Sermon: Calvin/Deer Park United Church Kevin Parks, Sunday September 28, 2025 Proper 21, Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost – Orange Shirt Sunday National Day of Truth and Reconciliation Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Sermon: Calvin/Deer Park United Church

Kevin Parks, Sunday September 28, 2025

Proper 21, Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost – Orange Shirt Sunday

National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

I’m coming down from the pulpit to stand among you this morning, so we can have a more intimate moment for storytelling, and even truth-telling. I’m going to tell you about Truth and Reconciliation, because Tuesday is the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. My standing here, near to you, is to honour the Indigenous pattern of drawing into circles, of balance and equality. I’m not going to ask you to move so we can have a talking circle…though that is tempting!!...but I think the next best thing is to offer a model of equality that moves me down from a high place, where I am speaking down upon you, to a level of equality and mutuality. I liken this to the difference in Luke’s portrayal of Jesus as offering a sermon on the plain, in and among his people, as opposed to Matthew’s sensibility, that had Jesus speaking to the multitude from a mountaintop. It’s really only a matter of perspective, but there is embedded symbolism in there as well.

And I want to acknowledge off the top that I know some people here may find this sermon uncomfortable. Telling the truth generally does put everyone in an uncomfortable position—it isn’t always easy to speak the truth, nor to hear it. And I acknowledge that we like to be prepared for hearing truth. I kind of hope that is exactly what we are doing whenever we come to church—coming prepared to hear truth. I want to be very clear that it isn’t my aim to cause discomfort…but to raise awareness and to offer hope.

There is, indeed, a gospel purpose in what’s going to follow. I’m going to name that right at the start. I intend to offer, in the end, a perspective of hope and assurance. This is because both our denominations have been closely involved in the work of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the purpose of the commission is not to condemn or vilify or shame and blame, but rather to call us to action, to raise our awareness and show where hope for the future can be found.

The Gospel behind what I hope you will hear today is that Jesus is the great reconciler. Not just for us as individuals, not only for us in our personal relationship with God in Christ, but for us as a community for the reconciliation of the corporate sins of the whole world. I’m going to say more about that later, but for now, I would encourage you to keep that in mind.

Here's the truth part:—

Many churches observe the Sunday before September 30 as Orange Shirt Day. So, you can sit in the comfort of knowing that Presbyterians and United Church folk across the country are having similar conversations across the country today! 😊

Why Orange Shirt Day? …

It all started with the story of Phyllis Webstad[1], a Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) woman from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation who went to St. Joseph Mission Residential School. I’ll read you her story in her own words:

I went to the Mission for one school year in 1973/1974. I had just turned 6 years old. I lived with my grandmother on the Dog Creek reserve. We never had very much money, but somehow my granny managed to buy me a new outfit to go to the Mission school. I remember going to Robinson’s store and picking out a shiny orange shirt. It had string laced up in front, and was so bright and exciting – just like I felt to be going to school!

When I got to the Mission, they stripped me, and took away my clothes, including the orange shirt! I never wore it again. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t give it back to me, it was mine! The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying and no one cared.

I was 13 years old and in grade 8 when my son Jeremy was born. Because my grandmother and mother both attended residential school for 10 years each, I never knew what a parent was supposed to be like. With the help of my aunt, Agness Jack, I was able to raise my son and have him know me as his mother.

I went to a treatment centre for healing when I was 27 and have been on this healing journey since then. I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance, ingrained in me from my first day at the mission, affected the way I lived my life for many years. Even now, when I know nothing could be further than the truth, I still sometimes feel that I don’t matter. Even with all the work I’ve done!

The Presbyterian Church in Canada ran 12 residential schools. The United Church of Canada operated 15.[2] I’m going to quote for you from the United Church’s webpage on Truth and Reconciliation:

Students in those schools suffered physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual, and cultural abuse, for which they sued the government and churches. This resulted in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which included the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. It's Final Report and Calls to Action make clear that there is still a very long journey ahead of us as we seek reconciliation..

Both our denominations have been deeply involved in the work of reconciliation. We have been full partners and participants in the work of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation commission, and we have both made statements of apology to Indigenous people.

The Presbyterian Church in Canada has a webpage that provides resources to help us observe. Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It says the following:

“We all bear a collective responsibility to work for reconciliation: for truth, for healing from the harms of intergenerational trauma and racism that we helped cause, and for reparations and justice for Indigenous peoples. In the church’s Apology, we make five fundamental commitments, including listening to and learning from Indigenous people and telling the truth about the past.[3]”

(If you would like to read more detail about both our church’s involvement in the residential schools system, and about both our church’s apologies to First Nations Peoples in Canada, I invite you to visit my blog where a manuscript of this sermon will be posted. There will be linked references in the text that you can follow for more information)

Now, here is the Hope Part:

I have been reading Marie Wilson’s book “North of Nowhere”. Dr. Marie Wilson is one of three commissioners on Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I’ve had the good fortune to meet her several times, first when the TRC had its eastern listening circle in Halifax in 2011. The last was this spring when she was in Halifax to speak about her book. My former colleague at St. Andrew’s in Halifax is a close friend, and so we were privileged to have Marie speak to us in worship. Marie calls her book the “Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner.” She inscribed my copy “May you find the plaintive laments and songs of joy within these pages”. And certainly, that is exactly what is there…the stories…story upon story…of people who remembered their childhood in residential schools. The stories of the commissioners and the communities receiving these stories. The stories of how the commission completed its work and brought forth a legacy of naming truth, but also naming what is reconciliation…

And in Marie Wilson’s case, there is much to read about how she was impacted by her experience as a commissioner:

“I at times felt the entire weight of the residential schools on my shoulders. I at times felt that I bore the face of the perpetrator, and I felt deep shame at the superior assumption, transplanted government, and superimposed religion of my Ancestors.

As the one female Commissioner, as a mother and a grandmother, I ached at the raw and painful accounts of the forced removal of children, of the little ones feeling forsaken, abandoned, and unloved, and of the lost anguish of the parents left behind.

Yet on the most uplifting days, I was also moved by what I call “living miracles”: residential school Survivors who publicly reclaimed their names and professed the right to be happy; those who lived years of self-inflicted abuse declared that they had finally learned to love themselves; those who grieved their failures as parents finally received, in the midst of a crowded room, the gift of cherished words from their child—“I love you, Dad”, or “I love you, Mom,” of “I don’t blame you,” and “I forgive you”; those who found, seemingly beyond all deserving, words of forgiveness for the churches who ran the places where they were harmed; and traditional spiritual leaders who invited all—Indigenous or not—into the ancient sacred ceremonies that Canada outlawed for decades. I can still hear their welcoming words of simple reverence: “In the eyes of Creator, there is no wrong way to pray.”[4]

A strong impression left on me is just how spiritual this book is, and how spiritual is the account of the work of the TRC. Not just in the descriptions of First Nations’ spirituality, but in the day-to-day work of being a TRC commissioner over nearly 10 years.

All three commissioners are practicing Christians. Each day, before each session the three commissioners gathered for prayer and spiritual practice. There is something very comforting in knowing that their work was upheld by an ethic of prayer and spiritual practice. This transforms our response, because when we engage with the results of the TRC, we are building upon that ethic with our own prayers and spiritual practices and carrying it forward in faith.

And this is why we need to talk about it here.

We are a covenanted people who believe in the reconciling power of the new covenant in Christ. With the First Testament prophet Jeremaiah, we believe that fields will be bought and sold on promised land once again.

We believe in the future because the future is God's. As we’ve heard in my earlier sermons, Jeremiah preached and prophesied trouble to the Israelite people—he spoke the truth—and he spoke against the way of destruction in which the people undermined their status as Chosen of God. But in today’s text, God shows Jeremiah that the future is bright, that new things, that better things are possible and the promise awaits him and the people.

We, with our Indigenous siblings in Christ, are God's people whom God gives the chance to move day by day into deeper reconciliation—If we would have it, if our answer to God when confronted with the work of reconciling, in love, would be “Yes”.

Calling for reconciliation is not a big heavy of shaming or blaming. Hearing truth does call us to confess and repent for the sins of our ancestors; the ways that those sins became systems which endure to this very day; and for our resistance to accept these truths and then do our part to dismantle those systems and restore them to something more righteous and honoring of God’s people, in God’s sight.

Reconciliation is all of that.

But after we have listened and confessed and repented, the rest of our “yes” to our Indigenous siblings in Christ is to do ceremony with them, to perform treaty, to make new covenant.

The rest of our “yes” to our indigenous siblings in Christ is to walk humbly with them on this land and attend to its care.

To be faithfully rooted and joyfully growing, by being present to one another—present to our Indigenous siblings in Christ.

And I'm not talking about high level presence.

I'm talking about you and me. In very real and tangible ways:

· Go have a cultural experience by attending a potlatch or a sweat lodge.

· Seek out an Indigenous person for conversation and talk about spiritual things.

It won't be hard. In my experience, matters of the Spirit are always near to the surface when in dialogue with First Nations people.

· Read Indigenous authors, watch Indigenous films, observe how their ethics of “all things are interconnected”, permeates their world view and their concern for others.

· Encourage all of us to engage in more Indigenous dialogue.

· Find out about the calls to the church and how our denominations are responding.

· Be curious, ask questions and dig deep.

One of the TRC calls to action is for Canadian theological schools to ensure that seminary students are exposed to the issues and have opportunities to engage with and reflect on the meaning of reconciliation—So that I (and all of us) in seminary can be prepared to support seminar similar education in the congregational context.

If you'd like to know more about how Atlantic School of Theology is responding to this call to action, I'd be pleased to have a conversation with you.

We are all treaty people. And here you can understand treaty in the same way you understand the biblical concept of covenant.

We are all people of the book.

We are all people of a new covenant.

As we reflect on our denominations and our congregations 100 to 150 years as representatives of the “colonial church” that didn't always do well in choosing how to live with respect in creation and how to love and serve others…

God says to us today, be reconciled--me with you, you with me, and one to another.

Do not forget the past, but remember it with an eye to your future and go forward from here forever changed to live into a new life, committing to be reconciled in all your relationships.

It is hard work, but it's good and necessary work and we do it in the assurance that our faithful God will go with us.

May it be so.

Additional Resources:

Truth And Reconciliation Commission of Canada:

https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada/

https://united-church.ca/blogs/round-table/september-30-orange-shirt-day

https://sandysaulteaux.ca

https://united-church.ca/sites/default/files/dreaming-new-relationships-indigenous-church.pdf

Calls to the Church

https://united-church.ca/community-and-faith/being-community/indigenous-ministries/calls-church#downloads

[1] https://orangeshirtday.org/phyllis-story/#story

[2] https://united-church.ca/social-action/justice-initiatives/reconciliation-and-indigenous-justice/truth-and-reconciliation-commission