Sept. 28, 2025: Fight the Good Fight of Faith

Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 32:1-3a 6-15
The Epistle Reading: 1 Timothy 6:6-19      

Native Americans have an interdependent tradition reflected in the metaphor of a “Common Pot”. It has a long history and was documented by outsiders during colonial times. In her book The Common Pot, Abenaki Tribe Member and Assistant Professor of History and Literature at Harvard University, Lisa Brooks describes it this way, “The Common Pot is that which feeds and nourishes. It is the wigwam that feeds the family, the village that feeds the community, the networks that sustain the village. Women are the creators of these vessels; all people come from them, and with their hands and minds, they transform the bodies of their animal and plant relations into nourishment for their families. The pot is made from the flesh of birch trees or the clay of the earth. It can carry or hold; it can be created or reconstructed; it can withstand fire and water, and, in fact, uses these elements to transform that which it contains.”

The Common Pot was not just a metaphor but an act of sharing community resources for Indigenous peoples. If a visitor came to the village, whatever food they had was shared. Brooks says this was not just altruism but a necessity to human survival to work together to share common resources. Doing so would ensure social stability and physical health. Working together, all people were better off. Mutual dependence meant mutual benefit. This was a part of Native American culture that the indigenous people here extended to the early colonists as they shared what they had with them. Sadly, as we heard in the Living Psalm today and in history, that mutual sharing was not always appreciated and what some native tribes had was taken from them, they were exiled and in the 20th Century native children were taken from their parents in the U.S. and Canada and sent to boarding schools to be re-educated to “take the Indian out of them.”

We Christians played a part in this at times, and that is what the General Synod was acknowledging in 2020 when they repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery and what it did to Native Peoples. It is only in acknowledging our wrongs and seeking forgiveness that we can move forward. We cannot say “well, I wasn’t alive then so it was not my fault.” We need to understand that even now we may have benefited through inheritance in land taken from others and only in owning the role the church and possibly our ancestors played in this, can we learn from it, undo some of the damage, and work to make sure it does not happen again. 

We can learn a lot from the Native Americans about sharing the Common Pot. Missionary John Sergeant was at a Mohican gathering in the 18th Century and he observed that before a deer was shared with all gathered, including the colonial visitors, the Native American elder prayed ‘O great God pity us, grant us Food to eat, afford us good and comfortable sleep, preserve us from being devoured by the Fowls that fly in the air. This deer is given that we acknowledge thee the Giver of all Things.”  Some early settlers labeled the Native Americans as heathen when they were anything but. As the missionary found out, their spiritual and community beliefs were strong - just different from the colonists’. After the meal was cooked, it was shared with all present but the host did not partake as a symbol that it was a gift and therefore free and that he did not desire any of it back. 

Our Jeremiah scripture today is about sharing as well - helping a family member in financial trouble by buying his land but keeping it in the family - the common pot. But the scripture is also about the hope that after land was lost, there could be hope again, “For thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” (Jeremiah 32:15). 

There is always hope when we remember that humanity shares a Common Pot. The earth is the creator’s and everything in it and God gave us enough on this planet for everyone: the key is we have to work together, sharing the work and the soup in the common pot which the Timothy scripture reminds us of as well. 

We are told that as people of God we should shun the love of money and instead “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.” By doing this we are fighting the good fight of faith to which we have been called by God.

Part of fighting the good fight is confessing our mistakes like the history of enslavement of people in this country and the genocide of Native Americans. And instead of just saying that is over, we work to repair relations with all God’s people in all their shapes, sizes, colors, abilities, ethnicities, nationalities, sexual orientations, genders and gender identities. We all share this common earth, we should all share in the Common Pot.

And if we have more, the Timothy scripture reminds us not to be haughty but to “do good, be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”

Fighting the good fight of faith is an act of sharing and caring, of leading with love. It is putting more in the common pot when you have it and being grateful for the gift when you don’t. It is about acknowledging the creator in all of creation - human, animal and plant.

On this American Indian Ministry Sunday, I finish with a version of the Native American Thanksgiving Address that is often used to open Tribal Confederacy Meetings:

Thanks to the earth where men dwell, to the streams of water, the pools, the springs and the lakes, to the maize and the fruits, to the medicinal herbs and the trees, to the forest trees for their usefulness, to the animals that serve as food and give their pelts as clothing, to the great winds and the lesser winds, to the Thunderers, to the Sun, the mighty warrior, to the moon, to the messengers of the Creator who reveal his wishes and to the Great Creator who dwells in the Heavens above, who gives all the things useful to men, and who is the source and the ruler of health and life. (Common Pot, 4)

I wonder how different our world might be if our leaders began their meeting with a prayer of gratitude such as this. Might they be better about contributing to the Common Pot? Even if they are not ready for this, we can be, let’s be an example of contributing to the common pot as we fight the good fight of faith. Amen.

Pastor Michelle Fountain

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