Sharing Water, Sharing Lives (Delivered at St. Martin's United Church)
January 18, 2015 | Anita Retzlaff

Grace and peace to you from God who is the Word and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ.  We have had a long relationship - your congregation and I.  It is my pleasure to worship with you on behalf of Nutana Park Mennonite Church again this morning and after almost two decades of ecumenical relationship.  When I read of the death of Verna Pittman I too was grieved because she is one of the people whom I came to know in our longstanding relationship as two congregations together.  I remember her as an enthusiastic and hard worker. She loved this congregation. These losses mark the loss of a generation of very committed people. We grieve together.

I come here this morning to share with you some of my thoughts about what it means to be followers of Jesus in our congregations today in the full knowledge that we do things differently from each other.  My congregation is Mennonite; yours is United Church.  We are different. So what?

Well, I will get to that in a rather roundabout way. I am still coming down from a most amazing experience on New Year’s Eve.  My colleague Patrick Preheim and I performed the marriage of two wonderful young men, Craig Friesen and Matthew Wiens.  This wedding received some media coverage, with the permission of the newly married couple of course, and made headlines because it was a first of sorts for the Mennonite Church in Canada. In the Mennonite Church nationally, we are still very much debating the full inclusion of people who are same sex attracted. At Nutana Park Mennonite Church we print an inclusive statement in our bulletin weekly and have made the decision to move forward with same sex marriage and full inclusion into congregational life. Your denomination (the United Church of Canada) has been through some really difficult times in the past as you blazed the trail. I come to you today in the midst of this moment of challenge and excitement. While it is a hopeful time it is also painful because we do not all agree. Yet it is very necessary and the time for moving ahead is NOW!

To my mind this decision of inclusion is based on the same principle that should hold us together as churches of different denominations.  We can agree to be diverse; we can live well together even when we are different and our beliefs are at variance.  Why can we not remain friends, remain in relationship and still work together? When we want to stay connected, who can separate us?

The theme for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is a beautiful story that helps us think really positively about our differences.  As you already have heard the story with the children, the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well gives us an image to work with.  It is an image of sharing, maybe somewhat hesitantly at first, but sharing the essence of life. 

You see, there is a huge cultural rift between the Samaritans and the Jews at that moment when Jesus asks a drink of the woman at the well.  I suspect it may have felt somewhat similar to a Palestinian and an Israeli meeting in this way today.  It was a truly unlikely meeting of differences except for the fact that a little earlier in the story the narrator says that Jesus chooses to go on this trip that will take him through the territory of the Samaritans.  It seems that Jesus deliberately places himself into foreign space with a mind to meeting "the opposition" so to speak.  He invites the encounters that are about to take place.

And so, at this very unlikely meeting, both of them, the Samaritan woman and the Jewish teacher, break the rules of their kinship groups. And their interaction becomes ever more intense.  Jesus should not be talking to her all and she should have up and left immediately upon his arrival.  Jesus chooses to deliberately approach and she chooses to stay.  They both break the rules. But you see, they both have a need.  Jesus needs water after a morning of walking the desert countryside and she needs a different kind of water after having lived a life of dead ends and disappointments. Two very different people break taboos left and right entering into an exchange that restores them both. They share necessities with each other; Jesus receives water so that he may carry on his journey and the woman receives the courage and hope to carry on as a worthy member of her community.  It should not have happened at all – this conversation - yet in that risky and unsanctioned space a transaction takes place that blows the lid off of tradition.  The future opens wide and a bridge is built.

Jesus starts it, as Jesus often does; he stirs the pot.  "Give me a drink," he says to the woman.  You can imagine that she looks at him in disbelief yet doesn't run away as she would have been taught.  She counters his request by stating the obvious, "You aren't supposed to be talking to me at all you know. It is pretty cheeky of you to ask me for a drink." To which Jesus responds, "You don't know the first thing about what our conversation could do for you.  I can give you the water of life; a chance to rise far above the limitations that you live with right now. I can offer you another chance and another and another."  Taking him literally she says, "you have no access to water. You will need a bucket to get at it.  I am the one who owns the bucket and this is our well.  Who do you think you are?" As this most animated exchange continues Jesus offers her the water of eternal life with God and she asks him for it: "Give me this water then so that I may never be thirsty again."

In this amazing and life-changing meeting a new world unfolds.  Jesus does not seem to care much about the fact that the woman has had five husbands.  Now these details are not included in our story for this morning but many of us know how it goes.  Jesus tells the woman all about the life she has led, yet does not condemn her in spite of the fact that she is working on husband #6! This may be a lesson for us when it comes to our judgments about the behaviour of others.  She is so excited that Jesus, knowing her intimate secrets, does not condemn her and leaving her water jug behind runs to tell her friends about this mind-blowing conversation.  Because of her story others are drawn to Jesus and the promise he offers through the water of life.

It is all about sharing; Jesus sharing the promise of everlasting love and the woman sharing water and then her witness.  Sharing water is a great image of living with difference.  Here I finally get back to where I started.  What difference does it make that I am Mennonite and you are United Church? What is the big deal about maintaining denominations? Well just like the woman has had 5 husbands I don’t think it matters much to Jesus that we have over 4000 Christian denominations in the world as long as we share his essential message: love transforms lives and only love will transform the world.

That means we can’t exclude each other or demonize those who are different. When love is the message the differences don’t matter.  I am not sure where we ever got the idea that only one denomination is right and all others are wrong.  This is the bridge that ecumenism has been building over the last few decades. As United Church of Canada and Mennonite Church Canada we can celebrate each other’s gifts and enjoy the diversity that exists.  Why do we have to be the same?  We receive each other; we share the water of life as the gift that Jesus gives to us all.

Well, as we all know this hasn’t been so straight forward.  Just look how we have fought within our denominations about same sex attraction.  This is a case in point.  Your church addressed the move to inclusion well before the Mennonites had the courage to do so.  You led the way.  We have all suffered loss in the process and this is where more than ever we need each other.  I need your encouragement and you might receive my gratitude for your courage and determination. Diversity is rich and rewarding and the goal of creation. We have much to celebrate.

Yet we also have much to do for there are other differences in our community that need our attention and action – and quickly.  We live on Treaty 6 land. How are we living well with the diversity of cultures here in Saskatoon?  As settler people, we have not honoured the treaties as we should, we have hurt our indigenous neighbours and there is much healing needed all around.  And what about the water we have been using as an image this morning.  Water!   You know the threats to the land and to the water and to the skies. 

The water of life we receive as gift from God is the strength we have from which to act.  Only we can make our world a better place where we live and work and worship. Let us honour our differences and celebrate diversity so that we can live well together on this earth.  It is all about sharing. It is all about acceptance.  It is all about love.  The values we teach young children remain the values we embrace as grown up ecumenical partners; Roman Catholic, United, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Mennonite and others.  We are part of the gift of rich diversity.  Let us thank God for that and for each other.  AMEN