Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday

By the Rev. Dr. Charrise Barron
Assistant Professor of Music Ethnomusicology
Harvard University

(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Oct. 13, 2024)

Today is Indigenous Peoples' Sunday. That is the day before Indigenous Peoples' Day. And Indigenous Peoples' Day celebrates the contributions of Indigenous people in America, and we recognize the great resilience of Indigenous peoples, and we remember the history, including the great suffering that Indigenous peoples have endured.

The Book of Job helps us to reckon and wrestle with suffering and profound grief. Let me remind us all that Job is a book in the Bible which recounts the story of a man by the same name who endured great suffering. And in the opening of the first chapter of the Book of Job, we learned that Job is a pious man and a wealthy man. In the first chapter of the Book of Job, we learned that Job has seven sons and three daughters, and the third verse of that first chapter says, "He had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East." He was the greatest man in his region.

But just as soon as we learn of his great wealth, we learn that he suffers disaster upon disaster. In a series of catastrophic events, Job loses his servants, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, and his camels. All his children die in the collapse of a house due to a windstorm. And if that were not enough, Job develops a sickness in which his body, head to toe, is covered in sores. Job knows and endures great suffering.

As Job endures this suffering, we find him in the 23rd chapter, which was the lesson today, lamenting that he cannot find God. If he could find God and plead his case, he would be acquitted. Indeed, we know that Job was a pious man, and the suffering he endured was not punishment for some sin he had committed. But in our own lives, sometimes we can trace the cause of our suffering. We know what we have done, or we know what we have failed to do that brought us to a time and a place of suffering. But what do you do when the suffering is not because of some wrong that you did? What do you do when there's no making sense of the suffering? You don't know what has caused you or your people to be dealing with some difficult circumstance, but here you are.

I want to make space this morning for those of us who are suffering, whether it be circumstances of an entire group of people or whether it be an individual instance, a devastating diagnosis, struggling week after week with course material that just doesn't make sense, or maybe it's a financial blow that has left you reeling, or it's the distress of walking a loved one through sickness and pain up to death's door. Whatever the suffering you are facing, you are not alone.

Now, if we fast-forward to the end of the Book of Job, spoiler alert, we find that Job's wealth is restored. His livestock is restored to double what he had before. He also has seven more sons and three more daughters. In the first chapter, we learned that he had great wealth, but he suffered great loss and suffering. And then, in that 42nd and final chapter, we learned that he has been restored. Most of the book, that in-between, is Job and his friends trying to process what happened to Job.

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The Book of Job gives an account of Job's suffering and makes clear that even though Job goes through a season of inability to find God, ultimately, God does reveal God's self to Job, and Job is made whole. At the same time, the book does not minimize or erase Job's suffering. Instead, the book amplifies and puts a spotlight on the hard times. This tells me that we don't have to ignore the difficult and disastrous parts of our story, individually or collectively. Now, for younger generations, this may be a no-brainer, but society taught Gen Xers and Boomers and those who are older to bury the pain, to hide the pain, and to just keep it moving. That's why Indigenous Peoples' Day is so important. It's a day for us to remember the difficult parts of our shared history, as well as celebrate the resilience of Indigenous peoples who have suffered in the making of this great nation.

Now, the reading from Job and the reading from Mark today are part of the revised common lectionary or the listings of scripture readings for each Sunday of the year that many Christians follow. And so when we look at the Gospel of Mark, we find another wealthy man. This time, everything seems to be going all right in his life. He has wealth, and he has an audience with Jesus. He asks Jesus, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Now, I love the Gospel of Mark because Mark is succinct. It gets straight to the point. It's a book with few words, so every detail is important. Jesus affirms that the young man is following commandments as the young man ought. Then, the Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus looked at the man and loved him. This Gospel takes the time to tell us that Jesus looked at the man, Jesus saw the man, and Jesus loved him. And then Jesus told the man to sell all he had, give to the poor, and go follow Jesus. Isn't it beautiful that Jesus sees us, Jesus loves us, but also Jesus gives us some difficult instructions sometimes? Now, that man walked away distraught because he had a great deal of wealth.

Even as the text of Job is fitting for Indigenous Peoples' Sunday, so too is the text of the rich man encountering Christ. As we sit in Memorial Church at one of the oldest universities in the United States, and certainly one of the most prestigious institutions on the planet Earth, we find ourselves in a seat of great power, great wealth, great access, great resources, great opportunities. What is God calling each of us to do with the wealth of resources, opportunities, and perhaps even finances? What is God calling our university to do? And in a nation and at a university that have benefited because of the great suffering of Indigenous people, and dare I say, people of African descent, as outlined in Harvard's Legacy of Slavery report, what is God calling for at this time?

Jesus looks at the man, Jesus looks at the man, loves the man, and says, "There's one thing that you have not done," and that one thing was not easy. Now, the text practically preaches itself here in the seat of wealth and privilege, in the seat of great access to every human thing. You can have every human thing, but still need and encounter with the divine. You can have every human thing, but still need something supernatural and still need experience of God's presence. In this text, we find that once that man is challenged, once he's given a difficult thing to do, he walks away sad and distraught, and then Jesus tells his disciples that it will be hard for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

Now, I'm not telling every rich person to sell all your earthly possessions and give it all to the poor, although something to think about, right? I am saying listen closely for God's voice calling you to do the hard things. When everything is so easy and accessible because of wealth or other access, it is easy to ignore God's voice. It's easy to block it out or not listen for it. It's easy to redirect our trust from God to ourselves and to our own possessions.

On this Indigenous Peoples' Sunday, I want to charge us to have great faith. Have great faith. I would venture to say that everyone in this room has been somewhere between these two men, between Job and the wealthy man who encountered Christ. I would venture to say that some of us may have great wealth, but we find ourselves suffering. This is a word of encouragement, to have faith, to seek God even in the suffering. And when everything is going well, have the faith to do what God calls you to do. God can lead us in directions that we do not want to go, but that's the great faith challenge. It can be very hard, but with God, all things are possible.

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