Creation Season Four

LIBERATION LECTIONARY ~ NATIVE HERITAGE MONTH

"We have nothing to do with how the United States has situated itself, but we have everything to do with how God situates us." Dr. Teresa Smallwood

The Honorable Harvest

ROBERT S. DUNCANSON - 1859

Lesson

Indigenous Cultures abide by an unwritten law of the connection of all things. Some of the commonly accepted rules look a lot like the commandments of scripture:

“Never take the first. Never take the last.

Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.

Take only what you need and leave some for others.

Use everything that you take.

Take only that which is given to you.

Share, as the Earth has shared with you.

Be grateful.

Reciprocate the gift.

Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever.”

This rule is called The Honorable Harvest.

In the New Testament, Jesus says there are two great commandments. When questioned by an expert in the law (the first five books of what we call the Old Testament) as to what is the greatest commandment, according to Matthew 22, Jesus replied: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is not a leap to connect these two commandments. They give us a sense that we are being invited to love our Creator, and to love our fellow creations - which the Creator also loves.

We have studied the origin of the law “Love your neighbor as yourself.”, in Leviticus 19. The commandment to “love the Lord your God…” comes from Deuteronomy, and when combined with similar passages, it is often called the “Shema”. Which is ancient Hebew for “take heed” or “Listen close.” The daily repetition of the Shema would be the same as practices or recitations that we would call a pledge of allegiance or a creed - a confession of faith.

Similarly to how centuries of Christian tradition have elevated the Lord’s Prayer as a memory practice, there are helpful and unhelpful results to grouping pieces of scripture together, then isolating them as more important than others. For example, we often use the benediction “May the Lord watch between you and me, while we are absent one from another.” which Jewish tradition calls the Mizpah. This phrase comes from the book of Genesis, marking the end of a tense relationship between Jacob and his father in law, who tricked him and manipulated him for years. “May the Lord watch…” might have been a threat, a prayer that God would keep them on opposite sides of the earth, lest they meet in argument again. Mizpah is a Hebrew word meaning "watchtower." Laban indicated it as a prayer of sorts that the Lord would watch the behavior of both parties to ensure they stick to the agreement once they are out of sight of each other. Yet some Christian traditions use it as a friendly benediction.

One way for Christians to note the passages that we are meant to elevate - and the passages that we are not meant to be soapboxes or hills to die on - is to take note of what Jesus calls great. The Lord’s prayer is an example of this. Jesus calls John the Baptist the greatest man ever born. He tells a foreign officer that he has not met someone with such great faith. And Jesus says that the greatest commandments are about love for God. Love for each other. These are examples of what we are to hold as great.

Moses’s commandment to love the Lord comes after the law given about loving and caring for neighbors. Leviticus 19 is the foundation for Deuteronomy 6. And the Shema is followed by a call to remember the history of how the people of Israel arrived to live on the land. What then are we to learn from the verses which tell the people that they will move into land that is already occupied? Is this the act of colonizing by God’s order and will? If we ignore these verses, are we upholding a foolishness similar to unhealthy practices which overlook scriptures about freedom and resisting acts of oppression? The question lingers as a reminder for us to practice humility above all else, and to release ourselves from demanding certainty as a pathway - or the end of the pathway - to knowing the Divine. And as the question lingers, perhaps the invitation to us is to practice faith, hope and love, while knowing we might never meet full resolve.

The Bible is full of complexities. But if the creation teaches us the core goodness (exceeding goodness!) of God’s earth, then the passages that confuse us are an invitation to find and focus on that core truth: that what God wants from us right now is grounded in loving our Creator, and in loving our neighbor. Remember what ecowomanism teaches us. God has made you - your history, your future, and your present reality - in such a way that your cultural identity can be engaged to make your spiritual path plain. The Bible is not a crystal ball. It is not a reference guide for what city you should live in or where you should work. God’s word draws us close to the divine, to each other, for the sake of spiritual well-being. The Bible is meant to reveal connections between where we are right now, where humanity has come from, and where we are going.

All of our histories, and all of our yearnings tell us that we are headed for freedom. From the fatal foolishness of the MAGA to the faithful endurance of the Magi, the human journey is a march towards common acceptance of a total truth. And this is all played out on one earth, one planet. The place we live right now. The place that is older than ALL of us. Whatever our wonderings - or wanderings; we might be God’s greatest creation, but we are not Their first. The cultures which call us to remain connected to God’s very first act are those worthy of our great attention.

This Thanksgiving holiday, did you experience the dissonance of doing daily life while the world is wearied from genocide and oppression in Puerto Rico, Sudan, Haiti, Congo and more? Are there places where you cannot imagine “what’s going on?” but certainly not from lack of caring, no! Perhaps it is from lack of certainty - when will all this pain end? When will all children be free to thrive? When will cultural traditions, phrases or feasts, all be based in full freedom, and have no possible historical ties to corruption and evil?

This is how we know whose aims are off and which goals are to God’s glory. While European colonial projects were founded in land stealing and human subjugation, Indigenous practices teach us the Honorable Harvest, and the address of Thanksgiving. Read the cultural resources from Indigenous people, and as you read the scriptures for this week, when you read and question verses 11 thru 20, remember that when verse 25 refers to “all the law”, it includes - and centers - the law to love our neighbors as ourselves. That is the enduring core of God’s word.

Native people speak of all the living world as kin, and the Earth is the great gift of permanent place that encompasses all that is living. Each element and part of life is to be treated as a gift. So that when the life of plant or animal is taken in order to increase nourishment for humans, there is a system of honor for what is taken, and honor for those who receive. All things must be harvested with honor. This honoring of earth and humanity is the way that we can honor the Great Spirit.

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Group Think

- have you ever studied or memorized Christian scriptures to justify harm?

- can you think of scriptures or stories that amplify care?

The indigenous practice of gratitude and honor is dripping with God’s creational imagination. The original act of Earth’s existence was to connect. All acts of disconnection are to be questioned, and no story of one human disconnection can be presumed to prescribe the next. The Dutch against South Africa, Belgium against Congo, State of Israel against Palestine, Ancient Egypt against ancient Hebrew people, Military against Militia in Sudan, The Mayflower against The Wampanoag. Scriptures from all five books of the Pentateuch have been used to justify cruelty in most of these situations. But commitment to context and God’s essential laws had to be completely ignored in order to let these atrocities continue.

How might bible stories, laws and verses cause such dissonance?

What essence of love and mutual care surface from the great commandments, and others like them?

Thanksgiving Address

Among multiple tribes in Native Nations of the US, nearly every social, cultural and political event that takes place begins and ends with the “words that come before all others,” that is known as the “Thanksgiving Address.” Through these words, our minds are gathered together to share our thankfulness of what nature provides, and acknowledges the ongoing impact of these forces on human lives. The Thanksgiving Address acknowledges the people, earth, waters, plants, animals, birds, bushes, trees, winds, sun, moon, stars, as well as the unseen spiritual forces. There are a multitude of connections between human beings and other living beings in the world. The Haudenosaunee are thankful for all the gifts that we receive.

Many Native Americans express gratitude for the gifts of life. It was this that inspired the holiday of Thanksgiving in the United States. Think for a moment about what in nature makes you thankful. What is your relationship to the plants, animals, water, and air that surrounds you?

THANKSGIVING ADDRESS pdf here

For more about the Honorable Harvest, read this excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass