The Land Is Not Empty by Sarah Augustine

Author:Sarah Augustine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MennoMedia
Published: 2021-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

A yoik is not merely a description; it attempts to capture its subject in its entirety: it’s like a holographic, multi-dimensional living image, a replica, not just a flat photograph or simple visual memory. It is not about something, it is that something. It does not begin and it does not end. A yoik does not need to have words—its narrative is in its power, it can tell a life story in song. The singer can tell the story through words, melody, rhythm, expressions or gestures.9

Tore told us that a yoik traditionally honors a person, or an element of nature.

Tore explained that historically, the yoik was banned by the church, and was even made illegal in Norway. I am sure that this amazing creative power, this spirit song, could not go out of existence, because it is obvious to me that it is a gift given by the Creator to the Sami people. If not one yoik rang out for five hundred years, a child in the future would find the notes, the tone, would sing out a yoik without knowing its name. This is what I said to Tore that day in 2012. I felt I could sense the history of Tore’s people, the way I experienced the history of my own people in the water in New Mexico.

Indigenous spirituality has been dismissed for centuries as idolatry. As a result, international mission initiatives have focused on either partnering with Christians or seeking the conversion of non-Christian populations. Wati Longchar told me, “Missionaries are the vanguard of extraction—they bring in schools and hospitals to land with resource deposits, [and] then drive out the Indigenous Peoples.”

Is this Jesus’ call to the church? To struggle in solidarity only with Christians or, worse, to fellowship with people internationally when our only intention is to convert/colonize? Mennonite scholar Walter Sawatsky makes this claim when he argues that God’s mission is to “save” the three billion non-Christians in the world.10 I advocate for a larger vision of mission, one which includes restoration for the whole of creation.

Those of us who live in the West by the accident of our birth have the opportunity to make amends, not symbolically but actually. As Westerners, we can acknowledge that we are on the hook to live justly. As the beneficiaries of injustice, we must resolve to dismantle the systems that perpetuate it. These systems include the whole economic development apparatus that results in decades of debt for developing nations, and in displacement, disability, and death for the peoples of indebted nations, especially for vulnerable communities. My people are suffering at the hands of the mighty who remove us from our homes and lifeways, separate our families, militarize our communities and steal our traditional lands, extract fossil fuels, minerals, timber, and other wealth, leaving behind environmental destruction that pollutes our bodies and those of our descendants for dozens of generations. If Christendom’s vision of God’s mission for the world is to convert three billion non-Christians to Christianity, as Sawatsky claims, then the Christian church is just as apostate as he denies that it is.

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