Lent 3: "Land is Life" Worship
Prelude
Welcome
Acknowledgement of the Land
As we gather to worship, we acknowledge with respect that we live and work and worship on Treaty One Land, in the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, and Dakota peoples, and in the heart of the Metis Nation. May we live in peace and friendship with the peoples of this land, honouring their relationship with the land and water, the plants and animals through the many generations.
The Summary: Steps on the Journey Towards Reconciliation
Today, we gather here again for our third Sunday service of the series to learn the steps on the journey towards reconciliation.
Last night, our community had a fundraising event, Rewind, in support of stairlift. We are here today as a circle for worship, but last night it was a dance floor. What an eye-opening experience. When the band played the 50’s, 60’, 70’s music, these faithful people and our neighbours came out to the floor as a group or as a pair, and danced. Some people did seem to me that they knew how to dance, … they knew the steps!
Then it inspired me to think, if we know the “steps” on the journey towards reconciliation, we might be able to know how to dance towards reconciliation, how to lament for reconciliation, how to work hard on reconciliation, together.
On Feb 18, some of our own church members from the Wednesday women’s study group and Living our Faith in the World Cluster led us to go back to what was the beginning of colonization and Land inequity issues, by teaching the 10 elements of the Doctrine of Discovery. Together, we began unravelling this part of our history.
Last Sunday on Feb 25, our own church member, Lorraine Kakegamic shared the story of her husband Solly’s experiences in the Residential School System. At the end of her reflection, she said to us, “The healing has begun and is happening. There is action to be done. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission made recommendations and issued Calls to Action, and mentioned the churches in the calls to action. Reconciliation is an ongoing process and will require commitment from everyone.” That means, all of us.
Today, we are very happy to have Stan McKay with us as our guest speaker. I will leave to Sharon Doerkson to tells us about his bio, later, as Sharon gives tobacco and asks his teaching. Stan will share with us his reflection on nurturing and sustaining qualities of the earth, our Mother. He will also speak of the challenges we face as we have referred to land as property. We are privileged to listen to him, today. Welcome, Stan.
Choral Introit: VU 296 This is God’s Wondrous World v. 1
This is God’s wondrous world, and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is God’s wondrous world, I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, God’s hand the wonders wrought.
Welcome: God, Children & Us
What is your relationship to land like?
I have brought some interesting stuff for us to talk. Let’s see what I have brought. These are called “coasters”. I don't know why you call these coasters. No idea. (laughers)
I’ve got these two coasters from my friends as gifts. The others are from Tourist Information Centre of Ladysmith where we lived before my family moved to Winnipeg. Ladysmith is on Vancouver Island which people there called “the blessed piece” of the earth. I think here our land, Winnipeg, Manitoba, is too! Just weather’s different. Manitoba means where Creator sits.
As you see, these two coasters made with the map of St. Vital, Winnipeg, where my family live now, and of the map of Fort Gerry, Winnipeg, where my husband works.
You see the highways - Bishop Grandin Highway, Pembina Highway. On this coaster, I see the school my sons attend. The markets my family goes to for shopping.
This is our Land. People live here. Some people live in an apartment. Some people live in a house. Some people like growing vegetables in their backyard. Some people like growing flowers in their gardens. People have lots of different experiences of their land.
As a step towards Reconciliation, it is very important (“crucial”) to understand the indigenous understanding of land. Land if life.
Land creates the culture; language reflects the relationship to the land.
We, the settler, come with the different relationship to the land. We might have the piece of land we are attached to. (i.e. 4X LechXX place.) People have lots of different experiences of their land.
The way we attach to land may be not very different from the indigenous attachment to land, but the culture and how it uses the land as commodity and how it takes advantage of land as resource is very different.
What is your relationship to land like?
Until we understand the significance of land, we are not yet at reconciliation.
Call to Worship Psalm 19, the reading from VU 740
The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the vault of the sky reveals God’s handiwork.
One day speaks to another,
and night shares its knowledge with night,
and this without speech or language;
their voices are not heard.
But their sound goes out to all the lands,
their words to the ends of the earth.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun
which comes out like a bridegroom from under the canopy,
like an athlete eager to run the race.
Its rising is at one end of the sky,
it runs its course to the other,
and there is nothing that is hidden from its heat.
God’s law is perfect, refreshing the soul;
God’s instruction is sure, giving wisdom to the simple;
God’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart;
God’s commandment is pure giving light to the eyes;
God’s fear is clean, enduring forever;
God’s judgements are true, every one of them righteous;
more desirable than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey, pure honey from the comb.
By them is your servant warned;
for in keeping them there is great reward.
But who can discern unwitting sins?
O cleanse me from my secret faults.
Keep your servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the better of me.
Then shall I be clean and innocent of great offence.
Opening Prayer
Let the words of our mouth
and the thoughts of our heart
be acceptable in your sight, O God,
our strength and our redeemer.
Hymn: MV 53 God Who Spread the Boundless Prairie v. 1, 2, 3
Scripture: Matthew 19:13-22
The Choir Anthem: I Walk a Stranger on This Land
Reflection Stan McKay
(Stan's message will be transcribed and available soon for those who request.)
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| Mackenzie River |
Hymn: VU 297 All Praise to You (Stewards of Earth)
Offering
Sung Dedication: VU 540 Grant Us, God, Grace
Grant us, God, the grace of giving,
with a spirit large and free,
that ourselves and all our living
we may offer faithfully.
Prayers of the People
Sung Response: VU 310 God, Who Touches Earth with Beauty
God, who touches earth with beauty,
make my heart anew;
with your Spirit recreate me
pure, and strong, and true.
Creator, we thank you
that there are different paths to wholeness.
We see your wonder in creation all around us,
in the news quietly telling of the Spring’s arrival
on our prairie land, in the singing of the birds.
We give thanks for the opportunity to share,
and for everything that the Creator has given to us.
We give thanks for connectedness to each other
for our interconnectedness to all Creation,
to the whole cosmos, the whole created world.
We give thanks that Jesus, the Anointed One,
has been in our past and is in our present
and will be with us in our future.
We give thanks for laughter, for humour,
for the many different ways that we are able to be together,
and to be in community and we give thanks as well
for the differentness between us and for the respect we have for the different paths that people take.
We give thanks for the Elders,
for the opportunities to be respected no matter what our views are, and to celebrate the different views that we have.
We give thanks for different approaches to grief,
and for the sharing, and the opportunities to laugh and to share and to care and that we are each different and yet together.
We give thanks for new understandings,
for bridges we are able to build between people.
Help us to be open to new life and to vision,
to bring new life to our homes, to heal
and to be healers
in our families and in our communities.
We pray for ourselves, for strength, healing, new vision and hope for our lives.
We pray for those in need of healing and support:
relief from symptoms of disease,
comfort from past abuses,
wholeness of mind and spirit, and peace in all things.
We pray for the fabric of this community,
for the “knitting” and “quilting” that holds our lives together
and the thread of God’s grace buried in the weave.
May we wrap our world in your loving ways.
God, help us rise up with life-giving acts.
Hymn: VU 701 What does the Lord Require of You
1. What does the Lord require of you?
What does the Lord require of you?
2. Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.
3. To seek justice, and love kindness,
and walk humbly with your God.
Commissioning and Benediction
Return now to the circle of Life, knowing, That the love of Creator God is with us,
The compassion of Jesus inspires us,
The hope of the Holy Spirit comforts us.
May everyone we meet know of our praise of God’s name, by the singing and dancing of our hands, heart, and feet!
Choral Extroit: MV 86 Give Peace to Ev’ry Heart
Give Peace to Ev’ry Heart
Give peace to ev’ry heart.
Give peace to ev’ry heart.
Give peace, God.
Give peace, God.
Postlude
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