The saviour of the world

Yesterday, St Clement’s had the privilege of partnering with Argyle Secondary School for the second annual Song Summit. This event was a hare-brained idea brought to life by your St Clement’s music director, your priest, the director of Argyle’s music program, and four adult community choirs from across the North Shore. The event raises funds for travel bursaries for Argyle music students. Of course, it’s about more than just the money. It’s about high schoolers getting to see that the love of singing doesn’t stop at grade 12. It’s about us adults remembering what first inspired us to sing. 

We began the day with a workshop, led by composer and conductor Dr Hussein Janmohamed. Dr Janmohamed shared with us what it was like growing up Muslim, queer and 4th generation Kenyan, in Red Deer, Alberta—in the 70s. He talked about music as a space where different identities can meet for dialogue, rather than music as a space where we choose from a buffet of genres and adapt them for our own purposes. 

The first piece Dr Janmohamed taught us was three chants he had set in conversation with each other. With the permission of Lil’Wat composer Russell Wallace, the piece began with a celebration chant called “The Gift,” followed by “Bismillah,” an Arabic Invocation meaning “in the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful.” The third chant was familiar for many of us: Durufle’s “Ubi caritas:” where charity and love prevail, there God is. 

One of the images Dr Janmohamed kept pulling us back to throughout the day was that of a mother’s womb, the divine feminine. His intention was for us constantly to be bringing to mind with our voices the spirituality, culture, and social fabric of our ancestors. 

The image of a mother’s womb, the divine feminine, timely imagery in the light of today’s celebration of International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. I wonder, who are the women you celebrate today? Who are the women who have shaped you? Who are the women who have given birth to the you, you have become? 

We have this past year at St Clement’s been introduced to a Eucharistic Prayer called “Remembering the Women” from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. As we gather at the Lord’s Table to bless bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus, the prayer calls to mind the women who gave birth to Christ, who shaped, welcomed, ushered in, and heralded the arrival of the Messiah. Sarah; Ruth; Miriam; Deborah; Junia; Jairus’ daughter; sisters Martha and Mary; Mary Magdalene; Mary the mother of Jesus; the woman at the well. 

The woman at the well, the focus of our gospel reading today. The well, the site of living water. The well, a place where new life takes shape. The well, a kind of womb. It’s here that Jesus meets the woman: a Samaritan, an enemy, a neighbour. They talk about their respective ‘buffets’ of identity: She is a Samaritan, a divorced woman, a descendant of Jacob, though a ‘colonized’ one (a woman who had become ‘Westernized’ we might say). 

Jesus is a Jew, an unmarried man from Nazareth, a descendant of Jacob. The woman’s ancestors worship on this mountain; Jesus’ ancestors worship in Jerusalem. But Jesus says one day people will worship neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. One day people will worship God “in spirit and in truth.” What does this mean?

I wonder if it means that one day people will dialogue rather than compete across identities? One day people will partner and peacekeep rather than fire missiles across borders? One day people will meet to drink from Living Water, the water of becoming human in one another’s presence once again, just as God once became human in ours?

Dr Janmohamed shared with the planning team a copy of his dissertation, which is titled, Translating Ismaili Muslim Experience in Canada: Integrative Choral Pathways of Belonging. It begins with this quote from His Highness, the Aga Khan, the Ismaili spiritual leader:

There is a human impulse it seems—fed by fear—to define ‘identity’ in negative terms. We often determine ‘who we are’—by determining who we are against. This fragmenting impulse not only separates peoples from one another, it also subdivides communities -- and then it subdivides the subdivisions. It leads to what some have called the ‘fraying’ of society -- in which communities come to resemble a worn out cloth—as its tight weave separates into individual strands. (Aga Khan, 2006, para. 30)

The woman at the well is used to defining who she is based on who she is against. The disciples, who are shocked to see Jesus speaking with this woman, are used to defining who they are based on who they are against. We are used to defining ourselves based on individual strands which separate us from the other, from each other. Jesus says his vision for the future isn’t a world subdivided; it’s a society, woven. It’s no longer an economy where one person works while another reaps the rewards. It’s an economy where sower and reaper rejoice together. 

The woman leaves her water-jar behind. She goes home seemingly empty-handed, determined to live another way—to drink from another well, from Jesus’ well. Her example is truly what will save the world. Amen.

Photo by cottonbro studio