down in Native American families and communities and provide a forum for victims to speak about personal experiences tied to these human rights violations.”
The Senate bill does not have any co-sponsors and the House Bill does not have any co-sponsors from Pennsylvania. Justice looks like this legislation passing and the Commission becoming real. Justice looks like encouraging our members of Congress and Senators to sign on to this legislation.
Professor Lajimodiere also said at the conference and it is documented in her book, that an apology from the US government and from the religious denominations involved in running these schools would go a long way. These survivors have never been apologized to. Such a simple thing. Yet, it requires us to acknowledge that the actions taken to establish these schools and the policies enforced in them were horrifying and created long-term harm. They were cruel. We sometimes do not want to acknowledge those things. The acknowledgement is uncomfortable.
While the Episcopal Church has an office of Indigenous Ministry and has passed resolutions at General Convention repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, I could not find where the church has apologized for the conduct at these boarding schools.
This past week, I heard an 11-year-old boy cry out for truth in history. He’d had a bad experience around what he was being taught about Columbus. He loves history and yet knew he was being told lies. He wants the truth.
That’s what justice looks like. May it roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Amen.
Article that includes the “outing” to Wanamakers: https://heard.org/boardingschool/student-experiences/
Website for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition: https://boardingschoolhealing.org/
Article about the truth and healing commission: https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/09/29/bipartisan-bill-establishes-truth-and-healing-commission-on-indian-boarding-school-policy/#:~:text=The%20Truth%20and%20Healing%20Commission,practices%20through%20its%20Indian%20Boarding
Legislation in US Congress:
Carlisle Indian School Online Archives: http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/
