Luke 18:18-27
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
Spending 12+ hours in a minivan driving through western Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico will give you a lot of time to listen to the earth. Two weeks ago, 9 youth and 2 adults piled into 2 minivans in our church parking lot at 5:00 a.m. for an epic adventure. We departed in the dark and I drove cautiously at first, watching for pre-dawn deer and letting my brain come fully online.
Somewhere in western Kansas, I felt my shoulders relax and something within me start to unwind as the sun rose. I have always loved the vast, open skies and fields of western Kansas. Before long we were into the reddish dirt of Oklahoma and then scooting across the corner of Texas. Now, in Oklahoma there are still a few trees. They’re short and scrubby and often tornado-topped. Stern little soldiers out there in the elements - looking tired but resolute. By the time you get to Texas, trees are hard to come by so you start to notice the beauty of the little flowers on the side of the road.
This was my first time ever visiting New Mexico and I was eager to see what it looked like because I love the desert. I was even more eager to arrive at our home-away-from-home for the week: Monte Vista Christian Church in Albuquerque. Our group arrived that Sunday evening and we were greeted by another UCC youth group from Arlington, VA and the Be the Neighbor staff. Later that evening we were joined by a Disciples of Christ youth group from the Dallas area. We played name games and asked questions about how on earth we were going to manage getting 40 people showered every day with only 2 showers (the answer was: not well). And we got ourselves oriented to our schedule for the week ahead.
The focus of our week in Albuquerque was Indigenous Cultures. Be the Neighbor provides a unique opportunity for youth to move beyond the “mission trip” mode. Rather than going into a far-off location and swooping in to “fix” another community’s perceived problems, the focus is learning to be good neighbors SO THAT we can come home and work for justice here. We did this through daily worship, theological reflection, and small group conversations. We spent 3 mornings serving alongside local nonprofits and you’ll get to hear a lot more about that when the youth give their report during worship on Aug. 20. Every evening we spent time with incredible guest speakers including Indigenous and settler historians and folks from the ACLU and Interfaith Power and Light.
We did a lot of listening and a lot of learning. I was so incredibly proud of how engaged our youth were and delighted by their curiosity and wonderful questions.
The most impactful moments for me came near the end of the week. On Thursday we piled into our vans again, this time driving about 90 minutes north of Albuquerque to visit the Jemez Pueblo Historic Site. New Mexico is home to 19 pueblos, each a sovereign nation. The Jemez Pueblo is home to both an active, living, contemporary community and a historic site where you can learn more about their history.
We were incredibly fortunate to have Marlon Magdalena, the historic site’s instructional coordinator and a Jemez Pueblo Tribal Member, as our tour guide. He spent the morning teaching us about Jemez history. We were able to view homes and buildings that were built in the 14th century, which really blew my mind. I’m not accustomed to seeing things that old here in our homeland - only when I’ve visited Europe, you know?
As I looked down at the remains of these 14th century buildings, I found myself pondering what I had been taught about this time period. Almost all of my points of reference were European - the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, a time before Shakespeare and the printing press. I was never, in all my years of schooling, taught anything about what happened here, in my homeland, about this period of history. Instead, I was taught that “American history” began in the 17th century at Jamestown. I remember my shock and delight when, later, I learned there you could even stretch a bit further back if you counted Roanoke in the late 16th century. No one taught me that the Spanish were actually the first Europeans on this soil back in the 15th century. And certainly no one taught me about the diversity of cultures and people who existed here for centuries before the Europeans arrived.
As an adult, of course, I’ve managed to fill in some of the gaps on my own. But standing under the hot desert sun, it hit me differently. As I looked down at these old stone walls, I found that I could easily imagine children playing here, adults preparing dinner, and people of all ages gathering close at night to tell stories about their day. As the earth beneath me, I felt a sense of my connection with this place. This was different from reading about it in a book - this was an experience of listening to the earth and hearing it teach me.
And what I heard made me angry. I am angry that this history of the land I call home goes back hundreds and thousands of years longer than I was taught as a child. I’m angry that people say ignorant and hateful things like, “You’re in America. Speak English!” when Spanish was actually the first European language spoken here and there were hundreds of Indigenous languages spoken for centuries before. I am angry that the decimation of these flourishing cultures was largely hidden from me - that the genocides of Indigenous people that took place in my homeland later provided inspiration for Hitler and the Nazis who used what they learned from us for their own genocides. And no one ever told me any of this.
No one ever told me that my history, our history, the history of this land that we call home is so much richer and goes back so much further than most of us were led to believe. But the land knows. These secrets cannot be hidden when you’re standing with your feet on the land that has been home to Marlon’s people for more than 7 centuries. The land speaks if we listen. And the Jemez people who have lived on this land continually are also speaking - if we listen.
I was blown away by how much Marlon knew about his people’s history. At the end I asked him if his people had ever left this place and he thought about it and said, “No, I don’t think so. We’ve always been here.” The Jemez Pueblo are unusual because they were not forced off their land by colonizing forces. They stayed put. That is not to say that they didn’t suffer immensely at the hand of colonizers, of course. Sickness, taxation, enslavement, and out-and-out war are all a part of their story.
Marlon showed us the Spanish church that was built in the early 17th century. It is a massive structure like you’d expect to find in Europe - but built in red rocks. Marlon explained how Jemez women, children, and men were forced to build this church against their will. Forced to give up their own religion. Forced to labor under the hot sun to create this enormous monument to a faith that was not theirs. Marlon explained that the enslaved people trekked up into the surrounding hills to bring down the rocks to build the structure. The walls are 8 feet thick in some places. Think about that for a moment.
When Marlon explained that underneath the Spanish church is one of the Jemez kivas, I wept. Our group had a chance to go into one of the kivas that had been excavated in the village. A kiva is a holy place for religious ceremonies. Marlon explained that his people descend into the earth, going underground for their sacred ceremonies, because their origin story is one of emerging from the earth and they want to honor that connection. When the Spanish priests came, they covered up one of these kivas, forcing the Jemez to build their Catholic church right on top of it.
Standing there with tears hidden underneath my sunglasses, my heart broke with the knowledge of what Europeans did to the people who called this land home. My stomach turned as I looked at those 8-foot-thick walls and knew that the Church not only legitimized these horrific acts but actually perpetrated them. It’s not that Church leaders were passive in the face of violence, it’s that the Church leaders were the agents of violence over and over again - sinning in the name of Jesus.
This is a lot to take in as a Euro-descended Christian. Too often, when we hear these stories we either turn away because they’re so painful or become immobilized by shame. Let’s not do that today.
Instead, circle back with me to the theme of our week with Be the Neighbor: “it’s possible.” Each morning we heard stories of possibility together, including this morning’s reading from Luke. Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said that it’s easier for a rich, privileged person to squeeze through the eye of a needle than to get it right. At times it seems downright impossible.
But Jesus left the rich man with words of hope: “What’s impossible for humans is possible with God.”
God, continue to give us open ears and hearts for learning. Let us listen to the earth and allow it to teach us. Let us listen to other people - especially those the world has tried to silence- and keep seeking truth. May the Church cease from all sin and learn instead to be an instrument of healing and hope in your world. May we walk in the ways of Jesus, who never gives up hope that we can learn to truly be neighbors to one another. Amen.
