I am going to begin with a trigger warning. Today I am going to start out talking about residential schools, colonial policies and the experiences of Indigenous children. I will be moving into the scripture and how this all relates to our everyday living, but some listening today may find this material distressing. If you need support, help is available.[1]

The Presbyterian Church in Canada, and many other churches across our country, mark today as Truth and Reconciliation Sunday. It always come the Sunday before National Day for Truth and Reconciliation which “was established in response to Call to Action 80 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which called on the federal government, in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, to create a statutory holiday recognizing Survivors, their families, and communities while ensuring the history and legacy of residential schools are publicly remembered.”[2]

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is jointly associated with Orange Shirt Day.

Now you may be aware of the story behind this, but it is worth repeating, Orange Shirt Day – Every Child Matters, began in Williams Lake, British Columbia, on September 30, 2013. Established to honour Residential School Survivors, their families, and those who never returned home, it serves as a powerful reminder of the lasting impacts of the Residential School system. What began as a grassroots initiative has since evolved into a nationally recognized movement, with individuals, organizations, and communities across Canada participating in acts of remembrance, reflection, and reconciliation each year.

The orange shirt symbolizes the loss of culture, freedom, and self-esteem that many Indigenous children experienced. This day reminds us that “Every Child Matters”."[3]

As was noted in the opening of the service, The Presbyterian Church operated “within federal policies that sought to assimilate Indigenous children through government-funded, church-run institutions. These policies separated children from their families, languages and cultural identities and caused profound and lasting harm.”[4]

We can see the resulting intergenerational trauma in our community. Here at St. Andrew’s in Thunder Bay, we are faced with the impacts of residential schools and the intergenerational trauma each and every day as those who leave their own communities for various reasons find themselves trying to make their way in Thunder Bay. There are always those who end up sitting on the church steps, finding these steps a place of safety and refuge.

In many ways we too are impacted by the work done by our own denomination as it ran the schools. I simply cannot imagine what it would have been like as a child to be taken and not understand why I couldn’t see my parents, or why my hair had to be cut, and I couldn’t speak the only words I had ever been taught to speak. All that gibberish that these grown up were speaking to me. How does one figure it out? So, you comply. What else is there to do when not complying means being punished.

And as a parent, basically being told that you cannot see your child, that somehow these white people knew better how to take care of your children. Little did those parents know that their children were being taken with the intent to take the Indian out of the child.

There is so much more that could be said about the chapter in our country’s history. I encourage you to learn, check out the webpages of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, as well as the Government of Canada. And I get that not everyone is interested in reading that stuff, so on September 30, get out and attend one event. Or turn on your device or tv and watch programming that can teach you more.
Now you may be wondering how does this fit in with the scripture reading for today. As the Word of God is a living word, it continues to speak into the contexts of today and the Book of James has a lot to say about how we live. In fact, it has often been a book that has been criticized for being too much about doing and not enough about grace, but that sells James short.
James is about doing, but it is in response to what God has first given us… love. God first loved us. God also gave us the gift of faith. Faith that God can transform us and the world through the power of the Holy Spirit and the saving grace found in Jesus. But just as Jesus spent most of his time around the most vulnerable wherever he traveled, so are we called on to be present to and for those whose lives are challenging, those who are downcast. James goes so far as to say, “Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.”[5]

This certainly seems to fly in the face of so much rhetoric we hear from a number of world leaders today. And in a time when we are in the throws of election campaigning for municipal governments, it would behove us to pay attention to what candidates are saying about how they view and how they would handle the challenges facing our communities around encampments, unhoused, mental health, and access to supports.
Yes, infrastructure, fiscal responsibility, and community building are also very important topics, however be sure to listen to what candidates are saying about the people in our communities. All the people. James’ instruction is to be heeded, “Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger.”[6]

James is not saying to never speak or to never be angry. But take the time to lead with your ears. Always listen first. Don’t half listen, waiting for the other to finish talking so that you can speak your mind, but listen with the intent to learn about others, to hear of their struggle, their lived experience, their hopes, fears, and concerns, even their ideas. Speak in order to ask questions that lead to more understanding and wisdom.

And you will note that James doesn’t say, don’t get angry, but rather let anger straggle along in the rear. There is a place for anger, but it is anger that comes from a place of justice for those who do not have a voice or power.

To make sure that we act from a place that is caring and loving in our listening, speaking, and even our anger, James says, we are to throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. And in simple humility, let our gardener God, landscape us with the Word, making a salvation-garden of our lives.

Take a moment and put that into a frame that you can get your mind around. Throw out all spoiled virtue. Think about the garbage that is in your kitchen garbage at this moment. All the stuff that is excess packaging, rotten, spoiled and dirty. That is what he is saying to throw out of your heart and mind.

James also says to throw out cancerous evil. With so many people fighting cancer and standing with family and friends fighting cancer, you know how insidious the disease can be. James is warning against having that kind of evil in our lives. It is to go into the garbage as well. It is not helpful, productive, or life-giving.

Now go to the second part of that thought, and in your imagination bring yourself into your garden if you have or have had one. Think about the beauty and bounty. Now expand that to the landscaping of your garden and yard, and from there think of the vistas that you have experienced in God’s good earth that have been landscaped by God…the mountains, rivers, lakes, ocean, and forest. James says, let our gardener landscape us with the Word, making a salvation-garden of our lives. Amazing.

Much of this personal landscaping happens as we let go of the garbage and tend to the beauty. It happens as we read the scriptures, learn, and lean into their meaning for our lives. It is landscaping that happens in the gardens of our lives where in simple humility we acknowledge that all we have is a gift from God. All we experience in our healing journeys, in our ability to love ourselves and others, comes from God’s gift of love overflowing into our lives.

And this landscaping happens as we act on what we hear! Remember that leading with our ears? We listen for God speaking to us through the scriptures, and we listen for God in the words of others, those we agree with and those we don’t understand or agree with. But listening and words are followed up with action. Action that flows from compassion, care, and love.

It is easy to become desensitized to the plight of others here in our community and country, as well as those in places like Ukraine, Palestine, Gaza, Afghanistan, The Congo, and the list could go on. As Christians we don’t get to ignore what is going on because, real religion, the kind that passes muster before God is this, to reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

Easy? Not on your life. Necessary? Remember the line in the Lord’s prayer that says, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? Well, our response to God’s landscaping of love and compassion in our own lives is to do our utmost to be sure that God’s love and compassion flow from us out into the world. We may well be the only way that others experience the love, grace, compassion, and justice of God. Not because God is not at work in the world already, but because God chooses to work through imperfect human beings. And we respond to that with simple humility. God trusts us to love because we are loved.
God’s amazing and transforming love as found in the simple humility of the followers of Christ who know what it means to be loved by God. This is real religion. This is God at work. Thanks be to God.

[1] National Indian Residential School Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419 (24/7)
Hope for Wellness Help Line: 1-855-242-3310 or www.hopeforwellness.ca
[2] National Day for Truth and Reconciliation - Canada.ca. Accessed September 26, 2026.
[3]Ibid.
[4] History of residential schools - Anglican Church of Canada. Accessed September 26, 2026.
[5] The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
[6]Ibid.