JUNE 16, 2024, Feast of Enmegahbowh

Howard Anderson

Enmegahbowh: Who Still Stands Before his people

 

Today we will baptize into our community and the wider church, Finnigan Thompson McTigue. It is also the Sunday when we remember the Patron Saint of our Diocese, Enmegahbowh, whose Anishinaabeg name means The One Who Stands Before His People. He was the first indigenous person ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

So, all of us here, as well as Brianna and Marty, listen up, and tell Finn and Frankie, when they get a bit older, this part of the lineage into which Finn is Baptized today.

Notice that we processed in with the Icon of Enmebahbowh held high. The icon was written by a Red Lake Ojibwe Episcopal Priest and renown muralist, Johnson Loud Jr., who has served indigenous congregations for many decades and is now retired. Like Enmebahbowh, whose father was a tribal leader on Ontario, Johnson comes from a chiefly line of the Red Lake Nation. They both were widely respected and honored by their community, and responded to the call of God and the Church with courage at times when the indigenous community was not happy with the Christian Church. For Johnson, it was the horrific stories of the unmarked graves at the residential boarding schools coming to light. Most younger indigenous people were rejecting the Church in any form. For Enmegahbowh, it was attempts to take away his language and culture, and the land of his people. Both men stood before the people and boldly preached the way of love of Jesus with such power and clarity that many were drawn to the Church, or back to the church they had rejected. They preached the Gospel the way Jesus did in the Gospel of Luke today. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you are hungry now for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

While other missionaries in the 19^th century preached that the indigenous peoples should give up what they labeled their “pagan” ways, Enmegahbowh refused ordination in the Methodist Church because they demanded that he give up his native culture and tradition.  One missionary told a group of Ojibwe that they should cut their hair, dress like white people, and start planting and plowing to become Chrisitan. One of the Ojibwe responded, “No, if we did that we would become farmers, and, we are already Christian.”

Enmegahbowh was raised in a home where his mother was a Christian and his father was a traditional medicine man. He was raised as a member of the Midewiwin, the Grand Medicine Society, and trained in a Methodist seminary. He knew that what was taught in the Medicine Lodge was not only not different from the seminary, or in any way inferior or contradictory, but was also rooted in the First Testament. The First Testament is the Creation. There, the Creator wrote the truth of the generative and diverse world God created for us. Enmegahbowh was taught from an early age the way God’s love is revealed in Creation in a way even we today are just beginning to understand. If we listen to Creation’s voices, loons and wolves, birds and the buzz of pollinators, the symphony of the winds in pines or the jazz of aspens clapping their leaves in even the gentlest of winds, we will begin to see the model of a world in which we are to live- in that world all creation is  interdependent, diverse, accepting and loving.

So Finn, you are becoming one of us, whose ancestors are not only the Saints and Apostles of the scriptures and church history, but you, dear one, becoming a part of a tribe of Episcopalians that stand on the shoulders of indigenous saints and heroes who, with Bishop Whipple, made this diocese what it is. And even more, you are now part of the community of St. John’s that has from its beginning, in 1903, just a year after Enmegahbowh died, taken risks to serve those who like today’s Psalm were “greatly oppressed.” With courage and risk, St. John’s has led the diocese in accepting and affirming all of humanity and creation.

I remember the first story I heard about St. John’s. I was living in a neighborhood not far from here, that had lots of people who lacked housing and food. Many churches offered meals. But this church, did something different. Those in need were welcomed with a graciousness that few in the group to be fed had experienced. They were seated at table with flowers and table clothes. The sumptuous meals, fit for any fine restaurant, were served not on paper plates, but China, and the utensils were silver and the glasses crystal. The normally somber diners laughed, were effusive with their thanks, engaging in their discussion with the servers and each other. The volunteer servers, St. John’s members, waited on them like fine wait staffers everywhere, they seemed to know what was needed before it was asked for. That, Finn, is a part of this tribe you are coming into today. This tribe understands what Enmegahbowh understood, that inclusion of all is not optional, but central to who we are as followers of the way of love of Jesus.  St. John’s called the first openly gay rector, one of the first female rectors, the first openly lesbian rector, and heck, they have even now called as a rector a lawyer with a mystical bent! St. John’s has always been willing to open its doors in love.
Finn, there’s much more. We stand on the shoulders of these giants so let me tell me a couple more stories of your new ancestors.

Bishop Whipple said Enmegahbowh was, like many medicine people a marvelous story teller. He made the gospel come alive interweaving the stories of his people and the stories of scripture. He likely preached on the creation story that is told in the Midewiwin lodge,

Gitchi Manido, the Creator, sat alone in the dark, dreaming about the bright world that was to be. Everything that Gitchi Manido dreamed, came to be. And because Gitchi Manido was so full of love, that love flowed into the infinite variety of creatures that came into being. The great forests were made from green dreams, and to this day you can almost touch the creator’s dream as you walk through the great forests, with the smokey light filtering down from the heavens. The bright sun of the day and the gentle light of the moon at night, all were made out of the love of the Creator. What was made of dreams was made real as the Creator blessed and named each thing made, the mizzizibing (mighty rivers) zaagaigan (the lakes teeming with life) the wig wass wao (birch tree person) migizi (the eagle) the wawashkesheg (the deer) amik (the beaver) Maung (the loon whose song opens our hearts)….all that was dreamed and blessed was given special talents and gifts, just  like us Finn. Each one of us is blessed and gifted by our Creator. Each one of us has special gifts. We all will watch you grow and we will see what gifts you bring to us, your family, and the community, and we, in turn, will bring our gifts and love to you and your family.

But Finn, sadly, in this world made of love, there is much that is not loving. Wars rage this day in Europe, in Gaza, in the Congo…we have often failed to be peace makers in our homes, communities and nation.

Enmegahbowh, the one who stood before his people, was a bold peace maker. He refused to participate in what is called the Dakota Rebellion, which broke out when the treaties signed by the United States and the Dakota nation were not honored and many were dying of starvation. The war was bloody and the Dakota asked their former enemies, the Ojibwe to join them in an attempt to drive the whites from their land. Enmegahbowh spoke of peace, and kept the Ojibwe from entering the war, which was to lead to such misery and the removal of all the Dakota from Minnesota. Many white lives were saved by their Dakota neighbors who sat next to them in church each Sunday. But hundreds died.

Enmegahbowh took this stand despite death threats from powerful leaders.  For his peacemaking, as we read in  today’s Gospel, “he was reviled and defamed.” But he knew it would save lives, many lives. And, he knew this was God’s will for him.

Another indigenous priest in your lineage was Gary Cavender, and he was a Dakota, the tribe that was first in what is now Minneapolis. Gary, like Enmegahbowh and Johnson Loud, led a congregation at a time of strife. There were factions in the indigenous community and at the tribal headquarters, as the two feuding factions were moving toward each other with violence in mind. Father Gary, donned his vestments, holding the Bible above his head, and with a brave crucifer, and two torch bearers, processed into the middle of the mele. A man swung a heavy chain to break the glass doors of the trial offices, but it hit Gary in the head. He was knocked to the ground. Bloody and shaken, he rose to his full six feet two and said in a loud voice, “The Lord be with you.” And in one voice both sides responded, “And also with you.” Then they celebrated communion standing in the shadow of the tribal office. And the factions, as is promised in the liturgy, became one people again.

Finn, these are some of the ancestors in whose lineage you will stand. May you and Frankie and your parents stand on those shoulders with pride, strength and courage. May you grow strong and bold in protecting our Mother the Earth. May you be a voice for the voiceless. And like blessed Enmegahbowh, Gary and Johnson and so many here at St. John’s, be a peace maker.

 

Finn, we welcome you into the Body of Christ in this place, and, we can’t wait to see what great things you will do.

Let me close with a Dakota chant that honors you on this day of your baptism dear one.

It’s words translate thus:

In the center of the earth

I am standing and

I am praying as I stand.

For you, Finn, and your family
I am praying as I stand.

 

Maka cochin, nawajin na,

Hoyeya nawajin yelo.

Finnigan Tiyoshpiye

Hoheya nawajin yelo.

10am Service