Tag Archives: Ada Deer

A reflection on the life of Ada Deer

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Ada Deer

August 24, 2023

I certainly didn’t know Ada as long or as deeply as Art, or Ben, or Joe, or Lynn, or many of you. In fact, when we met on the day after her 88th birthday to talk about this service, I told her that there was no need for me to say anything, but she insisted. So if you don’t like what I have to say, or think I speak too long, blame Ada.

As I listened to the Menominee Second Island Drum and singers, I reflected on this historic event, and on this historic space. In the 165 years since Grace Church was built, it has witnessed thousands of worship services but I wonder what past parishioners would think of what we are witnessing today—a room filled with Native American people, their music, honoring someone who did so much for her people and is a icon of resistance and resilience.

I met Ada probably 7 or 8 years ago when Lynn brought her to Grace to attend an anti-racism workshop she had organized. It was after church; and as soon as I walked in the room, Lynn pulled me aside to introduce me to Ada. I sat down, and after introductions, almost the first thing out of her mouth was a rather salty take on Christianity. She may have been surprised that I wasn’t taken aback or offended. As a trained historian I knew about the effects of White settler colonialism on Native peoples, their culture, and their lives. From Ada and others I have learned a great deal more, especially about the horrors of the boarding schools that resulted in generational trauma.

I was surprised, deeply humbled and honored both for myself and for Grace Church, that Ada us to hold a memorial service in her honor. When I agreed, I wasn’t quite sure just what I was agreeing to. After her death, as I began to read the accolades in local, state, and national media, I began to realize more clearly how important Ada was to her tribe, the Native American community, and to our nation’s history. And I’ve been surprised over the last couple of weeks when I mention her name to friends and acquaintances in the community who are not connected with the circles of political or civic activism, the University or progressive circles, at how many people were touched by her life, people she didn’t even know.

 It speaks to her prominence and to her generosity of spirit and openness to others; it also speaks volumes about the deepening relationship she developed with Grace Church and its members as we have examined the history of Christianity and Native peoples, and begun to take steps toward restorative justice.

To take measure of a life like Ada’s is no easy thing and to place it in a larger context of the struggle for justice and equality of Native Americans, or American Indians as Ada preferred to call her community, is beyond the scope of what we can do on this day. That is something for historians to reckon with in coming years. Still Ada’s life is a testament to the ongoing struggles of American Indians and to their resilience in the face of centuries of oppression and violence.

Our scripture readings today speak to this moment and to our efforts to honor and remember Ada. From the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, words written over 2500 years ago that remind us of the passage of time, of cycles of mourning and joy, life and death, laughter and tears. Our memories of Ada evoke so many emotions: gratitude, love, respect. We may laugh as we remember her love of humor and her own beaming smile. We may cry as we feel the loss of her presence, and a world that seems just a bit smaller and less colorful with her passing. But the words from Ecclesiastes are words of comfort, reminding us that our grief will fade in time, even as our memories linger to be cherished and shared.

From the gospel, we heard the beatitudes, blessings that Jesus spoke to his listeners in his first sermon recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. They speak directly to us as well: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. More broadly, they reflect Jesus’ overall message calling into existence a new community, a new way of being in the world—a community of love, peace, and radical inclusion. It is a vision that has often been obscured and distorted to fit political agendas, military conquest, oppression. Those distortions were among the reasons for Ada’s distrust of Christianity. In our day these distortions have become even more pronounced, being twisted into the sins of White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism. But Jesus’ words continue to call out to us across the centuries, to work for justice, and peace, and to care for the most vulnerable; to welcome the stranger, and the alien; to build bridges across communities divided by histories of hatred, violence, and oppression. 

It was something of that same vision that Ada embodied in her tireless and inspirational work for justice for American Indians, in the vast network of friends she made over the years, in the community she built and nourished wherever she found herself. She called all of us to do better; to listen to the stories of the marginalized and vulnerable, to unite with those working for justice, to break the bonds of oppression, and to heal the wounds and scars of trauma.

We are here to mourn, to remember, to celebrate Ada’s life, to give thanks for all that she did in her long and illustrious career. But we would be unfaithful to her spirit if we left it at that. Today should also be a time when we renew our spirits, rekindle our hope, and gather our strength. Let us go from here into the world to share Ada’s passion for justice, to continue her work for equity, and to build community across difference. May we all one day, see justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

Our Canaanite Woman: A sermon for Proper 15A, 2023

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In a recent essay for The Atlantic, David Brooks, ponders the question “How America got mean.” He begins with a litany of examples: the restaurateur who tells him that he has to kick a customer out of his restaurant every week because of bad behavior; the hospital administrator who talks about staff leaving because of abusive patients. We could add to the list—road rage, minor disagreements that devolve into violence; vitriolic, dehumanizing political discourse. 

What Brooks doesn’t discuss is the institutional and structural mean-ness or violence that has been a part of our society since its beginning—the racism, misogyny and sexism, the genocide of Native Americans, the greed, rapaciousness, and exploitation of American capitalism. When wasn’t America mean? Genteel manners can conceal horrors.

That question, about mean-ness or cultural violence provides an interesting perspective from which to reflect on today’s gospel. It is certainly one of the strangest, perhaps most offensive stories in all of the gospels. It appears on the surface, at a cursory reading or listening, that this is a story of Jesus behaving badly. And in fact, I’m always amused when this story comes up, at the conversations or “discourse” as its often called, that it generates on social media. I’m also bemused that of all of my sermons that I’ve posted on my website, it’s the one that gets the most traffic, month after month, year after year. It’s a story that continues to confound and challenge preachers, ordinary Christians, and biblical scholars.

 To unpack this story, we need first of all to pay attention to geography. We’re told that Jesus and his disciples are in the region of Tyre and Sidon. We’re given no explanation for this, and given that we are reading this in mid-August, I’m always inclined to say something like: “Jesus and his disciples decided to go the beach.” 

Tyre and Sidon are ports on the Mediterranean. More significantly, they are far away from the area where Jesus has been exercising his ministry, Galilee, which in Jesus’ day was under the authority of the Tetrarchy of the Herods. Tyre and Sidon were in the Roman province of Syria. They were outside of the traditional territory that had been part of the monarchy, and outside of the region that was largely populated by Judeans. While Jesus had crossed over the Sea of Galilee to visit Gentile territory, this was his furthest and longest journey outside of Judean territory.

         There’s no explanation for his trip to the coast and from his response to the Canaanite woman, it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t on a Mission Trip, which another one of those summer pastimes many people undertake. He didn’t go there to preach or to heal, or to do any other things he had been accustomed to doing. Maybe he really was taking a vacation. He probably needed one. If that’s the case, Jesus seems to be behaving very much like the insensitive tourist, ridiculing the local population.

         There’s another fascinating and important detail in Matthew’s telling of the story that should help us make sense of it. That is his description of the woman as “Canaanite.” When the Gospel of Mark tells the story, the woman is described as “Syrophoenician,” which is more appropriate. We twenty-first century readers of the story might not find the reference to Canaanite here as strange. After all, the Canaanites appear regularly in the Hebrew Bible—they inhabit the land before the Israelites enter and resist the Israelite occupation. They persevere and over the centuries of the monarchy, Canaanite religion and culture continue to be a seductive alternative to worship of God and the kind of society that is laid out in the Mosaic law. 

The point is, that “Canaanite” here is wildly anachronistic. Canaanite culture had long since been subsumed by the Hellenistic culture of later centuries and Canaanites no longer existed as a separate ethnic, religious, or cultural identity. The best analogy I could come up with is when the British referred to their German enemies as “huns” in the first World War. They were assimilating German culture and military power to the 4th century invaders who sacked Rome. There were no Huns in early 20th century Europe, just as there were no Canaanites in 1st century Palestine.

So why the term? It should be obvious. Matthew wants to depict the woman as wholly “other”—beneath respect and notice, a member of a group existentially distinct from Jews and their mortal enemies. And to top it off, she was a woman, doubly marginalized, non-Jew, a woman, who was transgressing every social and cultural taboo to approach Jesus.

This is the story, a woman breaking all of those boundaries to approach Jesus in desperation, to find healing for her daughter. Can you imagine how much courage she had to muster to confront Jesus? 

It’s this woman, by gender voiceless and powerless, by ethnicity and religion, totally other, to be avoided, it is this woman who comes to Jesus in search of help for her daughter, and Jesus first ignores her, then refers to her as a dog. I won’t use it, but you know what epithet in contemporary English would fit this situation. 

But she persists. Her need is so great, the love of her child so powerful, that she brushes off Jesus’ lack of concern and his verbal cruelty and offers a retort. “So you think I’m a dog, Jesus. Well, even dogs are given the scraps from the master’s table.” 

And with that response, she wins the argument, beating Jesus at his own game. Now, he is shocked out of his complacency, his eyes that were clouded by prejudice, his heart, cold because she wasn’t one of those he understood to be his mission area, opened to her need. Jesus is transformed by her words and her need and he heals her daughter.

It’s a challenging and uncomfortable story. It seems to depict a Jesus who is insensitive to the needs of someone. It also depicts a woman whose behavior might seem to be obnoxious, or at the very least, in appropriate. She doesn’t behave as she ought. She cajoles Jesus into helping her daughter. Where’s the good news here? 

As I was wrestling with this question and this story this week, I was also preparing for two memorial services; the one for Michael yesterday, and the service for Ada Deer that will take place here on Thursday. As I was riding into church this morning, I realized that both Michael and Ada were our Canaanite woman. Michael touched many lives, building community among people who have been marginalized and ostracized. He found sobriety in AA and over the decades accompanied many others on their journeys toward sobriety. He also supported the LGBT community, working with and caring for HIV/AIDS patients during the height of the epidemic. 

Ada spoke truth to power, advocating for justice for Native Americans, challenging our nation, our state, and we at Grace to confront Christianity’s history of mistreatment, oppression, and erasure of Native American religion and culture.

In part, this gospel reading is a story of the transformative power of advocacy. God hears the cries of the oppressed and the suffering. As followers of Jesus we are called to hear those cries and respond to them. They may challenge us; they may confront us with uncomfortable truths but we are called to listen to them.

We are also called to unite our voices with the voices of the suffering and the oppressed; to walk with them, support them. It also testifies to the power of those voices. We may grow disillusioned and disheartened by the lack of response, by the closed ears and closed minds of those to whom we cry. But our voices will be heard, our calls for justice answered. May we open our ears, our hearts, and our mouths; and may we join with those who are crying for justice.