Indigenous Justice

You’re more than a consumer. You’re more than a taxpayer. You’re a citizen.

In September 2016, the Government of Canada launched a ‘National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’, after decades of advocacy from Indigenous groups. Its mission is defined by three goals: finding the truth; honouring the truth; and giving life to the truth as a path to healing. These goals parallel the power of Biblical stories that reveal the truth of human relationships, demand that the truth be honoured, and call humanity to healing through repentance and justice.

This is an excerpt of a message preached by Mike Hogeterp, Director of the Christian Reformed Centre for Public Dialogue, at Calvin CRC in Ottawa on Aboriginal Sunday 2016. The message was based on Genesis 12:1-4 and Psalm 25. What do the biblical calls to hospitality and reconciled relationships mean for your church’s relationships with local Indigenous peoples?

Hospitality was a big deal in biblical Israel. Abraham hurried to offer “three seahs of the finest flour” and a “choice, tender calf” to three men passing by his tent, even before learning that his guests were no mere humans (Genesis 18). The disciples on the road to Emmaus urged the resurrected Jesus to stay with them, learning his true identity only later (Luke 24).

Annie Pootoogook.

Bella Laboucan-McLean.

Cheyenne Fox.

Jane Bernard.

Therese Labbe.

Most Thursdays, I spend my afternoons at a local halfway house and healing centre, created to prepare Indigenous men for the transition from federal prison to the street. I walk through two sets of glass doors, up a short flight of stairs, and into the sweet smell of sage grass and fried food. Indigenous parole officers, administrators, and parolees mill around a front desk, filling out paperwork and discussing their plans for the weekend. Of the dozen or so people around me, I am the only one with white skin. Brown skin is the norm here, and my whiteness makes me an outsider.

I believe that God has a plan for everyone, but sometimes that fact alone doesn’t feel very comforting. I came across the Youth Ambassador of Reconciliation Program when I was struggling with God and his plans for me. I had just graduated from university and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my degree, or if I wanted to work in my degree’s field at all. I had decided to just take a year off to “figure it out” when I heard about this opportunity to go live among the First Nations in Kitchenuhmayoosib Inninuwag (KI), a remote reserve in northern Ontario.

We are a people who deeply believe in the importance of promises, and also, seem, ironically, to not be very good at keeping them.

Welcome to our Sacred Covenants series! You can find other posts in the series here.