Okay, they don’t precisely “walk into a bar”, but they do meet at their local “watering hole”... the well… literally a hole with water in it. Ha! Do I have your attention yet?! Two people like them are NOT supposed to interact at all, but these two beloved humans conspire to cross religio-socio-cultural boundaries to encounter one another: human to human. Neither do they shy away from the most pressing theological dispute that fuels the sometimes violent antagonism between their respective peoples. The Samaritan woman (anonymous) dives right into the thorns with the Jewish man (Jesus), and by the end of it all she goes to her people with 1) an invitation: “Come and see…”, and 2) an open question “Could this man be…?” Stick around through all the noticings in this gorgeous story, and be treated to a “biblical experiment in decolonization,” thanks to the compassionate heart and imaginative mind of one baptized with the waters of Shoal Lake 40 in Treaty 1 territory, Canada.
Sermon begins at minute 7:41
John 4:1-42
“Stolen Waters, Thirsty People,” Susanne Guenther Loewen, from Unsettling the Word: Biblical Experiments in Decolonization, ed. Steve Heinrichs, Mennonite Church Canada (2018), 220-221.