Liberation Lectionary - Latiné Heritage Month

Land and Holy Ground

“The secret of our success is that we never, never give up.” – Wilma Mankiller

Daily Scripture Readings: Psalm 122 thru Psalm 125

Sunday: Psalm 122.1 I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’
Monday: Psalm 122. 6-9 Pray for the peace of the city: ‘May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.’ For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
Tuesday: Psalm 123.1, 3-4 To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.
Wednesday: Psalm 124. 1-5 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side —let God’s people now say— if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters.
Thursday: Psalm 124.6-8 Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Friday: Psalm 125: 1-2 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. As the mountains surround the holy city, so the Lord surrounds their people, from this time on and for evermore.
Saturday: Psalm 125: 3-5 For the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, so that the righteous may not stretch out their hands to do wrong. Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts. But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways the Lord will lead away with evildoers. Peace be upon God’s people!

Reflection on Renewal as Resistance

The second Monday of October is Indigenous People’s Day. This celebration began as a protest of Columbus Day, and is widely recognized as a reclaiming of that holiday, which was established in the United States in 1937 as a federal holiday. In part because of pressure from a Catholic fraternal organization called the Knights of Columbus.

The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. Native Americans and other groups have protested the celebration of an event that resulted in the colonization of the Americas, the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade and the deaths of millions from massacre, tyranny, terrorism and disease.

European settlers brought a host of brutal subjugation practices, infectious diseases, including smallpox and influenza that brought grave losses to indigenous populations.”

During this Renewal Season, we understand that celebrating Indigenous People’s Day is part of our hope for renewal. We know that land acknowledgment is not enough. We hold this holiday for action, prayerful remembrance and people power building. We hold near the ancestors and descendants whose histories have encountered and interrupted by the corruption of colonizing. In the month of November, we will honor and uplift all indigenous peoples. For the remembrance, veneration and respect of the tribes who first and frequently Renewal to the lands and peoples of the Taino, Ignerians, Lucayans, Borequinos and Kalinagos. Renewal to the cultures and histories of the Bahamas, the Dominican, Greater Antilles, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago.

During this holiday, because of the direct connection with lamenting the violence of Columbus’s  colonizing, we focus intentionally on the Taino people and their nearest neighbors.

“Taíno,”is a frequently used and widely understood term for indigenous people from the Caribbean. Contact with Europeans devastated indigenous populations like the “Taínos,” but it did not eliminate them. Forced and voluntary unions between Europeans and indigenous populations are well documented. Smithsonian Institute shares that “Lesser known, however, is the complicated history connecting Native and African peoples for over 500 years.”

This is the history we ponder over and uplift today. The histories erased from our people, and then replaced with some of the earliest victims-blaming these stolen lands can trace. This holiday weekend, we lift the names of the tribes and people we never knew, but know we must be connected to. Renewal for all the family lines that have been threatened or cut off. Renewal and full repair for everyone who is owed.

Discussion and Learning

Search the database on Native-Land.ca, what tribes, territories and languages are connected to your neighborhood? 

Native Heritage month is in November. Are you thinking about Thanksgiving holiday elements already? Why or why not? What does is mean for your to know in your body and soul that this land is not your land? What is real activism and advocacy for native people?

How would liberation and renewal look for the people impacted by Columbus, by Ponce de Leon; all the people who claimed to be explorers, and all the people responsible for their platform, power and influence. How is this an example of the ways you colonize spaces and people? How have you learned more about natibe tribes, especially the Taino, and other Caribbean peoples? What thoughts were you having as you learned? How much Native history did you learn in school? What resources will you use to learn about land acknowledgements? Commit to practicing land acknowledgement, in your home and social circles,  whenever you hold a sacred event, or have the opportunity to share. 

Prayers: for Celebrating Indigenous People

It is no secret at this point that Columbus’s arrival in 1492 was just the beginning of a terrible and brutal history of violence and oppression toward indigenous peoples of North America. Columbus and those who followed were obsessed with conversion, brought over disease the Natives had no way to cure, and ultimately desecrated entire peoples and cultures. Today we want to acknowledge this history. 

We want to be honest about the ways our faith tradition has been used to colonize, to abuse, and to oppress people. And we seek to reclaim the truth of the Gospel: that. Jesus came to love and to serve, not to conquer and enslave. Let us open our hearts, and hold space this week for prayers of lament, with confession:

O Great Spirit, God of all people and every tribe, through whom all people are related, call us to the kinship of all your people. Grant us vision to see through the lens of justice, the brokenness of the past.

Creator, we give you thanks for all that you are and all that you bring to us within your creation. In Jesus, you placed the Gospel in the Center of the Sacred Circle through which all creation is related.

You show us the way to live a generous and compassionate life. Give us your strength to live together with respect and commitment as we grow in your spirit, for you are God, now and forever. Amen.

This liturgy has been adapted from liturgy prepared by the Church of the

Apostles, a mission of the Northwest Washington Synod of the Evangelical

Lutheran Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia.

Sources and Resources

Video: Crash Course, Native people, Spaniards, Caribbean

Article/website: Columbus, Native people, African descendants

Article: Afro-Taino Arts