Wolakota (Right Relationship)
The following is a lightly edited transcript and a video of Rev. Isaiah Shaneequa Brokenleg’s talk from our 2021 Enfleshing Witness gathering.
Shaneequa preaches because in her Lakota culture Winkte, Two Spirit people, have been called by their communities to be spiritual, social, and emotional healers. Following in that tradition, she strives to live into the role her communities have called her to.
Shaneequa preaches to call the Church and society back into right relationship, wolakota, with itself, with each other, with the Creator, and with creation. Shaneequa preaches among all her relatives, knowing that we are all related, Mitakuye Oyasin, faithful believers, those who doubt often, jubilant atheists, and all in between.
In the beginning, when Wakan Tanka, the Creator, made the heavens and the earth, we were all as one. There was love. We understood that we were all related. We were good relatives to one another. We were home. When I think of home, I think of security and comfort, relationships. I think of a place where I can be myself.
When I think of home, I think of God's kingdom. I think of wolakota. Wolakota is the state when all things are in right relationship, when we are in right relationships with ourselves, with each other, with creation, and when we are in right relationships with the Creator. Wolakota is peace, and wolakota is home.
Sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we forget that we are all related. Sometimes we forget to be a good relative and we wander away from home. We wander away from the kingdom, away from family, and we lose our way. The Western White church has wandered away from home. We know how some of this happened.
First, our church became tied up in empire, in power, in greed. Second, White Jesus.
You see, we all long to have a relatable Jesus, a Jesus like us. Throughout Christianity, cultures often depicted a Jesus who was incarnated and became one of our own. So we got a Greek Jesus, an African Jesus, a Russian Jesus, an Asian Jesus, and we got White Jesus.
The problem occurred when the church, tied up in empire and power and greed, spreading colonization and slavery, failed to present the folks it was evangelizing with a Jesus of color that looked like us, and instead presented us with a Jesus that looked like the slave owner and the colonizer. That imagery is directly opposed to a local Jesus who was born into an oppressed and occupied territory.
Finally, the White church failed to listen to Paul. Remember, in the early church, one of the questions was whether or not someone must become a Jew in order to become a Christian. Paul answered that and said,’ no, you can just become a Christian. You don't have to become a Jew first.’ However, the White church seemed to have forgotten that, and they even took it a step further.
They seemed to think we were supposed to become White before we can become a Christian. And so they didn't like any of our cultural expressions of faith, our languages, our ceremonies, our histories. And today, some branches of our church still think you need to become White, or for that matter straight, or cis-gendered, or able-bodied, or other things before becoming a Christian.
But Paul is clear. We can bring our culture with us when we become a part of the body of Christ. So our White church has wandered away from home.
And their story has many parallels to the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. Most of you know this story. The son took his inheritance, those shared family resources, went to a distant country, squandered the property in dissolute living, and then famine hit the land. And he ended up having to feed the pigs before he considered coming back home.
The White church has taken our shared family resources. They took our land, our natural resources like minerals, forests, oil, and water. They took our humanity by enslaving our people, stealing our children, and being active in the genocide of so many of our communities.
They traveled to a distant country where they imposed their own cultural rules. They created this idea of rugged individualism that leaves out community. The country they move to values money, power, and material things over people and relationships. It's a country where what you own is far more important than the fact that each one of us reflects the image and likeness of a loving God.
The White church squandered the resources meant for the whole world in dissolute living, trading them for wealth and power that is placed into the hands of a few. And they have put into place systems and idols that help themselves, failing to see our black and brown siblings as relatives. These systems look like the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, slavery, boarding school, Jim Crow laws, Triumphalism, Patriarchy, or Nationalism, and on and on and on.
And as the story in Luke tells us, a famine hit the country. And we see famine all over in our story here.
We have global warming, climate change, extinction. We have a famine of money with just 1 percent of the people owning over 90 percent of the world's wealth. We have a famine of humanity, of caring for others, of empathy, and we have a global pandemic that cannot be cured because so many people can't vaccinate, or won't get vaccinated, or care about their neighbor enough to even wear a mask.
Our White church has left home. And maybe without realizing it, has been feeding those pigs for some time. Early on, these pigs they fed were triumphalism, empire, and colonization. But later the pigs grew and looked different. They looked like consumerism, multinational corporations, and power-hungry oligarchs.
And I think our White church is at the part of the story where they can begin to see that this is not working and it isn't sustainable. They may be missing home. The Wolakota, right relationship, God's kingdom home, is still here. And many of our Christian communities of color have never left or wandered away.
We have been calling our church back into right relationship ever since they stepped out. We've been reminding them that we are all related. We've been reminding them to come home. However, too often this church hasn't seen or heard us calling because the White Jesus they worship has made them unable to see the face of Jesus reflected in the black and brown faces all around them, calling them home.
If and when our relatives in the Western White church begin their journey home, we need to decide how we will react. Will we be like the brother in the story who is angry and refuses to come into the house? Or will we be like the parent who welcomes them back with open arms?
Coming home can be painful, coming home can be hard, but coming home is healing.
A few weeks ago, we had several of our stolen children come home to our Rosebud Reservation from the Carlisle Boarding School over 140 years later. In our Lakota way, we believe that when someone dies, their deceased relatives and ancestors come for them and guide them on their journey home. These children's souls may have been taken to the spirit world, but their bodies never came home to rest in their own community.
As we prepared to welcome these children home, great care was taken to ensure this was all done in a good way. In Lakota, our word for child literally means sacred one. Each child was assigned a veteran, who was also a mom, who would act as a mother for each of these children. The mothers went to Carlisle and accompanied the box with the bones of the child for the entire ride home.
They were there to grieve for them and to ensure that these children were laid to rest in a good way. The entire way home from Carlisle, other tribal communities asked the caravan to stop and offered prayers, hospitality, and welcome to these children in the caravan.
One community lined the road far as you could see with mothers and children holding their favorite toys. As the children were headed home, another [community] lined the road with orange balloons, parents and children dressed in orange to remember and honor the children who never came home. And when the children finally arrived on Rosebud, the entire community, and then some. welcomed them home, and we buried them in the Lakota way.
These sacred ones who were ripped from the arms of their loving family, whose hair was cut, whose clothes were taken, were now welcomed back into the community in the Lakota language with Lakota songs that they hadn't been able to speak at their school.
Now, their bodies can rest next to their relatives in the arms of Mother Earth, and their souls can rest in the bosom of God with their ancestors.
And while the Western White church left home by choice, some of us left home by force. Some of us were taken away from home because of slavery, boarding schools, reservations, and addictions.
Some of us have left home because we've been rejected by the White church, which in error says we are not White enough, or man enough, able-bodied, pretty, or skinny enough, wealthy enough, straight, or cis-gendered enough, sane enough, or subdued enough to be a part of their heretical White Jesus kingdom. Some of us have been wandering in the wilderness trying to find our way back home.
Home is here. Home is here. Home is here and home is now. Home is where we walk toward wolakota.
I invite anyone who feels like you've lost your way by choice, or by force, or by hate to come home.
Come home to a God who welcomes. Come home to a God who forgives. Come to this place where we are all related, where we walk towards right relationship.
Come home to this place where you are sacred, where you are known, where you are seen, but most importantly, where you are loved.
Welcome home.
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