Truth, Reconciliation and the Circle of All Peoples
Micah 6:8; Luke 4:16-21; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Indigenous Peoples’ Day is tomorrow, Monday, October 12th. The holiday has been celebrated here in Ashland all weekend, including a Great Salmon bake and drumming circle yesterday at SOU, as well as a full day of activities today from 10-4 on campus at Stevenson Union. This holiday was first discussed in 1977 at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on discrimination against indigenous peoples in the Americas. Some participants suggested replacing Columbus Day with this new holiday.
Today, this holiday is officially recognized in only 17 of our 50 U.S. states, including Oregon. Why replace Columbus Day with this holiday? I still remember celebrating Columbus Day when I was in elementary school, reading about Columbus’ heroic journey to the shores of the Americas and learning the rhyme, "In 1492…Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
MSN reporter Emily Standley Allard, in her online article, “The Real Story Behind Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” writes, “This observance honors Native nations—their resilience, culture, and contributions that long predate European arrival. It’s a day of recognition and remembrance, shifting the focus from colonization to survival, and from conquest to cultural continuity. The change isn’t meant to erase history but to correct it—to tell a fuller, more honest story about America’s beginnings.”
Indigenous people, as well as many others, have long argued that holidays, statues, and other memorials to Columbus sanitize his actions—which include the enslavement of and wars against indigenous tribes in the Americas- while giving him credit for “discovering” a place where communities had lived for thousands of years. “Columbus Day is not just a holiday; it represents the violent history of colonization in the Western hemisphere,” says Leo Killsback, author and Indigenous rights advocate. For Indigenous peoples, that traumatic history played out over centuries.
So, in recognition of a painful history, some states now commemorate a day to honor indigenous peoples. With that in mind, in connection with a noisy offering for our Indigenous Student scholarships, I began to form a service around this holiday. I thought about Jesus’ mission statement in Luke, where he declares the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, emphasizing liberation, healing, and God’s favor for all people. I also considered the fact that the Apostle Paul wrote that we Christians have been given the ministry of reconciliation. How do these themes in Scripture apply to our difficult relations with the original occupants of this land?
Let’s begin with the passage from the Hebrew scriptures, Micah 6:8. This passage is above our land statement every Sunday in our bulletin. It is a large portion of our congregation’s vision statement: “We are a faith community, centered in Christ, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.” Doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly align us with Paul’s idea of the ministry of reconciliation for Christians. Doing justice includes looking at past wrongs, shedding God’s light on them, and then working for understanding and change. Loving kindness guides us to be kind to others who have been wronged or hurt, not to pave over past painful history. Walking humbly reminds us that the Christian church has been far from perfect, reflected in this morning’s prayer of confession. We can look at the Church historically through that lens, seeking to do better than we have in the past.
That brings us to another vision statement, that of our Messiah, Jesus.18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) Jesus also used a passage from the Hebrew scriptures for his vision statement, Isaiah 61:1-2. This vision of his ministry highlights God’s concern for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized, directing Christ’ ministry to be inclusive and restorative.
Reconciliation brings restoration. This connects us then to Paul’s words in his second letter to the church in Corinth. The congregation in Corinth was full of conflict, and Paul sought to give them wisdom to reconcile and restore the struggling church. He wrote, “18 All this is from God, who reconciled us through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
The word Paul uses for reconciliation is καταλλαγή (katallagé). It means “exchange (figuratively, adjustment), i.e., restoration to (the divine) favor -- atonement, reconciliation.” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance) Paul was purposeful in using katallage’. “It tells the listeners in the Corinthian church that this restoration is the direct result of Christ exactly (precisely) exchanging His righteousness (blood) for our guilt. (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance)
So, God initiated reconciliation through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. God moves towards humanity to restore broken relationships. Paul then says that, because of this restoration from God, we have been called to restore other broken relationships. Theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber writes, “Whatever God was accomplishing, especially on the cross, that Christological event…was for the restoration and redemption and reconciliation of all things and all people and all creation- everyone.”
In a world marked by division, injustice, and broken relationships- including between nations and cultures- the Bible offers a radical call to reconciliation. This message is especially relevant for us, as we seek to build authentic relationships with indigenous peoples, rooted in mutual respect, justice, and God’s transformative power. How might we begin reconciling with indigenous tribes in Southern Oregon? How can we seek forgiveness for historical wrongs committed against the original inhabitants of this land? Here are some possibilities.
First, learn this region’s history. Learn the history, particularly during the Rogue River Wars of 1851-56. There were a few skirmishes between local tribes, miners, and white settlers in the region when the Oregon Territory opened up in 1848. Misunderstandings arose between settlers and tribes in the region, leading to the Table Rock Peace Treaty, created in 1853. The Cow Creek Umpqua Tribe has a very good article about these wars, which came about after the peace treaty was signed. I made a few copies if you would like to know more. According to one author cited in the tribe's information on these wars, “The promises of peace in the Table Rock Treaty seemed to make little difference. If anything, the treaty stirred up many of the non-Indians because, to them, it set aside too much land that [in their view] should be available for mining and homesteading” (Wilkinson, 2010, p. 115). The peace treaty had an opposite effect in the region, leading to bloodshed. Stirred up settlers burned Chetco villages in 1854 to gain control of the ferry and massacred people from the village at Nasomah, near present-day Bandon. In October of 1855, a volunteer group of settlers and miners massacred more than 50 (and possibly as many as 100) men, women, and children on Little Butte Creek with little cause. Tribes fought back, eventually leading to war. With superior numbers, eventually the Army and volunteers ended the war in 1856.
Settlers were allowed to petition the federal government for reparations for fighting in the Rogue River Wars, even though many of them had stoked the violence and caused the fighting. Nearly $2.5 million was paid out in reparations to white settlers. Native people were forced to leave their homelands and resettle on the Coast (Siletz) Reservation.
Learning about this history can give us opportunities to change our perspectives and connect with Indigenous voices as we discuss the ministry of reconciliation. Theologian N.T. Wright wrote, “As we are set free by God’s love from our own pride and fear, our own greed and arrogance, so we are free to be agents of reconciliation and hope. Healing and love.”
Next- Acknowledge Harm and Correct it. Recently, a Raven Helmet worn during the 1804 Battle of Sitka has returned to the Kiks. ádi clan in Alaska after more than 100 years, marking a significant milestone in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s commitment to addressing historical harms and advancing reparative justice.
The repatriation underscores the church’s evolving approach to confronting its colonial past and rectifying wrongs committed against Indigenous peoples.
The helmet ended up sitting for decades in an “industrial training school” for indigenous children and youth, named eventually after Sheldon Jackson, a missionary tasked by the Presbyterians with “winning the West for Christ.” Jackson and others embraced the church-sanctioned idea of Manifest Destiny, a 19th-century colonial belief that God destined American pioneers to expand westward across America, and that this belief was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny").
David Staniunas, records archivist for Presbyterian Historical Society, writes, “Both the Sheldon Jackson Papers and the records of the UPCUSA Department of Health, Education and Welfare help tell the story of a long-running, Presbyterian-supported traffic in looted cultural artifacts.”
The Raven Helmet holds profound significance for the Kiks.ádi clan. Ray Wilson, the Kiks.ádi clan leader who lives in Juneau, said bringing sacred items back into ceremonies helps restore what has been lost. “The main thing is that it's coming back to help our people. We all need help,” he said. “These are really trying times, and they don’t seem to get any better. We need the culture to come back to make our people stronger again.”
Third-Build Trust-Engage in long-term relationships. Our Indigenous Peoples’ Scholarship for SOU students is a beginning step of building that trust. You may recall that around the time the COVID pandemic began in 2020, we put up a bronze plaque outside of the sanctuary of our land acknowledgment statement, which Brooke Colley, Associate Professor of Native American Studies at SOU, crafted. After getting our sign-up, I felt good for a little bit. Then I looked at the sign and said to myself, other than trying to absolve my guilt about what happened to the First Peoples, what good does this do? Our Session began exploring tangible ways we could DO something that moved us closer to some form of reconciliation. After consulting with Professor Colley, we came up with the idea for the scholarship. We hope that through offering this scholarship, we may build trust among the Shasta, Takelma, and Latgawa peoples. Theologian Desmond Tutu wrote, “We must not only speak about forgiveness and reconciliation. We must act on these principles.”
Fourth, but not finally, return land to the original owners. A few years ago, our own Presbytery of the Cascades took a significant step toward reconciliation by gifting land to an Indigenous-led organization to build a tiny-home village and early childhood center for unhoused Indigenous families.
The property was the former Presbyterian Church of Laurelhurst in Portland, which closed years ago. After some discussion with local tribes, the Presbytery repurposed the site into Barbie’s Village, a project named after Barbie Shields, a Shoshone-Bannock citizen and dedicated “natural helper” who worked with the Indigenous-led Future Generations Collaborative to address public health disparities among Indigenous communities.
Barbie’s Village features ten tiny homes and a resource center providing wrap-around services for Indigenous families experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. The initiative is part of the Land Back movement, which seeks to return land to Indigenous peoples as a form of reparative justice.
Nelson Mandela, in speaking about the reconciliation that occurred in South Africa, wrote, “True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting the past.” His point was that we find reconciliation in concrete acts of justice, as Cascades Presbytery did by returning the land to the Shoshone-Bannock people.
God inspires us through scripture not just to be reconciled to our Creator, but also with our neighbors- especially those whose voices and stories have been marginalized. Theologian Rachel Held Evans wrote, “ But if the world is watching, we might as well tell the truth. And the truth is, the church doesn’t offer a cure. It doesn’t offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation.” May God help us as we continue on this long, messy, gut-wrenching, never-ending work with Indigenous people through our calling- the ministry of reconciliation. Alleluia Amen.
