SCRIPTURE READINGS
1 Corinthians 9.16–23
16 If I preach the gospel, I have no reason to brag, since I’m obligated to do it. I’m in trouble if I don’t preach the gospel. If I do this voluntarily, I get rewarded for it. But if I’m forced to do it, then I’ve been charged with a responsibility. What reward do I get? That when I preach, I offer the good news free of charge. That’s why I don’t use the rights to which I’m entitled through the gospel.
Although I’m free from all people, I make myself a slave to all people, to recruit more of them. I act like a Jew to the Jews, so I can recruit Jews. I act like I’m under the Law to those under the Law, so I can recruit those who are under the Law (though I myself am not under the Law). I act like I’m outside the Law to those who are outside the Law, so I can recruit those outside the Law (though I’m not outside the law of God but rather under the law of Christ).I act weak to the weak, so I can recruit the weak. I have become all things to all people, so I could save some by all possible means. All the things I do are for the sake of the gospel, so I can be a partner with it.
Psalm 147:1–11, 20c
Praise the Lord!
Because it is good to sing praise to our God!
Because it is a pleasure to make beautiful praise!
2 The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, gathering up Israel’s exiles.
3 God heals the brokenhearted
and bandages their wounds.
4 God counts the stars by number,
giving each one a name.
5 Our Lord is great and so strong!
God’s knowledge can’t be grasped!
6 The Lord helps the poor,
but throws the wicked down on the dirt!
7 Sing to the Lord with thanks;
sing praises to our God with a lyre!
8 God covers the skies with clouds;
God makes rain for the earth;
God makes the mountains sprout green grass.
9 God gives food to the animals—
even to the baby ravens when they cry out.
10 God doesn’t prize the strength of a horse;
God doesn’t treasure the legs of a runner.
11 No. The Lord treasures the people
who honor him, the people who wait for his faithful love.
Praise the Lord!
SERMON (PASTOR)
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, the Lord, the Creator,
Praise, the time when earth was a body of water with mud on the bottom, and we floated in the sky. Praise, Tepeu and Gucumatz, who formed us out of the clay, and when we fell apart, they started anew with a great flood. Praise the Great Spring which came after seven days and renewed the land. Praise Sky woman who fell and landed on Big Turtle, as large as North America. Praise the Lord, the Creator, whose stories we tell of the First Peoples, the peoples who were born here and the others who long ago crossed the land and over the frozen straight those that and traversed giant rivers, to come to this place so long as15,000 years ago.
It is good to sing praise to our God! Because it is a pleasure to make beautiful praise!
We have sung in our native tongues and told legends of our God, and still we gather to do so. We sing to the sound of the drum and to the shake of the rattle and we give praise to God, give thanks for hunts and harvests and celebrations.
We know, The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, gathering up Israel’s exiles.
We suffered from diseases and warfare and salve when the europeans came, our numbers dwindled and died off. When our land was called the United States, one-sided treaties removed us from our homelands and we continued to suffer from discriminatory government policies. As many as 100,000 of us were removed from our land and relocated our West on reservations. Trails of Tears killed 3,500 of our number as the Navajo and Mescalero Apache men, women, and children died from starvation and disease. And yet, we have fought like warriors for this land, 44,000 Native Americans served in the United States military during World War II: at the time, one-third of all able-bodied Indian men from eighteen to fifty years of age. We were held in high esteem by our fellow soldiers and called Chief, and some of us were code talkers for the military in the Pacific, a code the Germans could never crack because it was based on our language. Yet we still believe the Lord is rebuilding, the Creator will gather up the exiles. We have been demanding our land be protected, and we have been asking for it back in courts and in trials.
We believe God heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.
And in 2009, an "apology to Native Peoples of the United States" was given. It said that the U.S. "apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.” And it healed a little of our wounds.
But still all we have to do is look up and know,
God counts the stars by number, giving each one a name.
Sky Woman when she fell to Big Turtle took up the dust in her hands and threw it up, and created the stars. And we look to them and see the ancestors of our dust shining above.
Our Lord is great and so strong! God’s knowledge can’t be grasped!
We sit at the Creators feet and listen, in Sweatlodges, Peyote Rituals, in the silence as we watch the smoke of a fire, or the burning of sweetgrass or sage. In the fasting, the the singing, in the drumming, in the prayers. In the use of an Eagle Feather, or even in the joining of Christian hymns brought by Spanish Missionaries to our land.
We know from them, The Lord helps the poor.
And from this we hope, we struggle in poverty to maintain life on the reservation or we loose our culture in the outside world. In both there are health issues, and we are a vulnerable community, suffering disproportionately high rate of alcoholism, diabetes, tuberculois, and suicide, and disturbingly high mortality rates. Yet, we know our Lord will help us as we begin to discover self-determination. We have begun not to see ourselves as savages, but as leaders, not as inferior but as athletes, not as Indians but as First Peoples, not as Redskins or Wahoos but as those who brought agriculture and hunting skills languages art and music from the earth on up. Therefore,
7 Sing to the Lord with thanks; sing praises to our God with a lyre!
We have made, flutes and whistles out of wood, cane, and bone are also played. We play along and we play together. Our drums lead our pow-wows, with honor songs, intertribal songs, crow-hops, sneak-up songs, grass-dances, two-steps, welcome songs, going-home songs, and war songs. In all this we praise our Creator and give thanks.
We give thanks for a
God covers the skies with clouds; God makes rain for the earth; God makes the mountains sprout green grass.
Sky Woman gave birth to (Sapling and Flint). Sapling brought into the world all that is good (plants, animals, and rivers), while Flint tampers with/aims to destroy Sapling's good creation. The two get into a fight and Flint is defeated but doesn't die. Flint's anger is manifested into the form of a volcano. The Spirit of the Sky World came down and looked at the Earth long ago. As he traveled around seeing all of the Earth, he saw how beautiful it was so he then decided to create people to put on it. Before returning to the sky, he gave the people all names and called them together to speak to them. He said “To the Mohawks, I give corn.” Then The Spirits of the Sky World gave the Oneidas nuts and the fruit of many trees. He then gave the Senecas beans. To the Cayugas, he gave the roots of plants to be eaten. To the Onondagas, he gave grapes and squashes to eat and tobacco to smoke at the camp fires.” We know God has given us all things.
God gives food to the animals— even to the baby ravens when they cry out.
For the Raven is one who saved the earth when it had grown cold. None of the animals wanted to go, the coyote was playing tricks, the turtle was so slow and so no one could go up to the Creator. The raven with the most colorful feathers, said it would go up toward the heavens. The raven reached and sang to the Creator. The creator asked what the Raven wanted and the raven asked for help with the snow covered earth. The Creator sent the raven with the fire from the sun. The raven brought heat back to earth and in so doing restored the land but the raven remained forever black and if you look closely you can seen the rainbow colored sheen under the raven’s wings. Even the creator had a place to for the raven and hears it when it cries out.
But God doesn’t prize the strength of a horse; God doesn’t treasure the legs of a runner.
We each have a place in the tribe. We each have a unique name by which the creator calls us. Some are to make music, some are to dance, some are to be hunters and warriors, some are to be artists, some are to lead, some are to plant, some are to study, some are to heal, some are protect the creation, and some are to tell its oldest stories.
For, The Lord treasures the people who honor the Lord, the people who wait for the Lord’s faithful love.
So we wait, in the already but not yet time. Where we have been created, and yet we have spoiled the garden of Earth’s Eden, and yet we wait for Eden, for Big Turtle to be washed anew and us with us, renewed. We wait and we honor the Lord with our faithful love.
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Rev. Katy Nicole
