2021 Advent Devotional 3
December 8, 2021
Luke 8:40-48, Proverbs 3:5-6
"Walking the Red Road"
By Rev. Adrienne Stricker
In traditional Native belief, there is a red road that leads to life. The red road means something different to each person; for some, it’s about living in sobriety. For others, it’s about living as a good relative in the community. Our lives here on earth are our attempt to “walk the red road”.
Jesus also taught us what it looks like to walk the red road. Jesus walked in such a way that he stopped to recognize the pain in his community. Jesus was often pulled away from the direction he was heading - in some cases literally - as with the hemorrhaging woman who tugged on his robe (Luke 8:40-48). Throughout the gospels, Jesus stops to take in what’s happening around him. He waits, he listens, and he reflects.
Advent is also a time when we can stop and take in our reality while we wait to witness the incarnation of Christ. If we’re honest, many of us may be sick of doing this by now, having had no choice but to admit the deep brokenness underneath our realities for the past two years.
Yet long before the pandemic, we have been subjected to deep brokenness and pain happening on a national scale in the United States. We have had to live with the reality that children have been locked in cages; children of immigrants, whose parents only wanted what every parent wants: safety and a chance at life.
Native Americans are now asking the United Methodist Church - and the Christian church in general - to acknowledge the pain and loss of an untold amount of children who died in boarding schools. There were more than 350 government-funded Indian Boarding schools across the US in the 19th and 20th centuries. Native children were abducted from their families by government officials, sent to schools hundreds of miles away, and tortured when they spoke their tribal languages. Their hair was cut short, and their childhood destroyed. Many of these boarding schools were run by churches. Methodists, too, are complicit in this genocide. The Native American International Caucus of the UMC has worked to bring attention to this reality by calling on United Methodists to commit to uncovering the harm caused in Methodist boarding schools.
This reckoning began earlier this year with the investigation of First Nations residential schools in Canada. As of September of 2021, an estimated 6,509 children have been accounted for, with countless others waiting to be found. Native American virtual groups, such as Social Distance Powwow, have been flooded for months with pictures of tribal elders in ceremony, standing by open graves, waiting to lay these children to rest as the remains have finally been returned to tribal land. The work of finding the remains of Native children in the United States will take years. This is an ongoing level of trauma that Native people are collectively experiencing - in the midst of other trauma - and many in the United Methodist Church are silent.
Yet Jesus was not silent about harm and abuse. Jesus stepped in when a woman was about to be stoned to death. Jesus saw value in those despised by the community. Jesus flipped tables when the poorest in the community were being exploited in the name of God. Jesus saw Zacchaeus in a tree, seemingly invisible, and invited him in.
Too often the Christian church calls on Native people to educate them on their own terms; to come to where the church is, without any interest in building relationships with real Native people and communities. Native United Methodists are invited to perform parts of their identity and story for one Sunday a year, or occasionally a 45-minute lecture after the service. Sometimes we are even asked to explain what repentance or reparations would look like, as though it’s our work to answer those questions. An honorarium is given, and if a few members of the church learn something, this is seen as a success.
The red road looks very different.
Our church has an opportunity to intentionally embrace the full experience of Native people - not just our pain, or what the church can extract from us - but the fullness of our lived experiences, tribal traditions, and spirituality as sacred and something to be celebrated as part of the expansive picture of God. This can be done in many ways: in learning about the Native communities in your area; in joining the seemingly constant battles against destructive pipelines on tribal land; by intentionally learning about contemporary Native life through listening to a podcast; by following #NativeTwitter and participating in mutual aid; by supporting or attending events that are led by Native persons (a popular phrase for this is “Nothing about us without us”). This is a continuation of the 2012 General Conference call to “live into acts of repentance”.
Proverbs 3:5-6 speaks of the deep trust we are called to find in God. I confess that the well-known phrase “and He shall make your paths straight” has never felt quite right to me. The King James Version resonates more: that God will “direct thy paths”. Human nature teaches us it’s far more likely that our paths will be windy than they will be straight, but we find hope because God is leading us through. The red road can feel uncertain, and even threatening, but it’s the road where the truth is found and we are all set free.
You make our collective work possible by your witness for justice every day in your church, community, and Annual Conference. MFSA does not receive any financial support from the United Methodist Church's giving channels. 100% of our budget is funded through your membership dues and your generosity in giving.
Adrienne is a member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe. She graduated from Garrett- Evangelical Theological Seminary in 2009 and has been in ministry since 2010, serving in Christian Education and administration in Evanston, Illinois and Chicago, Illinois in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church. In 2015, she was ordained a Deacon in full connection in the Northern Illinois Conference to ministries of word, service, compassion and justice. She is involved in Native American ministries in the Northern Illinois conference, serves on the conference Board of Ordained Ministry, and is the co-chair of the Northern Illinois Order of Deacons. As part of her ministry, Adrienne preaches throughout the conference, has written curriculum throughout the United Methodist connection, and has served on the board of the Native American Comprehensive Plan and the Native American International Caucus. She lives in Addison, Illinois with her husband, Jonathan.