Tag Archives: Jesus

19th Century, cultural transference, Culture, government, History, Indian, Intercession, law, Minnesota, Native Americans, Treaties

Lower and Upper Sioux Agencies

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1853
“The government builds the Lower and Upper Sioux Agencies as it moves the Dakota onto the reservations created in the treaties of 1851.” *

Jesus, You are our agency. We must use human mechanisms to get back our share from the government that has taken from us. Have mercy!

Will You forgive the offense of the U.S. government, Minnesota Territory, their representatives and interests against the land of the Upper Sioux; the Pejuhutazizi Kapi? Will You forgive the offenses of these same representatives against any member of this Oyate whether Sisseton or Wahpeton? Will You, Fair Judge, create restoration and bring resolution to this conflict beginning in 1853?

Will You forgive the offense of the the U.S. government, Minnesota Territory, their representatives and interests against the land of the Lower Sioux: the Cansa’yapi (where they marked the trees red)? Will You forgive the offenses of these same representatives against any member of this Oyate whether Mdewakanton or Wahpekute? Will You, Fair Judge, create restoration and bring resolution to this conflict beginning in 1853?

You are the One who blessed and planted these indigenous nations here so long ago. We remember these offenses to the Dakota Oyate as offenses to You! Will You lift them up from the land, out of our hearts, and onto the cross of Christ? We cannot heal the sky above, or all that is below the original boundaries of the Dakota, but You can!
Will You bless our common future?
http://www.mnhs.org/about/dipity_timeline.htm
** More information on the Upper Sioux http://mn.gov/indianaffairs/tribes_uppersioux.html
*** More information on the Lower Sioux Agency http://mn.gov/indianaffairs/tribes_lowersioux.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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19th Century, 20th Century, 21st Century, Faith, History, Indian, Intercession, Minnesota, Native Americans, Treaties

Treaty of Mendota

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August 5, 1851
“In August the commissioners begin negotiations with the Lower Bands at Mendota. The Mdewakanton and Wahpekute are pressured into agreeing to terms similar to those forced on the Upper Bands, including $220,000 in upfront cash to the fur traders. Both treaties promise the Dakota new reservations along the Minnesota River “in perpetuity,” a pledge that will not be kept.” *
Lord, forgive the human desire to ‘work the system’ and pad our own nests! Will You forgive this heinous offense of the fur traders towards the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute within the Treaty of Mendota? Even greater, will You forgive this breech of justice committed against You through the deception of these two tribes?

Per contra, will You forgive the shame and anger of the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute towards: Lea, Sibley, Ramsey, Minnesota Territory, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Federal Government, and all unnamed parties participating in their deception? Sweet Jesus, it’s always so hard for the victims of injustice to let go of their righteous anger; will You give this gift to the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute Nations? Will You kindly and gently take this generational curse which has bound them to their historic offenders up, out, and onto the Cross of Christ? Will You restore what the enemy has taken from them, and bring Your Healing Presence to the peoples and lands involved? This land is Your property, may we view it as such both now and “in perpetuity”!

We, in the present, are angered by the deception of the Upper and Lower Dakota Bands at the hands of Luke Lea, and Alexander Ramsey through the trustful signing of the “Trader’ Papers”!!! The desire to disconnect ourselves from this event is powerful, yet Your Word gives us no escape when we offend You by accusing our neighbors. You do not yield the spirit of the law to comply with the letter of the law. You are both Grace and Truth! Help us remember this example spoken to self-righteous human accusers so many centuries ago?

“They said this to test Him, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. But Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with His finger. When they continued to question Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” Berean Study Bible, John 8:6-7 **

Will You give us the merciful eyes of Christ today, and into the eternal future of Minnesota? Help us see the humanity within victim and victimizer, the accuser and the accused, and to stand humbly with You against evil and for the good? May we become agents of humanity against the division and deception of the Evil One; the Author of All Grudges. Amen!

http://www.mnhs.org/about/dipity_timeline.htm
** https://biblehub.com/john/8-7.htm

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19th Century, Culture, education, History, Minnesota, University

University of Minnesota Founded

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1851
“Twenty students begin at the University of Minnesota. Beginning in a small building with only one teacher, the university won’t offer college-level instruction until 1869.” *

Great Teacher, thanks for the blessings we have today because of these small beginnings! What good things grow from small seeds? Will You lead my thoughts and prayer for the “U” today?
Here’s a basic summary of the founding of the school as given on it’s website:

“The University of Minnesota was founded as a preparatory school in 1851 seven years before the territory of Minnesota became a state. Financial problems forced the school to close during the Civil War, but with the help of Minneapolis entrepreneur John Sargent Pillsbury, it reopened in1867. Known as the father of the University, Pillsbury, who was a University regent, state senator, and governor, used his influence to establish the school as the official recipient of public support from the Morrill Land-Grant Act, designating it as Minnesota’s land-grant university.” **

Thank You for the opportunities this university created for students in its’ first decade! Thank You for the synergy of it’s re-opening: one part government, one part business, one part Pillsbury influence. How many students had a chance to learn because of the determination and will of J.S. Pillsbury? Today we thank You for these individuals, and the impact of the this school on their lives!

Truly, it would be difficult to summarize the impact of our University on our state, nation, and world over these past 150 years. Every discipline seems to exert a significant force and merit recognition in our nation. Students from the entire continent of North America gather here to learn. Our Mid-Western culture values and expects that most Minnesotans want a college degree.

Perhaps a limitation of education is that knowledge is not necessarily relational?
Counselor, will You have mercy on the roots of the false pride of knowledge that grew from this founding seed, both in teacher and pupil? Will You forgive us our judgments’ of our neighbor’s ignorance or our prejudices against formal education within the culture of Minnesota from this era forward? “…We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. but the man who loves G-d is known by G-d.” 1Corinthians 8:1-3

*http://www.mnhs.org/about/dipity_timeline.htm

** https://r.umn.edu/node/511

 

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History, Intercession, Jesus, Minnesota, Uncategorized

What is PTH? Why pray about the past?

I freely confess that the following outline is a work in progress. I simply want to share the framework and rationale of why praying through history is pertinent to me. Everyone who names the name of Jesus is called to be a minister of reconciliation, and this is just one man’s attempt to practice.

I. There are specific “moments of separation” in human history. Our perceptions lead to thoughts that overlook or take offense. I will call these “thought-judgments”.

For example, the Seljuk Turks attack and overcome the city of Jerusalem.

II. Action-based judgments at the moment of the offense.

  • Jews to Seljuks, Jews to all Turks, Jews of Jerusalem towards any outsider.
  • Seljuks to Jerusalem’s Jews, Seljuks to all Jews, Seljuk’s towards all enemies.

III. Future judgments are formed based on memory and perception; bitter root judgments are formed.

  • Transference on a cultural scale.
  • Perpetuation of a past offense.
  • Walking backward into our future.

IV. Parties are held responsible for their actions and judgments in the Lord’s justice.

  • Even righteous anger betrays the victim. Perhaps even more so if the victim is a city, culture, tribe, or nation. Under the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ, all have been forgiven all, and therefore must seek and practice to forgive all to remain true to His example. (This is not easy, but perhaps impossible apart from His mercy. The decision of the will may be simple, but the maintaining a heart of forgiveness is divine. )
  • This is not an endorsement of living without boundaries, especially personal boundaries. This is not an endorsement to submit to an abuser. Rather, it is a challenge of the rights of a human being to hold another prisoner by the maintenance of an offense.

V. We can representationally acknowledge historical sin before our Lord.

  • Through Christ we have access to his Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence. He is present to all history, the present, and future events. He is within time, and beyond our comprehension of time. He knows all and can guide us to pray representationally, (intercession) for events of history, the present, and the future. He truly has unlimited power to forgive, heal, restore any human condition!
  • His only limitation is self-imposed: He is a gentleman with boundaries. He believes in good and evil, justice and injustice, lightness and darkness, separateness and relationship. Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” We can trust in distinctions because he trusts in distinctions. Denial of sin within the context of our relationship with Him or others offends God because it denies our condition of separateness, or that we may have a need to address. Denial allows us to keep our pride, hold a grudge, or maintain anger. To use an old Baptist analogy, “The whole world stands under the Niagara Falls of the Lord’s love. Some have their cups turned up and are filled. Others, though under a deluge of love, can’t seem to keep a drop because their cups are turned upside down.”

VI. Through acknowledgement of historical sins, we set the process of restoration in motion. It is a first step in a process, but is important because it removes the legal grounds of the accusations of the Enemy.

  • We become aware of sin. Often by conscience, or reading or hearing of history.
  • We confess it to the Lord. This is a legal admission of guilt.
  • We pronounce the Lord’s forgiveness of confessed sin. (1 John 1: 8-10)
  • He will guide it through the full process of restoration.
    1. Confession leads to remorse.
    2. Remorse leads to repentance.
    3. Repentance leads to reconciliation.
    4. Reconciliation leads to restoration.
  • We cannot change past events, but replace a heritage cursed relationships with a ray of blessed ones; a change beginning at a fixed point in time, but continuing into eternity.

VII. Additional scriptural principles or mandates that outline our authority under Christ to pray through history.

1. Author Derek Prince sheds light on several key passages of scripture:

  • “It is never the will of God that the judgment due the wicked should come upon the righteous.” Genesis 18: 23,25 NIV
  • “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” v. 23 Abraham asks.
  • ”Far be it from you to do such a thing — to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” v. 25
  • On Christians’ dual citizenship: “By natural birth [the apostle Paul, like any Christian] is a citizen of an earthly nation, and he is subject to all the ordinances and requirements of his nation’s lawful government. But by spiritual rebirth through faith in Christ, he is also a citizen of God’s heavenly kingdom. This is the basis of Paul’s statement, … “We…are citizens of heaven.” Philippians 3:20 NEB
  • Another example, Jeremiah 1: 5,10 NIV – ”I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” v.5
  • ”See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” v.10
  • Jeremiah was subject as a citizen of Judah: he did not “preach or practice political subversion or anarchy. Nor did he ever seek to evade or resist decrees made by the government concerning him, even though these were at times arbitrary and unjust. Yet on the spiritual plane to which God elevated him through his prophetic ministry, Jeremiah exercised authority over the very rulers to whom he was in subjection on the natural plane.”
    – Derek Prince, Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting,     (Springdale, PA: Whittaker House,1973)  [Bolded emphasis mine.]

2. Theologian Timothy Tennent speaks to Christians’ God-given ability to express forgiveness from God.

  • Mark 2:1-12 NIV v 5. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “ Son, your sins are forgiven.” v 10.
  • “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”He said to the paralytic, v11.
  • “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” “It is interesting to note that in John 20:22-23, Jesus breathes upon his disciples to receive the Holy Spirit, and then pronounces, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”  Jesus is giving the church the authority to announce His forgiveness in the lives of those who come to Him in faith.
  • We do not have the innate ability to forgive anyone’s sins against God, or to withhold God’s forgiveness of sins from anybody.  But Jesus has given the Church the authority to act as His regents or representatives in the world, and to speak on His behalf.  We can declare that “God forgives you” with all the authority of Jesus, because we are not declaring our forgiveness, but rather His forgiveness in Christ.  We are merely pronouncing the forgiveness made possible by the sacrifice of Christ.”-Timothy Tennent, President, Asbury Theological Seminary http://blogs.asburyseminary.edu/global-talk/the-temple-is-here-mark-21-12/ [Bolded emphasis mine]

3.  His Holiness John Paul II, First Sunday of Lent “Day of Pardon” Presentation Vatican Basilica, 12 March 2000:

  • The meaning of the celebration of Lent: “…Christians are invited to acknowledge, before God and before those offended by their actions, the faults which they have committed. Let them do so without seeking anything in return, but strengthened only by the ‘love of God which has been poured finto our hearts’ (Rom 5:5)” (Incarnationis Mysterium, 11; cf. Terno Millennio Adveniente, 33).
  • …The Lord has been living and present in his Church, and through the Saints he has demonstrated that he continues to be at work in human history, in the midst of his community. Certainly, Christians, as pilgrims and wayfarers towards the Kingdom, remain sinners, frail, weak and subject to the temptations of Satan, the Prince of this world, despite their incorporation into the Body of Christ. In every generation the holiness of the Church has shone forth, witnessed by countless numbers of her sons and daughters; yet this holiness has been contradicted by the continuing presence of sin which burdens the journey of God’s People. The Church can sing both the Magnificat for what God has accomplished within her and the Miserere for the sins of Christians, for which she stands in need of purification, penance and renewal (cf. Lumen Gentium, 8).
  • “The Church cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without encouraging her children to purify themselves through repentance of past errors and instances of infidelity, inconsistency and slowness to act” (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 33). Consequently, a liturgy seeking pardon from God for the sins committed by Christians down the centuries is not only legitimate; it is also the most fitting means of expressing repentance and gaining purification.  Pope John Paul II, in a primatial act, confesses the sins of Christians over the centuries down to our own time, conscious that the Church is a unique subject in history, “a single mystical person”. The Church is a communion of saints, but a solidarity in sin also exists among all the members of the People of God: the bearers of the Petrine ministry, Bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful.– Source: http://www.catholiclinks.org/sacramentoperdondiadelperdon.htm  [Bolded emphasis mine.]

In Closing

Not all, but many, stories of the past are characterized by an antagonist/ protagonist relationship. I want to get beyond that broken record! I want to remember that I am just like them both; a human being with a heart filled with mixed motives! Perhaps one day we will learn to let the other guy off the hook, and create a just and merciful analytical model for history that will foster future generations in their struggles to ‘love their enemies, and do good to those who persecute them.’ May we, by the authority of the King of the Universe, practice to: heal the past, free the present, and bless the future. Amen!

James D. Orvis

 

 

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