In the town where I grew up, Kenora in North Western Ontario, there was a Residential School. It was run by the Presbyterian Church of Canada I later found out. When I was growing up, it was a little out of town and we were told not to get too close to the area as the "school" was said to be a reformatory for bad boys. When I got a little older, maybe 11, dad disabused me of the notion that it was a reformatory for bad boys and that it was, in fact, a school for native children. Dad was very involved in advocating for 1st Nations people around Kenora, and he was part of a pilot project to bridge the huge gaps between 1st Nations people and the others who lived in Kenora. This pilot project involving the residential school involved families hosting a youth from the residential school from time to time. We hosted a young lad a little older than I. We hung around a bit together and played together while he stayed with us–I don't remember how long. We tried to stay in contact after he went back to the school; mom and dad would have him come for supper and then it all stopped. I remember a couple of years later running into him downtown somewhere in Kenora; I greeted him like a long lost relative and he gave me the cold shoulder. He wouldn't even acknowledge my presence as he was with other 1st Nations older teens. I reluctantly turned away and went home.
I never really understood what had happened until many years later when the abuses of the residential schools were becoming public. I remember asking my dad about that experience with the young man and that was when I learned about the residential school we had in Kenora and the many abuses that took place there and the horrible racism that went on in Kenora.
In fact, the year we left Kenora, 1st Nations people had taken over Anishinabe Park just outside of Kenora–it was a regional park on Lake of the Woods and well used. This was 1974 and just after Wounded Knee in the US. For the most part, the native people were peaceful, but they made it clear that no one was to get too close. I remember reading the letters to the editor at the time and people wanted to bring in the army and just blast away. Dad was part of the negotiations with the 1st Nations people until we left at the end of July. The occupation ended peacefully and the 1st Nations took possession of that land and have erected some housing there and done some other things in Kenora to create a better environment for 1st Nations people in general. However, I was saddened to see that the terrible racism still exists when we spent a little time in Kenora on our way to Matheson for a reunion back in 08.
My experiences with the 1st Nations young man and the reaction to the occupation of Anishinabe Park were my 1st experience with racism. I've often thought of that young man and wondered where he ended up and what he ended up doing. I wish I had spoken to my parents earlier about my late encounter with him–I didn't understand what was happening. I certainly never blamed him, but I understand all of the dynamics that existed then much better now.
How I wish we could have had Jesus and the Canaanite woman as part of a panel to help us deal with relationships between 1st Nations people and those of European descent. Jesus could have spoken of his 1st reaction to the woman who simply wanted to seek healing for her daughter. The Canaanite woman could have spoken of how she decided to push through the horrible response of Jesus and seek an encounter with the holy. It would have maybe prompted some deeper thinking on our part about what it means to live in a world where we regularly bump up against different cultures and different perspectives.
Some well-meaning folk have wanted to dismiss this story from Matthew, which Mark also includes in his gospel but strangely Luke omits. They want to bypass the hard truths and the serious questions that this story raises. Was Jesus really as inclusive as we think he was? Was he really as revolutionary as we claim, especially with respect to valuing women? Was Jesus really open and welcoming to people outside of his clan, his religious tradition? Matthew's story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman would seem to suggest a different picture than the one we typically paint of Jesus.
Some commentators have suggested that this story illustrates how Jesus took the gospel outside of the Jewish tradition into the areas of Tyre and Sidon, which were Gentile lands. But in a very real way, this story is not about Jesus taking the gospel outside of the Jewish nation into Gentile territory. It is about a Gentile woman living out the faith that she intuitively knew could bring healing to her daughter and to herself, as well as to others. The Canaanite woman dramatised what faith really is!
How I long for this un-named Canaanite woman and Jesus to stand here among us and teach us how to be open to one another in deeper ways. How I long to send them to Britain to help ease the tensions that have gripped that nation for far too long. How I long to send them to Libya, Syria and the Middle East. How I long to have these two speak of their encounter and how we might live our faith more fully and more deeply in spite of our differences here in this 21st century world–economic differences, cultural differences, sexual differences, life differences.
At the last BC Conference meeting in May, our guest speaker was Marilyn Legge, who teaches at the Toronto School of Theology. Marilyn challenged us to think about what it means to live as part of a family. She spoke about an economy of grace rather than a traditional economy that is based on scarcity. The good news is that an economy of grace is based on abundance, humility, kinship, common wealth, and common welfare. The good news is that the Commonwealth of God is built, not necessarily from the grandiose down to the particular, but from the particular up to the grandiose. By practicing an economy of grace in the small, every-day things, big changes can occur. There is an urgency to act from love that then builds up dignity and self-respect in all humanity, that seeks to share our diversity positively and openly.
One of the ways that an economy of grace gets lived out is the new direction the United Church has taken with respect to cultural differences. We have moved from an emphasis on multi-cultural responses to the diversity of the United Church and our Canadian society. But what we realized as a church is that multi-cultural means that different cultures live along side one another. Tolerance and cultural distinctiveness is stressed, but power differentials are not addressed and there isn't necessarily an exchange between cultures. We shifted to a cross-cultural identity where there was some reaching across boundaries and some bridge-building; however, experience showed that power was not shared equally. The dominant culture still viewed other cultures as inferior. In recent years, the United Church has shifted emphasis to being intercultural. We strive to be intercultural communities where there is mutuality, reciprocity and equality.
Being intercultural is part of this economy of grace where Canaanite and Jew live side by side, where Palestinian and Jew live side by side, where native people around the world live in mutuality, reciprocity and equality with other cultures, where we aren't defined by the colour of our skin, our sexuality, our economic status, or country of origin, or where we live, but by the fact that we are human beings, kin together.
The Canaanite woman challenged Jesus' vision of God's Commonwealth to become intercultural, more than just tolerant, but to live the deeply integrating and humanising gift of love. That Jesus learned to be more fully human in expressing love is a gift to all of us that we, too, can learn to be open in learning and loving in this world. In this vein, I leave you with part of a prayer-poem by Walter Brueggemann called "While the world says 'not possible.'" It is a hopeful proclamation of living together...
Amen.Holy God who moves this day toward peacableness, God of Jew and Greek God of male and female, God of slave and free God of haves and have-nots, God of buoyant and the frightened, God of the tax collector and the Pharisee, You God who makes all things new! We come to you this day in dazzled thanksgiving for the reconciliation you have wrought in our midst, Some we all know... the strangeness of Gaza and Jerusalem, .... The new paths in Capetown and Johannesburg, ... the thinkably good option in Belfast; Some we know secretly, so close to home, Of transformations and healings and reconciliations And the defeat of anger, hate and hurt. We are dazzled and grateful, more than we can say. God of all newness, we come to you this day in daring hope, For healings we want yet to receive, believing in them, While the world says "not possible" We dare to imagine ... healings in Rwanda, ... and peacableness in Haiti, ... and trustfulness close between conservatives and liberals, ... and caring between those who have so little and those who have too much, Holy God who moves this day toward peacableness, God of Jew and Greek God of male and female, God of slave and free God of haves and have-nots, God of buoyant and the frightened, God of the tax collector and the Pharisee, You God who makes all things new! We come to you this day in dazzled thanksgiving for the reconciliation you have wrought in our midst, Some we all know... the strangeness of Gaza and Jerusalem, .... The new paths in Capetown and Johannesburg, ... the thinkably good option in Belfast; Some we know secretly, so close to home, Of transformations and healings and reconciliations And the defeat of anger, hate and hurt. We are dazzled and grateful, more than we can say. God of all newness, we come to you this day in daring hope, For healings we want yet to receive, believing in them, While the world says "not possible" We dare to imagine ... healings in Rwanda, ... and peacableness in Haiti, ... and trustfulness close between conservatives and liberals, ... and caring between those who have so little and those who have too much, ... healings that can happen only by your good office. healings that can happen only by your good office.
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