Ep. 83 / Broken Walls: An Indigenous Testimony with Jonathan Maracle

A Mohawk musician is invited to sing “Amazing Grace” at a major gathering of faith leaders in 1995, and he says no, only because a brand-new song floods his heart and mind and changes the trajectory of his life. That song was “Broken Walls,” and that musician is, Jonathan Maracle, our guest. In this episode we follow the full arc of Jonathan's story, from growing up in Akwesasne as a kid who “didn’t fit,” to carrying the generational weight of residential school trauma, to walking away from church and chasing the rock and roll dream in California, to now thirty years of faithful contextual ministry amongst Indigenous people. 

Jonathan doesn’t tell a polished story of faith, he talks about addiction, broken relationships, cultural shame, thoughts of suicide, self-hatred, and a phone call from his father that changed everything. From there Jonathan talks about his return to Christianity, but the pain of being told that his Mohawk heritage, language and drum are “not of God.” He explains how that message lands among First Nations, how it hinders a proper Indigenous-Christian identity, and how the Holy Spirit is raising up a new generation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous followers of Jesus alike!

We also explore practical steps toward truth and reconciliation, including the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, and why education matters if churches want to walk in right-relationship with their Indigenous brothers and sisters. If you'd like to learn more about Jonathan Maracle and his ministry through Broken Walls you can go to their website, follow him on social media, and listen to their music on all streaming platforms. 

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Transcript

A Song Born In Ten Minutes

Brian Stiller 0:10

Hello and welcome to Evangelical360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. There's a moment in 1995 that changed Canadian Christian music, though most people don't know what happened. And at Sacred Assembly in Ottawa, a Mohawk musician was asked to sing Amazing Grace. He said no. None of the finest, but because at that moment, standing at the edge of the platform with drum in hand, a song flooded his mind that had never existed before. He went up anyway, and instead of singing Amazing Grace, he sang Broken Walls, a song born in ten minutes, from a word spoken just moments earlier about the bitterness colonialism has built into the hearts of Indigenous people around the world. That was the beginning of a ministry and a band that has now carried the gospel and the musical language of the land to hundreds of communities across North America and beyond. Jonathan Maracle is Mohawk from Tyendinaga, Mohawk Territory in Ontario. His father, Andrew Maracle, was a missionary for 55 years in native communities across this continent. Jonathan's own journey took a very different road. First, Hollywood, rock and roll, drugs, alcohol, a voice nearly destroyed, and a moment in 1985 when with his back against the wall, he remembered what his father had told him. Well, he did. And what emerged from that turning was not a musician who left his culture behind to follow Christ, but one who brought his culture with him and discovered that the drum, the flute, and the songs of his people could become vessels of worship and healing. Jonathan leads Broken Walls, eight albums, hundreds of concerts, and his vision is as simple as it is profound. It says that Indigenous people can follow Jesus without ceasing to be who they were created to be. So thank you for joining with us in this inspiring conversation. And would you please consider sharing this episode with a friend? If you haven't done so already, just hit the subscribe button, and you can also join the conversation on YouTube in the comments below. Now to my guest, Jonathan Maracle. Jonathan Maracle, so wonderful to have you here on Evangelical 360.

Jonathan Maracle 2:56

Good to be here. Good to be wanted.

Brian Stiller 3:01

Well, you you represent uh such an important community to us today. Uh out of your Mohawk tradition, you've been here longer before my Swedish family has been here. And there's an awful lot to talk about and understand questions that I have. But you have such a remarkable story. Uh as a songwriter,

Growing Up Between Two Worlds

Brian Stiller 3:30

as a musician, as a spokesman. Let's let's start at the beginning of your life, where you were born. Your father was a missionary, and from that I think you kind of kicked the traces and went elsewhere. But I want to hear from you.

Jonathan Maracle 3:48

Yeah, so I guess where I realized I was existing was in Akwesasne, which is uh uh in uh New York, upstate New York, uh near Messina, New York. And uh my father was pastoring a church there called uh I think it was called the St. Regis Assembly of God. And um I can remember as a boy growing up, going to going to church, going to school, all the issues that I dealt with as a young man whose white skin and blue eyes didn't set very well with the dark-skinned Mohawks of Akwesasne. Life was pretty tough.

Brian Stiller 4:32

Did you have to prove your bona fides?

Jonathan Maracle 4:34

I did. What did you have to do? Fight black eyes, fat lips, bloody noses, you know. They just didn't believe that you were Indigenous. No, they they knew I wanted to be or was trying to be, or I just didn't fit. I just didn't fit. I was an Indian kid with white skin. Were both your parents Indigenous? No, my mom was uh English, Scottish, and Welsh. Okay, that's my father was Mohawk, spoke the language fluently, um, and had a heart to reach his people with the love of Jesus. But he never really

Residential School And A Broken Stick

Jonathan Maracle 5:10

wanted to take away native people's nativeness. He loved the language. He was hurt so bad that he was taken away to residential school. And in residential school, well, the story goes, the story that he told me was one day he was at school and the teacher forbade them to talk mohawk. The students were never allowed to talk mohawk. And uh the teacher said, I want to have a new pointing stick. Is there somebody who could make me a new pointing stick in the class? And apparently my dad needed some points because he was the first one with his hand up. I'll make you a new pointing stick. So he went home that night and employed the services of his father Joseph. And they went out in the woods and they found a good stick and carved it all up and made it ready. And he took it to school the next day and so proudly walked up to the teacher and handed her the new pointing stick. And um, she said, Thank you very much, Andrew. And he said, Now I goa. Not thinking. That was a normal response in a Mohawk home. And then she broke the stick over his head. And that was his beginning. You know, he had already been in trouble and stuff because he was a real Mohawk. You know, that was the beginning of him and his life of struggling for survival. He ran away, he lived in the woods as a little vagabond in the woods, and one day he was lighting a fire to cook a rabbit that he had caught and caught the woods on fire. And that's how he was exposed, and they got him. And he ended up living with a clan mother, and the clan mother raised him and brought him up under the Mohawk way, which was a good thing. He said that was the most important person in his life in his younger years, um, was learning from clan mother uh um Kate Silver. I think he called her grandma silver. Anyway, she raised him accordingly to the to the great law of peace and the Ma culture. And um yeah, so that's where I grew up, was in Akwesasne. I lived there for about 13 years, and um, you know, it was a great struggle because I just didn't seem to fit. Not only was I non not native looking, but I was also a pastor's kid or a preacher's kid, and so that didn't lend to having great relationships, and so I one day I was out with guys that I thought were my friends, and they started calling me, you know, white boy and stuff like that, and then they started throwing rocks at me. They were just young, you know, kids, and one of them hit me in the back of the head with a brick, and I almost bled out. They got me to the hospital, sewed me up, uh, you know, and it made me hate who I was. It made me hate my white skin, it made me hate my blue eyes. And uh that was a very difficult thing in life when you're a little guy and you're growing up and you don't like who you are, and then then you know, crazy things happened, like I get a little bit bigger, you know, and of course you have to try and be tough. I had four older brothers, so the older brothers were always pushing me to be tough so that I could stand up for myself. And I can remember one day this one kid wanted to have a fight, and so a big fight was organized in the neighborhood, and all the kids, a whole ring of kids were all there to watch us fight, and I didn't even know why I was fighting, you know, other than I didn't like who I was, and they didn't like me neither. And uh I got a fat lip and a black eye out of that one, and uh I lost my, you know, the kid beat me up pretty good, and I lost my self-worth again. The scriptures talks about us, you know, love your neighbor as yourself. How can a person live according to that scripture if they don't love their self? And Jesus is in their heart, they don't have a very good picture of that, you know, and so I think that that's part of the part of the thing that that I dealt with as a young boy. So growing up, you know, my father was a great minister, and I, you know, loved my parents and stuff, but when I turned 16, I basically wanted out,

Leaving Home For Rock And Roll

Jonathan Maracle 10:05

I had enough Christianity, didn't do it for me. At that point, I wasn't willing. I was a young, rebellious teenager. I got away from home and started on my path, you know, living my life. I think that uh some of the tough parts of it was that I got into alcohol, got into drugs, but then rock and roll was the thing that caught my heart the most. You know, I wanted to be a rock and roll star. And so I thought after that, and um some years later I had been married and divorced and and tried. And some years later, I thought I'm gonna go to California to seek my fortune. And uh my father, of course, I was the heartbreak of his of the family for him, you know. And I can remember I was I had made up my mind I was leaving to go to California, and as I was preparing, my dad called me and said, I'll give you a ride to the bus terminal, because I was gonna ride by bus. So five days and four nights to California. And uh dad said, I'll give you a ride to the bus terminal. He wanted to be the last one to see me before I left. He came and picked me up that morning as I was ready to go. I had my guitar and my backpack with me and about $300. And uh I was determined to go and make my life as a singer. So he drove me to the drove me to the bus terminal and he didn't say anything to me all the way. He just drove, and I'm sure he was speaking to God and asking God, what am I gonna tell my son? Me, I was sitting there all arrogant and just ready to go, right? So I went into the went into the bus terminal and got my ticket, which made so I didn't have a whole lot of money left. And dad wasn't willing to give me money because he didn't want to support what I was going to do. So this is your your journey, you'd go into it, but he didn't say that to me. He just didn't didn't support it other than driving me to the bus terminal. So I came out and I put my luggage underneath uh the bus and uh he was climbing onto the bus because he hadn't spoken much to me. And as I was climbing onto the bus, he said, son, and I turned around and I looked at him and said, When your back's against the wall and you have nowhere to turn, call out on Jesus. I can remember looking down at him from up on the bus thing, and I said, I don't need Jesus. And I just walked to the back of the bus and sat down and drove away. So I arrived in California and the band that I was joining, because I had made contact with the band down there, were hiding around the corner when I got off the bus. They were there to pick me up if they liked me, what I looked like, right? Now I was a rocker and I had been singing a lot, and so I looked like a rocker, long hair, you know, the whole nine yards. And so I guess I passed their inspection because they came out and and picked me up because they weren't gonna get me. If they weren't happy with what I looked like, they were gonna leave me there. Right. And so they came and got me, and two weeks later, after rehearsing every day with this band, uh, we got into a battle of the bands for Northern California, and we won first place. We got our first record produced, so it went on from there. So I was there for two and a half years. I had romantic relationships, I hung out with crazy people who did a lot of drugs, and I wasn't much of a drinker or drug abuser, but I did do it, and there are times when I got caught up in it so much that it was really could harm me. And uh can remember, well, most of the people that I cavorted with then are all passed on. Most of them drank themselves into oblivion or did drugs or whatever. And I can remember um I was dating a girl at the time, and I thought that you know it was a good relationship, but I was just I was a rocker and I didn't care about the importance of the relationship as much as I should have. So I abused it, and then I got an offer to move to Los Angeles to join a big band. And so I just picked up my stuff and said, I'm leaving, and didn't realize that I had had a real attachment to her, a soul tie to her, and I left, and you know, she was brokenhearted, and I didn't realize until I got there that the rock and roll didn't fill that gap neither. And so um I played in band, I played in this band in LA and and uh continued to struggle to make it as a rock musician, and everything kept going down. You know, I had left everything, I left my home, left my family, left the girl that I thought I loved, moved to LA for rock and roll, and then the band for me was disappointing. And so I uh I started to go downhill, I started to drink and started to do things that I shouldn't have done even more. And I can remember sitting in my apartment in North Hollywood, and and I was thinking, you know, there's no point

The Suicide Song And Dad’s Call

Jonathan Maracle 15:45

in living anymore. I felt like my back was against the wall, like my dad had said, and I had nowhere to turn. And I can remember sitting there and I think I said, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna write a song. I'm gonna write a song about taking my life, about being done, you know. So I wanted to tell my story and end it with the fact that I was going to commit suicide. And um I started writing it and I was singing it and playing it back to myself with the guitar, and it made me cry. It made me sit there and cry because I was realizing I was singing my song. I can remember crumpling up the paper and throwing it in the garbage, and I can remember I started to cry, and I remembered those words my dad said, and I just said, Jesus, help me. The phone rang. It was my dad. And I hadn't talked to him in two and a half years. And so I have to admit that that probably wasn't a coincidence. You know, I just said, Jesus help me. And there it was. Dad called and he said, I'm coming to get you. I'm coming to California to see you. That's what he was going to do. He's gonna come and see me. And I said, change the ticket, let me fly to where you and mom are, and I'll spend time with you and mom. I can be with some people who love me. I flew over to flew over to Winter Garden, Florida. That's where they were, snowbirds living in Florida uh for the winter. So I flew over there and needless to say, my mom wanted me to give my heart to Jesus right on the spot. And that was the last thing I was really wanting. And so I was still an arrogant, still had the arrogance of being a rocker and stuff. And but I did love my mom a lot, and so she for the week cooked me all the food that she knew I liked as a son. All the stuff that was my favorite stuff. She cooked it every day for me different things: turkey and macaroni and cheese, and all the stuff that you can win your kid with, right? And so she's cooking it for me and she's winning my attention. And I wouldn't go out to church with her. She wanted, they go out, they went out to church all the time. And of course, they were retired, and so they went out to church all the time. And on the last day, I was heading back to California the next day on the Monday. And on the last day, mom stuck her head into my bedroom and and said, son, we're going to church this morning. And she said, Really love it if you could come. And I realized how much she had poured out to me all week, you know, softening me up, right? And I said, Okay, you've been really good to me this week. I'm gonna come and join you. So I got dressed up and dressed in my regular clothes and got in the car and they drove to their little church in Winter Garden, Florida, and sat out in the parking lot. Mom and dad just got out and went right into the church. They left me sitting there. They didn't try to coerce me or anything, they let me deal with my devils, I guess, my demons. And so I was sitting in the back seat, and and I had like, it was like, you know, the devil on one hand, Jesus on the other shoulder. And I'm sitting there having this conversation with you don't want to go in there. You don't want to go in there. And then on the other end, this is exactly what you need. You need to go in there and you need to, you know, meet Jesus. You know, so I had this going on. You know, I grew up in that world with my dad, but I was out of that world. Now the world was trying to keep me there. And anyway, I did finally, after about 20 minutes, I got up and walked in. And there was a little old lady in there. She came up to me and she said, She just looked at me when I stepped in the door. Everybody was already in the service, had already been going. She was the only one out there, and she just came up and she said, I love you. And I said, Why do you love me? And she goes, Because Jesus told me to. She had a strong southern accent. And it, you know, Brian, I gotta tell you, it was the most amazing experience. It was like Romans 10, 9, and 10, without reading Romans 10, 9, and 10. It was like that love hit me, and his presence came on me. And the way I describe it as somebody pouring a warm bucket of oil over my head, and it just went down, drove the anger, the depression, the brokenness, the uh addictions. And I just stood there and I started to shake and I started to cry. And then I went into the service and I sat in the backseat. I gotta admit, I don't know what the pastor looked like, and I didn't really hear a word he said. I just sat there dealing with this cleansing that I just had, but didn't really know what it was, didn't really understand it. Um, so I left there and the next day I was scheduled to go back to California, and that experience was still on me. But I went back to California and I desperately tried to get back into my singing with my bands. I got two bands going and I was trying for about another three weeks. And then uh I made up my mind. I called my dad and I said, if you'll pay for me to go home, I'll say, I'll go home and I'll give my heart to Jesus. And uh my dad immediately bought a ticket for me. I can't remember him having an argument. He told me he had an argument with God when he was making that flight to come and see me when he called me when I was in that moment. I asked him, Why were you gonna come and see me? And he said he said, as I was praying about it, he said, I felt God inspired me to go. He said, but you know. I didn't really have the money and couldn't afford it. And he said very simply, God said, Well, what's more important? Your son or your money? And he said, My son. So that was when he called me that moment. And uh, and the other thing that led to that moment, I asked, and this was years later, I hadn't thought to ask. I said, What caused you to do that? He said, Well, he said, I was talking to your mom. He said, and I told her I was gonna go and see you. And she said, You better call him first. And he goes, No, I'm not gonna call him, I'm gonna surprise him. So that day, apparently, my brother called from Canada, non-Christian, called and was talking with dad, and said, Dad, um, you can't go see him without calling him. You have to call him. And dad said, he was smart enough to know the miles with two or three witnesses, he should probably listen because it was probably the Holy Spirit. That was when he called. That was another thing that led to that call that he made to me. And uh, so I know that God had a plan. And

When Church Demands You Erase Yourself

Jonathan Maracle 23:15

so I went home. I moved back to Canada and I started going to church. And I went to two or three different churches and didn't fit because of who I was. You know, a native who wasn't really a native, a rock star who wasn't really a rock star, but somebody who needed hope and help. And the church laid all kinds of demands on me. The one church I went to said, you can't have anything to do in our music in our church, and you can't have anything to do with the youth because of what you've come out of, and we don't want you influencing them. And I was like stunned because I was I had already won a whole bunch of people of Jesus because I was so excited and so inspired. And um, so I left that church because I wasn't happy with the things they were saying to me. And I went and found this church and um saw the pastor, and it was interesting because he was ministering a sermon, and as he was talking, he was talking about Jesus. And every time he just said the name of Jesus, his eyes would fill up with tears. So I don't know what his experience was, but he was so in love with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit bore witness with me and said, that's the way you need to be. You need to love Jesus so much that you're just you're so passionate with that. So I made that decision that that was going to be the place I go and started going. And the pastor wanted me to step into worship in the church and become one of the worship leaders. And and uh about eight weeks into going to church there, he said, let's go for a drive. And so we went for a drive, and and uh he said, You know, because you have to give up your Mohawk heritage, your culture, because it's not of God, it's heathen, and you need to leave that behind in order to really seek the culture of Jesus Christ. And um, and I was just stunned, you know. I like now going back and looking at it, I can ask the questions around it. But at the time, I was just stunned that I wasn't worthy without giving having a cultural exchange in my life. So I did. I turned my back. I grew up as a mohawk as a boy, playing the drums, singing our songs, doing the things that were culturally a Mohawk person. Under a dad who said to me, son, when I gave my heart to Jesus, I didn't give up being a Mohawk, I became a better Mohawk. You know, in light of that, I listened to this pastor and I began to seek God in the Western way, the Western theology way of the church. And it meant that somehow I couldn't be who God created me to be. And of course, you know, we know that God created us all in his image. And he gave us, you know, a beautiful part of his spirit that we can seek after him. And so, anyway, uh 10 years goes by, I'm a worship leader, you know, denying my native heritage, you know, and denying that a part to play in my Christianity. So obviously, not winning anybody to Jesus unless I could convince them that they had to leave behind their native heritage. Until I got a call from Elijah Harper's office, and his people at his office said, we would like you to come and sing

Asked To Drum Amazing Grace

Jonathan Maracle 27:00

Amazing Grace in Mohawk using a drum at the Sacred Assembly.

Brian Stiller 27:05

Elijah Harper, he was the one that said no to Mulroney's attempt to bring a new kind of constitutional arrangement to Canada. And he was the one that held up the feather to say no.

Jonathan Maracle 27:21

Yeah.

Brian Stiller 27:21

And later on, he was then doing in '95 the Sacred Assembly that you've mentioned.

Jonathan Maracle 27:27

And so that was when he called me. He was a federal member of Parliament. And he um uh so they they said, Will you come and sing Amazing Grace in Mohawk and play the drum? And I said, Well, I really can't do that. And they said, Why? I said, they they said, This is Elijah Harper that's asking you. I said, Well, I said, I really can't do that because you know that's not of God. You know, I was just going by what I'd been told and what I had been living by for the last 10 years, that you have to give up your heritage.

Brian Stiller 28:04

And so if you say amazing grace with the drums, that is using your Mohawk culture? Yeah. In Mohawk, in the language. They wanted you to sing it in the Mohawk language.

Jonathan Maracle 28:19

And you thought that was in violation of the gospel? I thought it was in violation of what I was told. Okay. I thought it was in violation of the fact that I had to give up my culture. If I pick up my drum, it's going to draw me back into the cultural ways, which are not evil. And so anyway, um, I said no. They convinced me though. They said, well, you're the one that we feel is supposed to do what we prayed, and God has led us to you. And so we're asking you if you'll do it. And so I thought about it, thought about Elijah Harper. I thought about who was going to be there. You know, Brian Stiller was going to be there, and all these other great leaders, Kenny Blacksmith and, you know, Roger Armbruster, all of these guys who have who have fought battles on behalf of Indigenous people across the country. So the vision of Elijah was to bring together the spiritual people of the land, whether whatever denomination, whatever tradition, the native traditions, all people coming to have a think tank where they could pray in the way that they pray and come up with answers as to how to stop the fact that we had the highest rate of suicide, highest rate of alcoholism, highest rate of incarceration, the highest rate of family dysfunction per capita of all the people in this country. It's heartbreaking when you think, and people think that's over. It's not over. It's still happening in our remote communities. And so Elijah, when he became federal parliament, parliamentarian, he had all the access to the to the statistics and everything that that maybe he hadn't seen quite so vividly. Although he grew up in Manitoba, he grew up there and he saw with his own eyes the struggle that goes on within our native communities. And so that's why he called the Sacred Assembly, because he wanted answers. How can we fix this? You know, one out of every two Native children lives in abject poverty in Canada. We make up a half a percent of the population. We make up 30% of the incarceration. The scripture says that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Our Indigenous people are definitely the last. We were the once proud roamers of this land and we were connected to the land. We were a part of the land. We didn't feel we owned it. We felt the land owned us. We felt that the land was our mother and creator, you know, was there to guide us. So you come to the Sacred Assembly. I come to the Sacred Assembly. I'm sitting there watching you. And John Sanford, remember John Sanford? So John Sanford was speaking, and I was sitting on the left side, and and at the time he didn't have cell phones, so I wasn't taking notes that way. I had my notepad, and I

Writing And Singing Broken Walls

Jonathan Maracle 31:30

was sitting there listening, and John Sanford said, There are walls of bitterness that are built in the hearts of the Indigenous people of the world due to the exploits of colonialism. He said, And these walls of bitterness must be broken for the healing to begin. And I had a vision. I felt as though this powerful presence came onto me. I pulled my pen over in my notebook and I wrote a song called Broken Walls. Right there on the spot. Right there on the spot. For the next 10 minutes, as John was summarizing and finishing up his message, I was writing this and moved by the things he was saying, and I wrote this song. They called me. As soon as that was done, I was up. Went up on the platform and I confessed to everybody. I said, I know I'm supposed to sing Amazing Grace and Mohawk on the drum. I said, but God's giving me a new song. He wants me to sing for you today. It's called Broken Walls, because John's word was, these walls must be broken. And so I went up on the platform and I picked up the drum. I carried the drum up with me. And I made that confession to them. And I hit the drum and I started, yeah, you come together. I'm pouring out a fresh love. See those around you through different eyes. I'm pouring out my love over all of you, my people, and by the heart of the Father you will know unity. Let his arms wrap around you and true repentance fill your heart. Recognize the deeds of the days that have gone by, and you will know forgiveness from the people of this land. Broken walls that are smashed by love, Broken Walls that'll never stand. They're coming down by hands of love and by the love of God in the hearts of men. We are here, we are here, we are here, we are he a he a he a he. At the end of that psalm, I went into this very powerful chant, and um it was described to me later by uh some important, very uh important people who work within the worship realm uh of different cultural, ethnomusicology people. And they said that the chant that I did at the very end was the actual crying out of the brokenness of the people, asking for these walls to be broken down and healing to come. And so I finished the song, and there was a lady standing right beside me, and she was a white lady from Quebec, and she was a pastor from Quebec City, and she asked me if she could have the microphone. And of course, it wasn't up to me to give the microphone, but I did anyway. Um and uh she took the mic and she said she named herself from Quebec City, and she was a pastor there, and she said, we found that our mother was Cree. We found out our mother, our grandmother was Cree. And she said, so we did, we always hid that. We never let anybody know that we had that Cree blood polluting our veins. She said, and she said, and then she burst out crying. She said, and I want to ask for forgiveness for our arrogance and our attitude towards you beautiful Cree people. And uh she said, Will you please forgive me and my family for our arrogance? And on the far left side, third row back, vote in the middle, this native girl stood up, visibly native, and she said, I'm Danae, I'm from the Northwest Territories. And she threw her fist in the air and she said, And I forgive you like that. And uh the place just was leveled. The whole room, people started crying across the room. I could remember hearing people go, Father, forgive us, father forgive us. And uh she handed me back the microphone, and it was like, you know, all of a sudden, you know, this other guy, he stood up from way in the back, native guy. Was an older fellow, maybe in his 50s, 40s. He was walking up very slow, looking at the ground. Native man, typically in the the way a lot of native people will walk when they're you know struggling or going through hardship or just you know not feeling welcome or you know, those kind of feelings. And he came walking up and he took the microphone and he said, I'm chief so-and-so from such and such a place. And he said, I've always hated the white man for what he's done to my people. He said, But tonight I want to ask you to forgive me. And he said, I never want to hate again. Never want to hate the white people again. Please forgive me. Once again, this sound rose up of people crying and sort of wailing, and father, forgive us. And then on the right side, right in the front, there was this white lady, another white lady, and she stood up, came over and got the microphone. She said, My father was a headmaster in a residential school. She said, and I didn't feel like I had any responsibility, but she said, I realize now that I need to stand up and I need to ask for forgiveness on behalf of whatever things my father may have done that may not have been right on behalf of my father. I ask you to forgive us. That we want to make things right. Once again, everybody started crying and and and things took place, and um it just went on and on. People kept coming up and asking for forgiveness. You know, in Mark 11, 26, it says that when you stand praying, if you have an offense in your heart, you know, stop go to that person, make it right, forget forgiveness or give forgiveness, and then come back, and I'll be able to hear your prayers. Basically, that's my paraphrase of it. And uh, you know, I didn't realize it, but God's showing me in the last few years that that was the beginning of a movement that

Rejected For Bringing The Drum

Jonathan Maracle 39:25

I never realized that I was a part of. And only two weeks later, I was booked to go to uh Waskagonish, Quebec with my dad previously, before the Sacred Assembly, I was booked to go up there and do worship on behalf of to help my dad out. And um, of course, I was just planning to go and do Integrity Hosanna and you know um Maranatha music and all the stuff that I had been practicing for the last 10 years. And they loved me up there because I go into the native community to carry the gospel as a white man, so to speak, which I looked like, so it didn't matter. And so I went up there, but this time I had received the vision that playing the drum was the right thing to do, or that God was God had given me this new mandate in my life was to was to do things through my cultural expression. It wasn't quite so eloquent that way. I didn't understand it as doing it that way. I just knew that I wanted to carry the drum now, and I wanted to sing using the drum, and I wanted to honor my people. And I went up on the platform and and I they were all expecting, you know, making war in the heavenlies or shout unto God while you were, you know. But I started with that song Broken Walls, and I and I let out my Yahweh. And the elders got together and they called me down and told me I had to leave their community, that what I was bringing was not of God, because the Western church had already brought that message that there was no redemption for native culture. There was no, the drum could not be used, and you know, and God has shown me, God has shown me so clearly that Native people are meant to be evangelists, they're meant to be carriers of the gospel through their cultural expression.

Brian Stiller 41:33

So, what have you found since that time? Are you finding that your own your own people, your own First Nations people, are now open to the music that is Indigenous to them?

Jonathan Maracle 41:48

Well, see, the thing is, is Western theology and cultural conversion had hit our native communities for a couple hundred years. Yes. So our people became very religious. So

Prison Ministry And A Shared Wound

Jonathan Maracle 42:05

they embraced that in a Western sense. And so, you know, just to just to show you that my experience was not unique, I was uh ministering in Pierre South Dakota in uh Maxim Security State Penitentiary in the Jameson block, which was the highest incarceration spot in the whole Maximum Security for the people who were the worst. Lots of Native people, of course. And at the end of a concert that we did for these Native people, first time that I was in a in a facility like that, uh, and it took a lot of guts to go in there. My band didn't want to go, people didn't want to do it because they were sort of afraid. But I had this, I had this warrior mentality that I needed to go and give them the opportunity. And so I played for them. And at the end, the guards allowed two or three of the inmates to come up and talk to us. And you know, they had to stand and wait in the line, and and they could ask us a question or whatever, ask us to pray for them. Or this one guy was standing there waiting for me for quite some time, and and uh he was very tall, he was Lakota. And uh he stood there, and when I got up to him, I greeted him and he greeted me, and and he just looked at me, he said, I've always known Jesus is the way. I said, but I could never accept him. And I said, What do you mean? He said, because they told me I had to give up being Lakota in order to have Jesus. So that validated what happened to me. To me. It validated that that message in South Dakota happened, what happened to me in Kingston, Ontario. And and it happened all across. The nation where our people were told that the God who created mankind didn't like us when he placed us here, according to Acts chapter 17, where they placed us across the earth, that somehow he according to Western theology, he left our people in darkness, evil, and debauchery. And that there was no image of God in us. That was the attitude of how we were treated by Western uh church. It's like we have to save them from who they are before we can give them Jesus.

Brian Stiller 44:40

Is there a shift coming within the Aboriginal community with respect to their uh an Indigenous vision of self and of worship?

Jonathan Maracle 44:52

So I say all that to you to not to put a darkness on it, but to say that the light has come. There's a new hope now, and I'm being come, I'm being asked to come.

Brian Stiller 45:05

Maybe describe that hope, that new light.

Jonathan Maracle 45:07

That hope and that new life that is coming, the doors opened, is different denominations. Different denominations are inviting me to come and to share my story. But you know, if I don't tell the background of the story, people don't have the understanding that they need to have to know

The Blanket Exercise And Truth Telling

Jonathan Maracle 45:25

what the history was that causes this issue. Like you may have heard of the blanket exercise. Okay, so I'm a facilitator of the blanket exercise, but I do it mainly with Adam Kline, who is the um uh settler relations for the Free Methodist Church in Canada. And him and I have sort of partnered up, and I'm the native elder, and he's the, you know, and we do it together. And we have seen so many people that are that are Christians who have no idea of what has taken place to First Nations people and why we're in the position that we're in and why we have to deal with this. And so through things like the blanket exercise, we've been able to carry a true message. And describe the blanket exercise for the blanket exercise is a reenactment of the last 300 years or so of colonization to our Indigenous people. So basically, what we do is we gather 30 to 70 people in a room and we lay these blankets out on the floor, and the blankets represent Canada. And so people that are interested, or people that aren't interested but are coerced, you know, is like interesting. One guy was sitting there like this, he goes, My wife told me to come here. And she said, she said, I had to come because I needed to see this and experience it. And and he confessed to me right off the bat that there was no hope for what he how he felt. So anyway, we made this presentation, the blanket exercise, which tells the history in 45 minutes to 50 minutes. We give the history of what happened with Indigenous people across the land. And and we take away the blankets as the land is taken away. We take away the people as the disease or the wars or the um blankets that were given to us to wipe us out, smallpox on them, you know, as we've been shoved onto reservations and and forced to live, you know, on the westward march that they did with the Trail of Tears. They forced a whole group of different Indigenous people to Oklahoma, all different people groups that they figured would destroy themselves that because there would be enemies among them and they would just it would be all dealt with. So if they didn't die in the march, they'd die killing each other. There was a lot of terrible things that were done that people, as they realized those things, they and at the blanket exercise. So anyway, we go through this blanket exercise, and at the end, I can remember the one guy I always like to refer to him, but his arms were no longer crossed and he was no longer looking all that tough, and his eyes were filled with tears. He said, I can't believe we did this to you guys. He said, You changed, changed me in here. He said, and I'll be an advocate, you know, for for you guys and what's going on. He said, I want to see you get a chance, get a real chance. So, you know, I think I think the most important few things that for me to finalize with would be that my purpose isn't to go against the Western Church, but it's to uh educate and to help to open the door so that we can become friends and brothers and sisters, so that we won't be judged by our drum. Drum doesn't carry evil, you know, the drum is subject to the drummer. When I drum and I'm lifting up the name of Jesus or I'm singing about Yeshua or Yahweh on the drum, that's a very, very powerful, powerful thing. And for somebody to say, because I'm playing the drum, it's not of God. Well, that that kind of thing is melting away now, and they're realizing because when we come in under the anointing and we begin to play the drum, I've done it in China. When I played the drum in China and we began to sing our songs, the Chinese elders in the back of the room sent their interpreter up and said, Ask him why when they drum and when they sing their songs, we feel it in here. And he didn't even understand what we were saying. And and so he goes back and he tells them, then he says, then he came back up to us and he said, Well, because we told him we want to serve because we are serving the one who saved us. And they sent him back up and said, Well, why do you want to serve him then? Because he saved us from our sins, because he's given us hope in our lives. And so he goes back and tells him. So we've we went to Lake Geneva in Switzerland, and it was our day off. We'd been touring it for a whole week, playing in different communities and drawing people in and ministering Christ through our cultural expression. And um, we went to Lake Geneva, Laclemont, and we decided we were going to just test our ability for us to reach people outside of the church. And so we had our two vans and we pulled up dancers in one van. They got dressed in the van and we had our drum and everything.

The Drum Opens Doors Worldwide

Jonathan Maracle 50:45

We got out, we got set up and started drumming some songs, and people started gathering around us on the beach. And within, I'd say 20 minutes, we had like 300, 350 people all standing around us, listening to what we were doing in our songs and everything. And then one of our leaders stood up and began to talk to them about, you know, the white man came to our lands hundreds of years ago and brought us the message of Jesus Christ. He said, and we've come back across the great salt waters to bring you the message of what Jesus has done for us. He said, at one time we were warring nations among us. He said, but through the love and the peace of Jesus Christ, we've made peace and we've come back to tell you you need to accept Jesus once again. And 35 people stepped up and accepted Jesus right there on the beach around

A Wake Up Call For The Church

Jonathan Maracle 51:35

the fire and around the drum.

Brian Stiller 51:37

Jonathan, as we close, what are the two or three things you want us to take away from this remarkable story?

Jonathan Maracle 51:48

I think this is a time of awakening. And so I'm very encouraged because doors have opened for me to share. Like what I'm sharing with you today is the journey. Uh, but what I'm doing today is carrying the hope and releasing the hope wherever I go, and the opportunities for me to do that are expanding. And so I guess my biggest vision that I see is that as the last, the first shall be last, last shall be first, thinking from that terminology, and that Jesus sing a new song for Jesus died for every tribe, every tongue, every people, and every nation. And so, without prerequisites, I believe that God has called our First Nations people to have a genuine relationship with God that does not take away their culture, that embraces the good things of their culture. We're not about syncretism, we're about honoring God through our cultural expression because our people knew who God was. Back in the day when they thought our people lived in darkness and sin. Our people were seeking God. Our people had ways. We have uh what they call purification ceremony, some people call it smudging ceremony, same as what they did in the Old Testament, maybe different visual, but they were washing their hands and burning incense, and that's what we were doing. We would hold our tobacco and we would pray our prayers, and then we would throw the tobacco into the fire. The fire would turn the tobacco into smoke and raise the prayers to the Creator. I mean, our people had our own ways of doing it that we saw as valuable, and those things were pointed at as evil and not of God. And so now what we're trying to do is we're trying to show the world out there that we have something to give. Not only that, but if you release Native people into evangelism and you trust them to carry the message to their cultural expression, they will we we were playing in uh Tel Aviv in the fall. And we played in downtown Tel Aviv on a street corner in front of a shawarma shop. And we asked the owners of the shop, we went through and we bought our shawarmas and came out and we were eating. And I went back in. I said, Hey, you guys, we're a Native American uh team from Canada and US. We're here to carry our message through our through our culture. Would you like us to dance and sing for you right on the street, main street in Tel Aviv? And said, Yeah, great. So they closed their doors, shut down their shop, and came out and and listened, and we people gathered as we sang. Jesus is Lord, Yahoo, Jesus is Lord, Yahweh, wait, hail, hail. So we do this and then we sing uh holy, holy one. We sing all these different songs that we do on the drum, and it didn't drive anybody away, it drew people in. You know, you know that there's restrictions when you go to Israel, you can't promote the name of Jesus to an 18-year-old or younger that you can be taken away. But, you know, as Native people, when we're doing it on the drum and we're singing our songs using our language, the doors are open. The doors are open. So we did it in, I've done it in Berlin, an Olympic Stadium, I've done it in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, I've done it in places where people have gotten up out of wheelchairs as we've sang healing songs through our native culture. So I'm just saying let Native people embrace who God's created them to be. Let them be able to worship through their cultural expression because the rattles are not evil. We have authority to turn it over serpents and scorpions, and we're gonna be as scared of a rattle or a drum. No. What we need to do is trust God, trust the Holy Spirit is gonna work through our people, and that we're gonna be able to be free to dance, to sing, and to worship God the way He created us to do. It's a beautiful thing.

Brian Stiller 56:08

Jonathan Maracle, thank you so much for this incredible story. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Jonathan Maracle 56:15

I'm honored. Thank you, Brian. Your name is uh a legend. You know, I've heard lots of people talk and they always speak well of you. And thank you for considering having me, and I hope that what I brought will help in some way to stir up my native people, to embrace who they are, to walk in that gunaronko, that love that he has given to all

Closing And Ways To Connect

Jonathan Maracle 56:45

mankind. Yeah, thank you.

Brian Stiller 56:48

Thanks, Jonathan, for joining me today. Your writings, leadership, and creative initiatives have been strategic in enabling us to see how the Spirit is at work, guiding the Church of Jesus Christ to turbulent times. And to my listeners, thank you for being a part of the podcast. And be sure to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube. If you want to learn more about our today's guest, just check the show notes for links and info. And if you haven't received my free ebook and newsletter, just go to Brianstiller.com. Thank you.