Before you can get to reconciliation, you have to tell the truth. While there was no official war of flesh and blood between Indigenous Peoples and European Colonists, there was a spiritual war. The TRC report has this quote from Doris Young, a residential school survivor:
"Those schools were a war on Aboriginal children".
The mantra of these schools was, as politicians chanted, “Kill the Indian, save the child.” The idea was not to harm the body but take away the spirit and culture of the child. One of the things they tried to kill was a spirit of generosity. Give-aways were and are a central part of many Indigenous cultures. The Potlach of the West Coast peoples has many similarities to the year of Jubilee in the Hebrew scriptures. Both cultural events were designed to redistribute wealth in order to break the vicious cycle of wealth stratification. European colonists banned the practice because it was too generous, too wasteful. However, one cannot kill the spirit without also destroying the body. Reports suggest that 1/25 children did not survive Residential schools. The death rate of WWII was 1/26. The province of Alberta was on the forefront of this war. It had the most residential schools in Canada: 25. In one 1907 report the estimated death rate of residential schools on the prairies was 20%- 50%.
A few years later WWI broke out. Europeans started to fight other Europeans. In the face of this War to End all Wars, how do you think Indigenous peoples responded? Did they watch it from afar or walk past as Canadian colonists were beaten and left bleeding?
No, they were generous. Even though they were discriminated against during and after the war, the rate of many Indigenous communities who volunteered to go to war was higher than European Canadians [1/3 indigenous peoples volunteered]. The government even used this fact as propaganda to guilt-trip the rest of Canadians to support the war. This is a complex situation and there are many reasons why this happened, but I think one of them is that Canada couldn’t completely kill the spirit of generosity in Indigenous people, for that is who Creator made them to be.
Their generosity reminds me so much of the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37.
A religious expert and lawyer come to Jesus to test him. The word test – pierazō in Greek - means “to test with a view toward destruction.” He was attempting to trip Jesus up. Then when the lawyer asked "Who is my neighbour?" it was now Jesus' turn to test the lawyer. The lawyer knew in his head what a neighbour was. Jesus wanted to test his heart - how far that love would go. Neighbour means everyone including/especially our enemies. It was required by law that a Pharisee had to help a fellow Jew. However, the story is clear to point out that the beaten man was “half dead” a technical term for some being unconscious and unable to speak; and his clothes were stripped off. These were how you could tell where someone was from. The Pharisee could not tell where his man was from by his tongue or clothes; this man could be a Gentile after all, non-Jewish or an enemy. Also, the closer he got the greater danger he was in of being ceremonially unclean – the man may actually be dead. If this was the case, the Pharisee couldn’t do his job as a priest and the whole town would be talking in hushed whispers: "I wonder how Rabbi so and so got into quarantine."
After the Pharisee left the man to die, a Levite priest came by. He was like an assistant Pastor of the day, and he wasn’t bound by as many purity laws as the priest. He seems look closer at the man (he actually “saw him” and “came to the place”). But he too passed on by. However you want to frame it, there is NO justification for what they did. Even their own law instructed them to help someone in that dire situation. They knew what to do in their head; something was wrong with their heart - their love for neighbour was conditional on who that neighbour was.
And then a twist in the story. The last person should be an average Jew or even a lawyer like the person trying to test Jesus. But it wasn’t. It was a Samaritan [insert GASP]. Like Indigenous peoples and European colonists, there was great tension between Jews and Samaritans. Samaritans were considered half breed heretics who worshiped God in the wrong place and read the wrong Bible. A common swear word in Jesus’ was a word referring to a Samaritan. One Rabbi is quoted as saying, “He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is as one who eats the flesh of swine.” Harsh words if you know Jewish dietary laws regarding pigs.
The Samaritans believed that God should not be worshiped in Jerusalem and, yet guess where this Jewish man had just from on the road? Jerusalem. Despite all this the heart of the Samaritan was generous. He gave of his time (this would have taken a lot out of his day); his treasure - 1 denarius was a day's wage for a laborer or soldier and the amount would have equaled 14 days' room and board - and he gave of his talents and resources. He had a donkey for transport, and he had the skills to barter with the innkeeper.
The Samaritan not only gave substantial wages, but he also risked his life. The road they were on was dangerous. It was called the “bloody way” because of all the violence that occurred there. He was in an even more vulnerable position travelling with an unconscious man. Also by taking the man to the inn the Samaritan loses his anonymity: that is, people knew who he was. Now let's say the person dies at the inn. The Jewish family likely wouldn’t believe the generosity of Samaritan and may take vengeance him. He was making a huge risk and sacrifice.
We are not sure, but some commentators believe that the innkeeper was open to this arrangement because he knew the man, for the man was in the area regularly. Perhaps he had done this before; generosity was part of his lifestyle and culture. The word generous and sincere are the same in Biblical Greek and it seems like the Samaritan gave out of a sincere heart.
I see this similar heart in many Indigenous peoples past and present. Indigenous people were and are generous even with great risk to themselves. They participated in the world wars, all the while knowing they may not return home and that they would not get same the support as European-descent veterans. They even raised money for the war effort through sales, exhibitions and rodeos: S44,000.00 for WWI and S23,500.00 for WWII.
Much of the early church has related the Good Samaritan to Jesus. Jesus was the one who saved us when we were broken by sin and shame – and when we had hard hearts towards our neighbours.
In a similar way, many indigenous peoples paint a picture of the character and love of Jesus through their generosity in the midst of persecution and discrimination. In fact, I would go so far to say that we, the church in North America, NEED help from Indigenous peoples in order know and experience Jesus for who he really is. That is the point of the story of the Good Samaritan: the gospel encourages us to receive from the stranger and enemy; it is an invitation "to do likewise" according to their model and embodiment.
My friend Hyung Jin (Pablo) Kim Sun has also reflected on this story in light of Indigenous peoples. He writes:
In Canada, white settlers have so much more to do in their journey of reconciliation. Part of the journey is to help, contribute, and serve. At the same time, it is also to accept Indigenous neighbours' help and service. Seeing them as mutual partners and allowing their gifts to shape and transform white settlers is a pivotal part of this long journey of truth and reconciliation. I am convinced that Indigenous people have so much to teach us about life, how to relate with this land, and how to deepen our relationship with our Creator God. So, loving our Indigenous siblings’ means receiving their gifts with an attitude that without them, we are not complete, that without them, we cannot inherit eternal life.
Spirit of Jesus, enable us to accept help from those we tend to shirk from, even if it means tossing us into a ditch, naked and unconscious!
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