Several years ago, my good buddy, Rev.
Andy DeBraber, came to visit us for an overnight on his way to a speaking
engagement he had in northern Indiana. Andy
and I both process life through physical exertion so we took a long hike around
Tower Hill and talked at length about saving the world.
Andy
had just come off his sabbatical so I asked him about the most meaningful
experiences he had out on his own, hiking and camping in the wilderness. He shared a conversation he had with an
Ojibway Elder, how many Native American peoples will talk about the seventh
generation into the future as a way of caring for the earth to make sure the
goodness provided for by Creator was still around for future generations. But this Elder also spoke of how his people
were to remember the seventh generation out into the past as a way of knowing
their ancestors. Then, to Andy’s
surprise, this Ojibway Elder shared his history back through seven
generations.
He
knew them all. He knew every generation. He could talk with wisdom about the lives of
his ancestors to the seventh generation.
We both marveled. I can remember my family back through my
grandparents, know something of their lives, but could not begin to tell you
the lives of my great-great grandparents.
And whether we realize it, that’s important. For most indigenous peoples and the peoples
of the ancient world that was the Bible, they can trace those generations back
in detail. In the Bible, time is not linear. It is cyclical. Particularly when it came to holy and sacred
moments in a community’s life, past, present, and future could collapse into
one another so that we could readily not only expect our great-great-great
grandchildren to show up and thank us for being good ancestors but also our
ancestors might show up wondering if we have kept the path, followed in the
trail they blazed.
I am reminded of a presentation made
by Native American psychologist, Dr. Eduardo Duran, some years ago. Eduardo was considered an expert in Native
psychology, sought after by many who were active in trying to improve Native
mental, emotional, and social health.
Duran was also strongly tied to the Bozeman UCC Church in Bozeman,
Montana. On a late summer’s day, Eduardo
Duran shared with those gathered that when you come to regular recovery
meetings, attend to your own mindfulness in sweat lodge, or remember your own
community by celebrating Pow Wow, your ancestors come with you, looking for
their own healing. I saw so many of my
friends nod their own heads knowing and understanding in that moment the truth
of intergenerational trauma. You are not alone.
I remembered that moment because my
best friend from Billings, Josiah Hugs, who is a superstar in the Native
Wellbriety movement, just received another honor by being asked to be on the
Recovery Friendly Montana Advisory Board.
Josiah has been the Native American Liaison for the major health clinic
in the largest city in Montana. We Zoom
every so often to catch up. And I asked
him, what was it like the first time he started at the health clinic, just
starting to get recognition for his work.
As
I said, Josiah is an incredible healer and has been responsible for so many
lives redeemed from the grips of chemical dependency. I can remember a time when he came into my
office and told me that the evangelical Christianity of his youth had preached
to him that remembering his ancestors was idol worship. The consistent message was to be Native and
practice Native faith was to be an infidel, a pagan, unfaithful. Josiah had broken from that to now say to
people who remained outside recovery, “Your ancestors seek your healing. Be a good ancestor.”
In his first presentation at the
hospital, he was nervous, he told me.
All these white folk were going to look to him for how to understand his
people, to accompany them in their healing and health through one of the two
major hospital systems in the largest city of Montana. “How did it go?” I asked.
“Akbaatidia (the Crow name for Creator) was good,” he said, “I
remembered when I walked in there that all the ancestors came with me. I was not alone.” He was not alone.
As a person who has worked in
immigration justice issues almost my whole adult life, I often hear people
wonder why there is such white hatred for immigrants. One of my longtime friends in the campaign
for a more humane immigration practice and policy once told me, “It is because
we have buried our intergenerational trauma.
We white people intentionally or unintentionally don’t remember all the
pain and suffering it took to leave a land many of us loved, to arrive and scratch
and scrape to get by in a new place, all the struggle to assimilate in a place
that is not our own. So we’re angry,
hurt, traumatized, and we’re not sure why.
We don’t remember. We’ve buried
it.” Yes, I thought, we don’t remember
our ancestors. As a result, sometimes we
get caught up thinking we are all alone.
But our faith tradition forever wants us to remember, we are not
alone.
I think that was one of the most
painful ways that the pandemic affected many of us. The pandemic isolated us and made us believe
that we are alone. We rebel in odd ways
and talk about “freedom” and our right to choose—pretending we can make it on
our own. Our very best days during the
pandemic were not when we cavalierly forgot one another to refuse to do
protocols. Our very best days were when we remembered how to take care of one
another through Mutual Aid Networks which delivered food or provided
transportation, made the extra phone call, cared for “essential workers” or
hospital staff, remembered those protocols to get vaccinated, kept our
distance, wore our masks. To essentially
say, our ancestors have been through plague and pandemic before, and we want to
learn from them to find healing. And
then, to be good ancestors ourselves. We
are not alone.
At a time of incredible chaos, trauma,
loss, and collapse for the Jewish people in the Biblical setting for our
Scripture verse today, the writer of the epistle in Hebrews speaks of a cloud
of witnesses. In the preceding chapter,
chapter 11, the writer speaks of the ancestors, those people who have gone
before who were willing to risk by venturing out, enduring the hardships of
each age, running the race with perseverance.
All of these ancestors went forward never having seen the completion of
God’s work in their lifetime. But they
risked. They ran the race. And it is a reminder that this summarizes the
life of Jesus, the one we call the Messiah, the Christ. He ventured out, he ran the race, but the
completion of God’s promise did not happen in his lifetime. The teacher of Hebrews wants us to know. You are not alone. Do not think the trauma, the loss, the chaos
you see all around you is any different than any other time when this cloud of
witnesses decided to risk, venture out, run the race. The
writer of Hebrews uses the crucifixion to remind the present generation of the
very real violence and hatred, the hostility Jesus faced, risked with, endured
in, and persevered through.
The teaching ends with these words, “12 Therefore
lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees 13 and
make straight paths for your feet, so that these times don’t get you bent out
of shape but rather be healed.” Put in
the frame of an athletic competition, the teacher of Hebrews reminds the saints
of his time: Risk! Endure!
Persevere! Do you not see the
whole lot of saints that surround you in this time, who join hands with you to
say, just as in our time, in your time.
You are not alone!
And this is the final understanding of
the seven generations of Native theology.
That we are not only aware of the ancestors that go before us but the
people who will follow us. We then are
the good ancestors who make the way for generations yet unborn. We persevere as the cloud of witnesses that
remind them that things were tough for us too.
And yet, we did not give up and give in to a violent world that would
have us push down our pain to not know our own healing.
In mutual love, we remember the words of Joan Maruskin, the one time
Executive Director of Church World Service, who wrote, “The Bible was written
by, for, and about migrants, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.”[1] These are our faith ancestors. How shall we then be good ancestors to the
seventh generation, that they might remember us as faithful? Will we be the people who are caught up in
the violence and hatred of this age? Or
the people who endure providing sanctuary, a safe place, a hiding place, a
refuge, for yet another generation? We
are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, the Scripture says.
Clouds throughout Scripture are always a sign of God’s presence and
protection, a manifestation of divine power.
The God of the Hebrews was known as a “cloud rider” and appeared to lead
the people out of Egypt by day as a cloud pillar.[2] Our scripture says, “Because we are
surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, these faith ancestors, we can
persevere to run the race.” This is what
the historical ancestors provide for us.
We are not alone.
Who shall we be? How shall we be
the presence and protection, that cloud, the manifestation of God’s power for
future generations? Risk. Endure.
Persevere. And in this sacred moment in time, the past,
present, and future collapse to see the faithful in our age joining hands to
once again bring about joy, healing, and sanctuary for God’s good earth. You, you . . . you are a part of a cloud of
witnesses, a communion of saints, just by being on the path. Be a good ancestor. Amen.
[1] Joan M. Maruskin, Immigration and the
Bible: A guide for Radical Welcome, August
29, 2012.
[2]
“clouds,” HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, https://www.bibleodyssey.org/HarperCollinsBibleDictionary/c/clouds.
