A Woman Invites Us In
Bill Loader[1]
describes this morning gospel reading as a wonderful piece of drama with many
levels of meaning. “As always in John its central character is God and God’s
gift of life through the invitation to live in the holy space of love, the true
worship in the Spirit, which is also the living space of the Father and the
Son. That love, embodied, cuts across racial and cultural prejudice, affirms
women, engages and loves sinners. In a man’s world a woman is the supreme
example, exercising ministry, but doing so with the fragility and hesitancy and
perhaps inadequacy which happens when ordinary human beings engage in ministry.
That is also cutting across a prejudice of perfectionism with which we plague
ourselves. The fruit of such faithfulness is the setting free of others from
what binds them (including us). It is bringing to birth and caring with that as
the goal. The stereotype, Nicodemus, the teacher, will not see this either.”
I wonder how this unnamed Samaritan women, pushed
to the edge by everyone but Jesus speaks to us this Lent?
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