2nd Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

Donna Joy

This has been a landmark week for Canada, as a summary of the long awaited Truth and Reconciliation Commission report was presented and made public. This report includes 94 recommendations for change in policies, programs and the 'way we talk to, and about, each other.' It also urges Canada to confront the issue of cultural genocide in relationship to the treatment of Aboriginal Peoples. Some have responded to this report with skepticism, while others were filled with a sense of hope that this report speaks the truth, opens the door to true reconciliation, and suggests a future with new beginnings.

As I was following all this on the news, I was struck with the idea that this is an ideal time to explore the question, "What is truth?" This question, infamously posed by Pontius Pilate, is the question that has been recurring to me in light of this report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This report documents in appalling detail the racism and abuse that indigenous people have faced, and continue to face in Canada. It makes clear that the harm which has been inflicted has not been the doing of a few wicked people, but has been the consequence of widely held attitudes that are deeply embedded in the assumptions and practices of our society. Assumptions and practices that have affected even those with good intentions. Lots of survivors of Residential Schools have reported that some of the teachers were kind, and loving, and generous and good. But the bottom line is they were good people embroiled in and shaped by colonialism at its absolute worst.

Excerpt from the summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada:

"For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as 'cultural genocide.'"

And, sadly, the assumptions that created this atrocity continues to shape the way we live and the way we think. Over the past year the media has been leaning pretty heavily on Winnipeg as we've been identified as a Canadian hub for racism. I think the church needs to be a prophetic voice in the midst of such hatred that is embedded into the very fabric of the culture in which we live.

In returning to Pilate’s question I am referring to John's narrative where Pontius Pilate is trying to manipulate Jesus into confessing his identity in a way that will facilitate his own demise. This is where Jesus has said to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world..." (In other words, "My kingdom is one of justice and peace... NOT the violence that we see unfolding here...") Pilate quickly tries to turn this statement against Jesus as he says, "Ah! You ARE a king, then? And Jesus' response is what has been haunting me this past week as we have been reviewing the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He says, "King is your word. My task is to bear witness to the truth. For this I was born; for this I came into the world, and all who are not deaf to truth listen to my voice."

This conversation about truth that takes place between Pontius Pilate and Jesus kept occurring to me this past week, and then I started to put this together with the latter part of our Gospel reading where Jesus identifies what this truth actually looks like... Jesus makes the point that his family consists of those who live their lives according to the will of God; those who live their lives rooted in the peace and justice made known in Jesus. As we confront the role of the church in residential schools, how faithful have we been to the truth that Jesus embodies and conveys; how faithful have we been as members of his family, called to live as he has lived.

It seems to me that Jesus associates truth with being rooted in God's love, which is made manifest in a commitment to peace and justice; and those who follow this path are identified as his family. Jesus' understanding of truth is deeply relational. How we live in relationship with each other determines how faithfully we are building up the kingdom to which Jesus refers. In our relationships with others our understanding is filtered through the lens of our preconceptions, and, yes, our prejudices. These are the things that shape our expectations of the other and allow us to see, or prevent us from seeing them, their lives, their sorrows, and their joys as they experience them. Right from the get-go, it was preconceptions and prejudices that prevented European settlers from seeing the beauty, wisdom, lives, sorrows, vulnerabilities, joys of Aboriginal Peoples. To hold firm to the truth that Jesus speaks of and embodies is to recognize that it is bound up with justice. To hold firm to the truth that Jesus speaks of and embodies is to live in right relationship with, to embrace, celebrate and honour the great diversity that is all part of God's plan. To see the truth of the life of another, the truth of those who may look or live differently than ourselves, we must be in just relationship with them, a relationship without which we can never truly hear their voice above the clamour of our own.

The report that was presented this past week tells the truth of Canadian history as it has impacted on the treatment of Aboriginal Peoples, and it challenges this country to embrace the kind of truth that Jesus is calling us into.

There can be no adequate truth without justice. We cannot be true to our own history unless we are just, unless we weigh it justly, see its insights and its flaws, its injustices, its aspirations and its evasions. This is hard, because it means we must identify and speak the truth that is so much a part of our story - more so, I suspect, than we may ever fully understand - and this almost invariably brings us face to face with those things in our lives and in the practices of our culture that we would rather not face. So we should not be surprised if in the responses to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission we see some evasion and denial.

Clearly, the work of the Commission is not simply about Aboriginal peoples, it is about those of us who are Canadians of European ancestry and the reconciliation it calls for is not only a reconciliation between peoples: one group of people who have caused harm and Aboriginal people who have been harmed. It is also about a reconciliation with ourselves, and our own past. We need to come to terms with these difficult and dangerous memories. Indeed, without this we will not be able to see the truth to which the testimony of Aboriginal peoples points.

While this report is, of course, specific to our behaviour with Aboriginal Peoples, I think it may also challenge us to confront each and every preconception and prejudice that holds us back from living peacefully and harmoniously with others. We all possess such underlying blind spots in any number of different ways. We need to think about our own blind spots/ prejudices that separate us from those who may be different from ourselves: I can offer one example from my own experience: Up until the past few years I have to confess that I would cringe when seeing a person with multiple tattoos. This visceral response has probably prevented me from seeing into the heart of many people. Then, over the past decade or so, one of my sons has received numerous tattoos. Slowly, over time, I have come to recognize their beauty, the symbolism behind them, and the ways in which they tell the stories of his life. My son is a beautiful, honorable, generous, courageous, sensitive individual... And now I wonder how many heavily tattooed people whose beauty I've missed. I think the work of this commission can, if we allow it to, challenge us to identify the many prejudices that prevent us from living peacefully and harmoniously with others.

As a Christian people, this journey we are being invited on is about penitence. It is about the capacity to face that in ourselves which is not true, not just, and which causes harm even when we are oblivious to it. It is about the possibility of new relationships that are based on a seeing that is not clouded by its own prejudices, but is genuinely open to the other; and not simply open, but grounded in a spirit of celebration and embrace.

It seems to me that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report is offering a journey in which we are invited to change. We are not invited to simply acknowledge what has happened and regret it, but to be changed by it and to open ourselves to a future that is different. The truth that matters here is a truth that is grounded in God's love, and justice, and peace, and genuinely open to the life of the other. This is what it means to be just, and therefore shaped by justice. This is what it means to live into the truth embodied in Jesus.

The real value of the Truth and Reconciliation Report will be determined by how successful it is in implementing true and lasting change. The real question for us is where will we go from here.

In an article in the Globe and Mail yesterday John Ralston Saul makes the point that this may very well be a last chance to get it right. This is what it means for truth to be told, for justice to be served, and for reconciliation to be possible. Will we allow the eyes of our hearts and souls to be opened? Will we allow our lives, and our cultural assumptions to be not merely challenged but changed? Will we not simply hear truth, but be shaped by the just truth, the justice, which is the only adequate basis of reconciliation. All this needs to happen on an individual basis, collectively as we work through this as disciples of Jesus, and, of course, politically.

Going forward, we need to be diligent about doing our research whenever it comes time to make decisions about who we support politically. Are the politicians we select supporting the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report? As parents, and grandparents, we need to be diligent about holding our public and private schools accountable in terms of teaching our children Canadian history so that the tough truth and consequence of colonialism is told and taught. As individuals, we may need to ask God to help us deconstruct the preconceptions and prejudices that have covertly shaped the way we think. Indeed, as members of Jesus' family we are called to live according to the loving will of God as embodied in Jesus' commitment to justice and peace.