Washing With the Mennonites

My wife Lois grew up on a dairy farm just north of Elmira Ontario. Her family, and most of her extended family and neighbours, belonged to a Mennonite congregation in the nearby village of Floradale.

This past Good Friday, my recently widowed father-in-law Ervin and I went to church together at Floradale Mennonite Church. Lois and some of the kids were out of the county. Others had other obligations and commitments for the day. It was just the two of us.

It was a lovely and beautifully led service. The music and preaching were inspired. The hospitality of the congregation was exceptional. But most moving to me was our participation in the ritual of footwashing that most Mennonite congregations share each Good Friday.

Large basins and towels were brought forward. Men and women moved to different parts of the church. Lines formed and congregants paired up, each in turn kneeling to wash and then dry one another’s feet. The partners then rose and exchanged an embrace of God’s peace.

How moving it was for me to share such a tender and holy moment with this man who I have come to love so deeply over the past 30 plus years. How humbling to see him drop to his 81 year old knees before me. Our exchange of peace included a kiss and the heartfelt blessing, “I love you.”

Since 1980, Lutherans have been seeking closer ties with Mennonites and expressing regret for persecutions - sometimes under Lutheran auspices - which Mennonites and other Anabaptists received in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Lutheran World Federation Council at its October 2009 meeting in Geneva, adopted a statement asking for forgiveness from God and from Mennonites "for the harm that our forebears in the sixteenth century committed to Anabaptists, for forgetting or ignoring this persecution in the intervening centuries, and for all inappropriate, misleading and hurtful portraits of Anabaptists and Mennonites made by Lutheran authors, in both popular and scholarly forms, to the present day.”"We pray that God may grant to our communities a healing of our memories and reconciliation," the statement said.

LWF General Secretary-elect Rev. Martin Junge spoke of the history between Lutherans and Mennonites and of the action of reconciliation expected to take place at the LWF Eleventh Assembly in Stuttgart Germany this coming July. "This history can't be erased. But we must take on responsibility for it, and ensure that it is not repeated.”

One way to do that work is by identifying lessons learned from past errors, lessons that might have particular import as we engage challenging theological differences in the life of the church today. 

First, the hurling anathemas (look it up!) threats and curses is no way to engage theological differences no matter how significant they might be. No good can come from this. And second - thank God – we don’t need to wait five hundred years to claim the healing and reconciling waters of Christ’s peace. It’s always there, and it’s ours here, right now for the asking!

Thank you God for giving us that gift, and thank-you Ervin for believing it!