Text: Luke 9:28-45

Guest preacher Sarah Augustine reminds us that mountains are – and have always been – sacred spaces. Indigenous peoples understand this and in the story of transfiguration the disciples catch a glimpse of the sacred brilliance of the Creator’s constant presence through Jesus. Jesus has to prevent them from building monuments that mar that sacredness. And even now we are being invited to resist the ways that monuments to wealth, imperialism and extraction are being build on sacred mountains.

Sarah Augustine, who is a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is co- founder and Executive Director of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. She is also the co-founder of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has worked in relationship with vulnerable Indigenous Peoples since 2005. She has represented the interests of Indigenous community partners to their own governments, the Inter-American development bank, the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and a host of other international actors including corporate interests. She is a columnist for Anabaptist World, and co-hosts the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery podcast with Sheri Hostetler. She has taught at Heritage University, Central Washington University, and Goshen College. In Washington State, where she lives, she serves in a leadership role on multiple boards and commissions to enable vulnerable peoples to speak for themselves in advocating for structural change.  She is author of the book The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery (Herald Press 2021), and co-author, with Sheri Hostetler, of  So We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis (Herald Press 2023).

The image above was captured by Karen Rice. Pictured is the Apache Stronghold camp, behind which looms the structures and lights of Resolution Copper who seek to raze the mountain for copper extraction.

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