This sermon was given by Kelly Sherman-Conroy at the Indigenous People’s Celebration and Service of Reconciliation at Nativity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis Minnesota. The liturgy was created by Kelly on behalf of the American Indian/Alaska Native Lutheran Association and is available to synods and congregations to use.

Watch the full Indigenous Celebration service: Click Here

Kelly has grounded her life in the Holy Spirit and the deep spiritual practices intertwined between her Lakota identity and Christian beliefs. As a proud member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Kelly dedicates her time to social justice, racial reconciliation, Indigenous leadership, and family ministry. Walking with people of all cultures, she actively provides ministry around the exploration of intersections of identity, personal narratives and faith. Kelly is currently working on her second graduate degree, a Master of Theology at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which is the next step to her much-anticipated PhD. She continues to focus her studies on Lakota Spirituality and the Christology connection. With high respect and love for her Lakota identity and Christian beliefs, Kelly continues to travel and speak about traditions and values of the Lakota people and the vibrant role culture has within the church experience. As the Holy Spirit thrives in community, Kelly uplifts inclusive church culture, integrating spiritual practices from multi-cultural experiences to create an inclusive Beloved Community for all. Kelly has two decades teaching and leading in family ministry and currently serves at Nativity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis Minnesota, which enables her to reach others with humor, warmth, transparency and strength. Kelly is a mother, an educator, speaker, an activist, shy poet, role model and mentor. She is working on publishing her first book about the integration of Lakota Spirituality and Christian practices, while being active in the ELCA’s American Indian/Alaska Native Lutheran Association, #DecolonizeLutheranism Central Leadership and her community. Kelly’s ability to speak truth in love from a Native perspective coupled with her humility and humor makes for a powerful reception of truth in the hearts of Natives and non-Natives alike.

THE SERMON

Mitakuyape, Mato Wašté Winyan, Kelly Sherman-Conroy, emaciyape nahan iyuha cante’ wašté nape ciyuzape. My Relatives, my name is Good Bear Woman, Kelly Sherman-Conroy and I shake your hands with good feelings in my heart. I am a proud member of the Oglala Lakota Nation.

We are here today because in August of 2016 the ELCA made a promise to the Indigenous people. The Churchwide Assembly, members of the ELCA passed a resolution to recognize and celebrate contributions of Native Americans into the life of the church and community.

The whole body of the ELCA said they were wrong and repudiated explicitly and clearly the European-derived Doctrine of Discovery, a document that has been used to justify racism and enslavement of indigenous peoples since it was written in 1493.

This papal bull gave Christian explorers the right to claim lands they “discovered” for their Christian monarchs. Any land discovered that was not inhabited by Christians could be exploited. If pagan inhabitants could not be converted, they could be enslaved or killed. Indigenous people have felt the sting of that papal edict since Europeans first landed in North America.

Many Americans grow up learning that this continent was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus. The concept of discovery, as if the land was empty prior to arrival and its indigenous inhabitants were somehow “less than” the explorers is, at its heart, racism and cultural superiority.

The Doctrine of Discovery isn’t based upon the gospel. The gospel has Jesus coming among ALL people and inviting relationship with them. The gospel is one of liberating and not of oppressing. The gospel shows us a tradition of love and inclusion of ALL people.

In the late 1800s, Christian boarding schools were constructed with assistance from the federal government to obtain land on Indian reservations, Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian and other religious denominations built schools with the sole purpose of acculturation and assimilation of the children.

The Native culture, according to early missionaries, did not fit the Christian religion, and belief in the Gospel required them to give up who they were in order to become something they could never be… white.

Carlisle Indian School founder, Capt. Richard H. Pratt, summed up this belief this way: “A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead Indian… In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” Basically, only once the Indian part of a man had been purged, assimilated, could the saving grace of Jesus death and resurrection become available to him.

I was once told that because I was Native American I was could not be a true Christian until I denounced my family, current and past. That I had to be either a Native American, or a Christian but I could not be both. My great grandfather Wasicula did not take a stand at the Battle of Greasy Grass (Battle of Little Big Horn) and live to become an Native Christian, and continued to practice and inculturate our Lakota spiritual beliefs and practices, for me to just give it all up for someone who did not want to take the time to understand, to learn.

God created me, as an Indigenous Child of God…I’m NOT a European Child of God. Nowhere in the bible does it say to be a Christian we have to be defined solely by northern European, cultural identity markers. My Native spirituality only deepens my relationship with God and allows me to have an authentic and meaningful spiritual experience.

This liturgy we are experiencing today has been put together in a meaningful way to integrate Native culture and spirituality and keep some boundaries of the Lutheran Christian traditions. The result is a profound and deeply spiritual experience that has been created for all involved in not just the worship practices but their relationship with God and the other.

Inculturation, in other words, aims to deepen the spiritual life of the assembly through a fuller experience of Christ who is revealed in the people’s language, rites, arts, and symbols. God has come to the people and is speaking to the Lakota in our own cultural ethos.

What the world call wretched, Jesus calls Blessed. Blessed are the poor and the poor in spirit. Blessed are the merciful, the compassionate. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst that God’s righteous justice might prevail. Blessed are those who work for peace. Blessed are you when you are persecuted for just trying to love and do what is good.

What the church needs, what the world needs, are some Christians who are crazy enough to Decolonize their minds and love like Jesus did, to give like Jesus did, to forgive like Jesus did, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly…like Jesus. Amen.