Faith arise!

Varied thoughts

Matt whom I learned to know in the indigenous gathering in Kiruna, come to visit Finland for four days. Most of the time we spent on a friend's summer cottage in Turku. The place is quite special: it's an island on a lake on a island on the sea.

I feel very thankful, I got to learn so much of God's goodness these days especially through Matt. He shared stories of journeys he has made among different indigenous people groups all over the world. There are so many things that we have lost connection with, and that hinders us from understanding those aspects of life also when it concerns Christian community. One example is family: if church community is ment to be a family, but most people come from broken families, we really need God to teach us again what it means to be a family.

In indigenous cultures there is strong understanding of community. For example, when you meet a Maori person, he will first tell his tribe and parent's name, and only after that his own name. Tradition of accepting people as thay are and including all people into caring community is one of the redemptive giftings many indigenous peoples have. There is lots of laughter and smiling. That's something I really hunger to learn my self.

We also discussed a lot about covenanting. It's something that I really sense God wants us to rediscover this season. It' such incredibly deep issue. It's also something that indigenous peoples haven't lost as long time ago as we Western people did. And of which the devil has succeeded in ruining the importance of the best example of covenant in our time, that is marrige covenant. I believe that covenanting is something that needs to be part of God taking us to a new level. That's why I will be blogging some basic thing about covenanting the coming weeks.

Back to Finland

On Monday morning I returned from WCGIP gathering in Kiruna. That was incredible week of meeting beautiful people, enjoying God’s presence and learning a lot. I totally liked the setting of the gathering: unlike any other gathering where I’ve been this far, it really was an incredibly family-like atmosphere in the gathering. Also schedule allowed us to spend time with people: we had one whole free day, that we spent by taking part of excursions or just hanging around with people. I spent that day in Sámi village Nikkaluokta near Sweden’s highest mountain Kebnekaise. There we walked (should I say “climbed”) to a hill with a beautiful view on the village and lakes. As we got there sun started to shine and we got some water from a spring and made coffee on camp fire. BTW, it’s not too encouraging to walk up to a high hill with an Native American who lives up in the mountains. No, it’s not me who is panting!

Meetings were held in a big Sámi tent called lávvu. There we sat in warmed up lávvu people from all around the world, Maori, Native American, Aborigine, African and so on.

One example I heard on the way makes me think. In native cultures, it’s okay to be late in the meeting. But if you are sharing a moment with another person, and you leave before that’s over, that’s shameful because then the mission is not completed. The same can be applied to serving God: if you want to respect God, you spend time with him. So natural conclusion of western church is that people don’t really honour God when they go to church at certain time and stay there for certain amount of time.

Connect Sámiland

I had a privilege to learn to know a beautiful Sámi girl Sara Victoria from Kautokeino. Her heart is to see the young Christian Sámi people to get encouraged and start to witness to their friends in culturally meaningful way. With her and another friend Máhtte we decided to get together another time during the autumn and invite also other young people to spend a weekend with us.

I also learned to know a Kiwi family who moved a year ago from other end of the world to live among the Sámi people in their cultural capital Kautokeino. Rex and Daryn with their four children told stories about life in the very north and invited me to come over to stay with them for some time. Once again I left the north weeping so probably they will see me soon...

As we ended up the time together by eating lunch with young people, Matt from Canada made an interesting remark, that in biblical times, all the covenants were completed by breaking bread together, not by shaking hands. I really like doing things in more personal and unofficial way, one of the things indigenous people can teach us again.

Justice in the land

On Thursday there was a historical moment in the conference. For the first time the conflict of Sámi land rights was addressed in a Christian conference. That was done by Marie Hagsgård, a Christian judge of court of Western Sweden taking care of the rights of the Sámi people.

The conflict arises when Swedish government wants proof that the Sámi people have lived in certain areas from "times immemorial". Now, in western cultures that is to be proved, for example, by a fence you have built to protect your area. But in Sámi culture it is a value not to leave a trace in the nature. Also, the understanding of land ownership is different: "Who do you think could really own the mountains and the sky?" But that doesn't mean that you wouldn't want to protect your right to use the land, though you wouldn't claim ownership over it.

To me, this somehow symbolises the different thinking we in different cultures have and the situation in which we western peoples have taken the right to apply our own laws into other people and say that they simply have no laws and order on their own. That's called the imperialistic spirit, and the more I travel, the more surprised I am to see that the destruction it has caused can be seen almost anywhere on earth.

Many speakers encouraged the indigenous peoples to lead by example by having a lifestyle repentance and forgiveness. "Do justice and love mercy." During the whole week the importance of reconciliation, forgiveness and communion as weapons of warfare were stressed. I really appreciated that in this gathering real, practical issues affecting the peoples like this one were bravely addressed. I think justice is inseparable part of Jesus' message and we can't separate spiritual and material justice without misunderstanding the gospel.

Result of that in Kiruna was that old hatred between people groups and even between some families were publicly confessed. Like it was said: " We won't fulfil our destiny through our history, but we will fulfil our history through our destiny".

Indigenous theology

On Tuesday was Terry LeBlanc’s time to share. He thinks that because spirituality is expressed differently through indigenous peoples than through western people there is need to work out framework through which to look the spirituality of indigenous peoples.

He says there are three things to consider concerning indigenous spirituality: 1) we can’t separate physical and spiritual reality, they are intertwined, 2) it’s not an individual story, but exploring the Lord together, 3) mystical element in spirituality is very central, it’s mystery, we live in it and we are it.

Terry LeBlanc, who’s native American himself, stressed that if we don’t create indigenous theology, indigenous people have to make an impossible choice. They have to choose between Christianity and their own cultural identity. Gavriel Gefen in his teaching added that if you ask a person to deny his culture when becoming a Christian, you’re asking him to deny his people and to give up the tools God has given him in his culture to testify to God and express His glory through all that is good in the culture. Thus the person becomes marginalized in his own community instead of becoming a messenger within his culture. This way he becomes more of a hindrance than a help in bringing the message of Jesus to his own people. Instead, he should be living out the message in ways the people can identify with.

I keep on wondering how similar the questions how to combine culture and faith are in indigenous theology and in postmodernism/emerging church movement. I think that’s because we in the postmodern culture long more than anything to see faith in Jesus to be lived out holistically. And that’s what the first peoples naturally live. To many of my indigenous friends, for example, worship is their natural walk, daily life WITH God in everything they do. But as we have come so far in western religion, worship has become to mean something we need to try and do. In both paradigms we’re trying to find ways to separate the proper spiritual principles and the traditional applications of those to be able to create new, culturally appropriate applications of those principles.