Response to Wint's sermon on Groundhog Day

[lerite]

The text this week was from John 4, Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. I find I disagree, intellectually and emotionally, with Wint's interpretation, even though some of his points were good.

Comments

[anonymous]

There are two really important insights in here. (1) About the story. The story clearly says that women who have multiple sex partners can discuss theology. And in this story (unlike, say, the women taken in adultery) there is not even any "go and sin no more" happening. It is straight up he "sees" her AND she "sees" him. She does not respond to what he says with shame or even with relief at being accepted, but with interest. "Oh, you must be a prophet." I think you are right that lifting this up matters. (2) The complexity of seeing people and all that stuff about sometimes you can do it and sometimes not. A different point from "let's talk theology" but well work digging into in its own right in further discussion.

[peojkl]

I'm anonymous. Sorry, didn't realize I wasn't logged in.

[world_rim_walke]

Thank you for writing this; I greatly appreciate the discussion of the text & the provoked thought on the function of the church & community in general.

[peojkl]

btw are you and Wint friended on FB? Can he read this?

[peojkl]

OK so I had more time to re-read and think. I do think what you have to say is important and if Wint and you are not FB friends (or maybe even if you are) you ought to email him the link. It's a good and thoughtful and constructive comment. Well worth chewing into in my opinion.

[lerite]

OK, email sent.

[luinied]

Late comment, but: my extremely non-pious reading of that story, on thinking about it, is that it's drawing on the old idea of worldly, "sinful" women as being the only ones who were challenging conversation partners-- you know, as seen in so many portrayals of so many courtesans, and I know this was a thing at least with the Greeks in classical times. Because basically she is bantering with Jesus, and she is coming away impressed that he was both willing and able to banter competently with her. And given that, and that Jesus doesn't push the banter in flirtier directions-- and even counters her attempts to do so-- don't sound to me like bad reasons to conclude that he's a prophet in the later Old Testament sense, where prophets were all about speaking truth to power. What else are you going to conclude about a serious-minded but banter-capable religious person who defies the hierarchy of the time in who he associates with?

[lerite]

This is an astute observation. I am going on facebook now to challenge my preacher friends to mention the relationship between Socrates and Diotima in a sermon. (Huh, Wikipedia tells me that Diotima was a seer or priestess. I somehow acquired the incorrect belief, in college, that she was a hetaira.)