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2 Corinthians 5:
16-20
August 30, 2009 PILAMAYA: FOR ALL
REMINDERS THAT WHAT IS BROKEN In June, 16 members and friends of our church traveled out to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Before our departure, we were forewarned that the Prairie Dogs out there were suffering from Bubonic plague and as if that was not bad enough publicity for us, we also learned that because of the flooding that had taken place earlier in the spring, the rattlesnakes were on the move and were more prevalent than usual. I was very proud of our group that despite these rather fearsome forewarnings, no one dropped out. Whenever we travel together as we do, it's not only an opportunity to enter into the life of a very different culture and geography, but also, it's an experiment in community. We're used to traveling by ourselves or with our own nuclear family or perhaps a few of our friends, but to travel with 15 others, those of different generations, some of whom you've never met before… well, that stretches our comfort zone and takes a special kind of spirit, and I am ever so thankful for the spirit that this group exemplified. Each year I go out there, I try to learn a new word in the Lakota language. In the past, I have brought home such words as "tiyospaye", which means "extended family", and that's how I like to refer to our group as we travel together, as a tiyospaye. Perhaps, you've also heard me use the expression, "mitakuye oyasin", which is a wonderful expression that the Lakota use to remind themselves of how interrelated God's creation is. We've been going out there now for 24 years, and so I ought to have enough words by now to make a short speech in Lakota, but please don't put me to the test! The word that I learned this year is "pilamaya", which means "thank you." And that's the word I would like to say to the members of our group. Pilamaya. Thank you for being a part of this group. Thank you for not being overly concerned about rattlesnakes and bubonic plague. Thank you for the mutual support, friendship, laughter and tears we shared together on this journey. Thank you to those who worked in the hot kitchen out there to provide meals for the community. And a very special Pilamaya to Mattie, Eliza, Dana, Sonia and Reilly. We all should feel very proud of these, the youngest members of our group, for being the wonderful ambassadors of friendship that they were. Being young, as you can imagine, they were like magnets for the young people out there, and they brought a wonderful vitality to the rest of our group. Each year we go out there, Tribal Crafts, the non-profit organization our church created a number of years ago, buys beautiful Native American jewelry, crafts and Star Quilts, and let me tell you, this is a very difficult job. Given the enormous poverty on the reservation, it always breaks our hearts that there's never enough money to buy as much as we would like to buy. And so I want to say, Pilamaya for those in our group who exemplified such sensitivity and generosity toward our Native American friends. During coffee hour today, you will see the fruit of their labor in all the many items they brought back. But also, I want to say, "Pilamaya" to you the members of this church, for surely this partnership would not exist at all without the support and encouragement of this congregation. Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of our church's partnership with the Green Grass church on the Cheyenne River (Lakota) Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and so we all should be dreaming and planning for how we can celebrate that anniversary. In a quarter of a century, well over 250 people from here have traveled out there, and a number of our Native American friends have traveled out here, and indeed, several of them have traveled with us in our mission journeys to South Africa and Israel, the occupied territory of Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. "Pilamaya" for this spirit that has brought these two very different cultures and communities together. And, of course, I want to say Pilamaya to our friends out there as well. We've always spoken of this friendship between our two communities as being "mutually beneficial" and "mutually enriching." While I cannot speak for them, I can speak for those of us who have traveled out there, that we have been deeply touched by their friendship and hospitality. Every morning we were there, Winona Kasto made breakfast in her home in Eagle Butte. We would buy the groceries and then she in her own inimitable, unflappable way would put it all together, all the while taking care of the needs of her own family and carrying on a casual conversation with all of us. Speaking as one who is, shall we say, rather challenged in the kitchen – as my wife will attest – I marvel at any one who can fry an egg, let alone, bacon and eggs, let alone bacon and eggs and fry bread and hash browns and buffalo steaks for 16 people! And on our first night that we were there, she put together a wonderful feast, using a traditional Lakota recipe, sort of a Native American Cornish Pastry. And so Pilamaya to Winona. She doesn't have very much in the way of earthly goods, but she has given us the most precious gift there is, the gift of friendship and the honor of hospitality. I also want to say Pilamaya to our good friend, Ira Blue Coat, who despite the fact that he is on dialysis 3 days a week took the time to travel with us all the way down to Wounded Knee, near the Nebraska border– about 4 or 5 hours from his home. At Wounded Knee we had a prayer service in remembrance of all the injustices done to the Native Americans and how in 1890 over 300 men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux were massacred by the US Army, their bodies dumped in a common grave. Being there at Wounded Knee gave me the opportunity to offer an apology to Ira and our Native American friends for all the arrogance and injustices for which our more dominant culture has been responsible. Up on Cheyenne River, way out in the middle of what some might call "nowhere", in a place called Whitehorse, in a magnificent location, surrounded by wide open prairie with more shades of green than you would have thought would have been possible, with the sun just beginning to set, Ira led us in what they call a Sweatlodge ceremony. For the Lakota, it's one of their sacred rituals. Hot rocks are brought into a very small Hogan that is made of willow branches that have been lashed together and many layers of canvass are spread out over those branches, such that it is very, very dark inside. You sing ancient Lakota songs, and someone plays the drum and then everyone is given the chance to pray. They sometimes speak of the sweatlodge as an opportunity to reenter our mother's womb – with the drum beat being a reminder of our mother's heartbeat in our prenatal state – and so the sweatlodge is a ritual in which one can find a new birth, a new beginning for one's life. Sometimes we all forget the importance of ritual in our lives, and this surely is something we can learn from our Native American friends. From the sweatlodge to the Vision Quest to naming ceremonies to the prayers in preparation for the Sundance, ritual plays a fundamental role in their spiritual well-being, and given the poverty with which they live and the depression and desperation from which they all sometimes suffer, these sacred rituals are very important. And the Sweatlodge ceremony in particular is a reminder that it is never too late to find a new beginning for one's life. Sometimes we have to travel out of our own cultures in order to better appreciate what we have. Sometimes we all underestimate the importance of our own sacred rituals – baptism and communion and confirmation and marriage, the singing of the doxology, all the ritualistic behavior of our Sunday morning experience. And so, this morning, as we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion, I want to say Pilamaya to our Native American friends and the privilege of being able to take part in their Sweatlodge ceremony, for it has helped me to better appreciate this our own sacred ritual – the Sacrament of Holy Communion -- for this is also a ritualistic reminder of how with God's love, there is always the possibility, indeed the opportunity for a new beginning. Like the little pieces of bread on our communion table, we all know what it's like to feel as if our lives are broken and fragmented. We all yearn for wholeness and harmony. We want to feel as if we are a part of a sacred community, that our lives count for something, that we are loved and cared for by others, but despite it all, we all sometimes feel as if we are all alone, and so we need this ritual, we need this sacrament to be reminded that what has been rendered asunder can be brought back together. For Holy Communion, I sometimes think that instead having the Deacons cut up all these little pieces of bread, we all ought to bring our own tiny little piece of bread, a visible reminder of how we all sometimes feel, that we're not Wonder Bread or Six Grain bread, just torn stale fragments, yearning for restoration. I would have us bring those fragments forward – one by one -- and place them on the communion table, and on that communion table there would be the most beautiful whole loaf of bread, fresh from the oven, a visible reminder of how God intended Creation to be, a reminder of where we all belong, a reminder that however torn and fragmented we may sometime feel, with God's love, there's always the opportunity for the Body of Christ to be not only remembered but also re-membered. And I'll say, Pilamaya to that little hyphen between the "e" and the "m", for it makes all the difference. Amen.
David W. Good Old Lyme, Connecticut
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