Embracing the Indigenous Day of Prayer

 

The United Church has both a troubled and hopeful relationship with Indigenous peoples in this land we call Canada. We were complicit in the genocidal Residential School system and have acknowledged the sinful reality of that system intended to extinguish the light of Indigenous culture and spirituality. 

We have also been involved in the long process of reconciliation and entered into this with apologies, compensation and a commitment to a different, respectful relationship. Our United Church crest was changed to reflect "All My Relations", as well as the colours of the Four Directions and the Medicine Wheel. We recently voted nationally to establish an Autonomous Indigenous Organization.

We certainly aren't where we need to be but I hope we're moving in the right direction. Today is the Indigenous Day of Prayer, connected to National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21st. There are worship resources for this day and so I'll share this Call to Worship. 

A Call to Worship

To situate ourselves into this moment in the life of the church

One:    To those of us for whom it feels only recently were lighting a tiny candle of incarnation into that longest night of winter, we find grace here, unfurling.

All:       As these longest days bring light upon light, we find grace here too, unfurling as well.

One:    In rain coaxing into dry earth,

All:       The golden green ready to receive,

One:    The resplendent light calling us to unshackle ourselves into connection,

All:       The truth-telling vulnerability of unending evening, here is grace.

One:    To those of us whose grandparents were missionaries, who have settled here amidst golden greens not our own, we find grace—undeserved—unfurling too.

All:       There is grace in this—that some, at least, of those of the Nations here have opted to journey beside us after all that’s been done and all that still is.

One:    Not in the same shoes, nor always close beside, but—after all of this—on the path Christ makes. This summer, we get to witness what that journeying together might now look like.

All:       To all of us, the followers of Christ, here on Turtle Island, in this moment, there is an unexpected grace unfurling,

One:    As light makes its way back into the world, we are invited into new relationship,

All:       Unshackling ourselves, and one another,

One:    That we might walk alongside one another, into summer’s light.