Donna Boisen
Last Sunday, after presenting a most intriguing parallel of the Kingdom of God ushered in by the advent of Christ and the emancipation of colonists from the over-taxing rule of the King of England, preacher John Campbell left us with a compelling question:
“Do we still believe, dare we still believe, we can begin the world anew?”
I have thought about this question all week. Before I can answer this, I must come to understand who we are…and what we mean by beginning anew.
During the American Revolution there was a Seneca chief Sagoyewatha who came to be known as Red Jacket because of the crimson coats gifted to him by the British. When the British ceded to the colonists, Red Jacket became a critical mediator in relations between the new U.S. government and the Seneca people. In 1805 a member of the Boston Missionary Society pressed Red Jacket to be allowed to preach to the Seneca people in order to save them from “the works of the devil.” Red Jacket, graciously responded. Among other points he wrote:
Brother, listen to what we say. There was a time when our forefathers owned this great island. Their seats extended from the rising to the setting sun. The Great Spirit had made it for the use of Indians.
Brother, our seats were once large, and yours were very small; you have now become a great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets; you have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us.
Brother, you say you have not come to get our land or our money, but to enlighten our minds. I will now tell you that I have been at your meetings, and saw you collecting money from the meeting. If we should conform to your way of thinking, perhaps you may want some from us.
Brother, we are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our neighbors; we are acquainted with them; we will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again what you have said. 1
Red Jacket wasn’t rejecting faith—he was questioning whether faith had changed its followers.
So, I ask, who are we that we should get to begin again?
Rev. Eyde Kinsbrook writes:
“Justice isn’t payback.
Justice is making things right in the eyes of Love
May we stop hoarding bread and wine.
May we stop taking land, labor, and lives.
May we stop stealing hope and embezzling joy.”
We learn from our lectionary readings this morning that justice and joy share far more than a first letter. They are warp and woof to the very heart of God, to those activities that are oh-so-very right in the eyes of Love. Biblical joy doesn’t ignore injustice—it grows wherever justice is being made right.
From our passage in Matthew we read:
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
This question is striking because we remember from Luke’s account that John’s mother, Elizabeth told Mary, the mother of Jesus, that wee baby John leapt for joy in the womb at the sound of Mary’s voice! In the Bible joy, unlike the lovely though fleeting moments of happiness, is directly connected to faith. While all kinds of things can bring us temporary happiness, biblical rejoicing is a deep response to the redemptive and compassionate acts of God. So if John was gifted with a leaping-for-joy kind of faith from his earliest days – and we know from Scripture that he was filled with the Spirit, set apart by God and raised by his parents to do the will of God – what caused him to doubt?
Maybe it was his circumstances…maybe a temporary weakening of his faith in the face of grievous injustice. You see, John was in prison because he had spoken truth to power. Uncomfortable truth. And perhaps he had a fleeting thought that Jesus would rescue him here and now from that very prison. Maybe he secretly hoped that Jesus would use his power to rise up against the horrid Herod. I can, on occasion, be found secretly- and not so secretly- praying that God would rise up against certain current-day horrid Herods! He did not. He has not yet. Instead Jesus replied with works of compassion and comfort and faith, recalling to John’s mind the words of the prophet Isaiah:
…the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. (Matthew 11:5)
John’s question isn’t unbelief—it’s wounded hope. John expected Isaiah’s justice of overthrow. Jesus answered with Isaiah’s justice of healing. We are not surprised, then, that James, in today’s epistle reading, has taken pains to promote patience in first century believers.. and in us today. Our streaming services and movie theaters are filled with stories of revenge and rescue…we long for justice. Yet we continually misunderstand what justice truly is. If we want to understand justice in the eyes of Love, we must listen to those harmed by Christianity itself.
Choctaw theologian and Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston remarks that American Christians have yet to grasp that the Trail of Tears represents a tragic story of “Christians cheating and oppressing Christians,” given that many Choctaws believed in Jesus and sang newly composed Choctaw hymns along the trail.
“On the trail of tears,” Charleston writes, “my ancestors were, quite literally crying for a vision.”2
Granny Mary Helen Cagey was 93 years young when we met. She was the oldest elder of the Lummi Nation at the time. A deeply spiritual woman, as we chatted in her kitchen she told me many sobering stories of injustices against her people by people who were blue-eyed like me and supposedly Christians. Yet, despite all that was done to her and her tribal family IN the name of Jesus, Mary Helen had a deep and lasting love FOR Jesus. Granny Mary Helen’s joy was especially evident when she told me about her “spirit song”…a song given directly to her by the Great Spirit to deepen her faith. She said that spirit songs had been part of Sche’lang’en…the Lummi word for the Way of Life…for over 3,000 years. As I listened, I was learning and leaning into the wisdom of this gentle woman, also highly favored by God. Her joy did not erase injustice—but it refused to let injustice have the final word.
So—who are the “we” who dare to believe again? If the “we” John Campbell is asking about is us—those of us who follow Jesus today—those who believe we truly live in the Kin-dom of Christ, a kin-dom that is both already here and still unfolding; those who take our cues for creative engagement with the world, not from a misguided sense of “manifest destiny” or the arrogance of being a so-called “Great White Enlightener,” but from the very heart of Love; those of us who feel compelled by the Spirit to love, to serve, and to listen—truly listen—to all our neighbors, human and more-than-human, throughout all of creation—then yes, perhaps we do still believe. At least, I do.
I still believe that the quotidian mercies of our Loving God bring renewal and strength to each and every morning. Every single morning we can say “No!” to greed, to prejudice, to avarice, to envy, to despair and to doubt. Every single morning we can own up to our ignorance and our ill-gotten inheritance, we can open our hearts to learn from our ancestors mistakes. No, justice is not pay-back. But it is seeking to make things right in the eyes of Love. Beginning the world anew may look as simple—and as costly—as choosing love again tomorrow morning.
The prophet Isaiah proclaimed (35:10):
The ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
And, so, it is with a profound sense of faith that we hold true that God is, indeed, able to make things new. And with the deep comfort that comes from true joy we together with a tender-hearted, teen-aged Mary proclaim:
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
May we be emboldened by the birth of our Christ to once again begin the world anew. Amen.
- To read Red Jacket’s complete response: https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5790/ .
- H. Daniel Zacharias and T. Christopher Hoklotubbe, Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: An Invitation to North American Indigenous Interpretation (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2025).