One of the first things people notice when talking to me is my accent. I was at my favorite thrift store last week when this young lady started talking to me, and then a few minutes later she asked me: “where are you from?” I immediately started playing in my head the same old ‘I am a victim foreigner’ tape: ‘is it because I look different, is it my accent, can she just make a small talk without pointing out that I look and sound different?”… and amidst my negative thoughts I said “I am from Lebanon,” and then she said “oh nice, I am from Uzbekistan.” She was an immigrant too.

A while later she asked me about the tattoo on my back, which is written in Arabic, and I said it is a verse from the Bible, it says “For the Lord is spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.” And then because I knew the dominant religion of Uzbekistan is Islam, I either felt intimidated or in order not to intimidate her, I added: “It is about freedom,” downplaying by my comment the biblical tone and emphasizing the secular values tone; everyone likes freedom after all.  She then added: “so are you a Christian?” “I am”, I answered, and she said “so am I.”

So here I am, judging her once, and then judging her twice while she showed nothing but good intentions, and all she was trying to do was bond with me. In both of her questions, she was pointing out the similarities between the two of us, but all I could focus on were the differences… I could pretty much end the sermon here, don’t you think?

But that takes us to the story of the encounter between Jesus and a woman from Samaria.

Jesus approaches the woman near a well, and asks her a favor: “would you give me a drink?” Isn’t it strange for a foreigner on the well to ask another complete foreigner to hand them a drink? I mean they are both there for the same reason obviously, they are both thirsty and they both need a drink. However, Jesus a man -with a kind of status- asking a woman with a reputation and from the other side of town for a drink, is similar to any of us walking down the street asking a homeless person for ten bucks. Could Jesus have gotten his drink otherwise? Yes. But like the lady from the store, Jesus was just starting a friendly conversation. He was trying to bond with the woman, to tell her that he sees her, he validates her and considers her an equal, that he sees the similarities between them rather than the differences, and even that he needs her help in order to quench his thirst. But, like me, the woman was full of judgments.

Yet, Jesus engages with her in a long conversation that extends over 38. One of the interesting things I’ve read about this story is that it contains the Gospels’ longest conversation of Jesus with one person. So cheers history, Jesus’s longest one-on-one conversation happened with a woman and a foreigner.

So what’s the story behind the story? Last year pastor Aart preached on this text and he explained how the schism between Jews and Samaritans dates back to the OT times when the Hebrew kingdom split into Northern and Southern kingdoms around the year 930 BC. A hostility that is literally a thousand years old, and is still going on: “Why are you talking to me?” the woman interrogates Jesus. “Haven’t you noticed my accent? Because I sure have noticed yours!” Aren’t you supposed to hate people like me? Shouldn’t you look down at me? That reminded me of something that happened last week: Pastor Pam met our homeless friend Preston for the first time and she said “Hi I am Pamela,” extending her hand to shake his. He hesitated for a few seconds, trying to confirm whether she really wants to shake his hand, and why? The woman is thinking the same, why is Jesus not worried about the consequences of associating with her?

“You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan,” she reminds him. Most commentators will emphasize how the woman brings prejudice into the relationship, but here I have to say that she was not the only one in this encounter who came with prejudice. I cannot but remember the words of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry in Matthew, when he first called his disciples, he sent them out instructing them: “to the way of the Gentiles do not go, and into a city of the Samaritans do not enter, but go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” Jesus too had his moments of weakness; he was a Jew, after all, a result of centuries of tradition, centuries of prejudice and animosity.  So… what changed now?

Friends, it is safe to say that Jesus’s worldview was also subject to be challenged and changed. In other words, from the time he judged Samaritans as unworthy of the message of salvation until the events of this story took place, Jesus himself went through a transformation. And so he passes through Samaria not trying at all cost to avoid talking to anyone but deliberately starts a conversation with the least qualified individual, a woman, potentially a prostitute, and even more, he asks her for help.

I wonder if Jesus was at all thirsty. We are nowhere told in the story that he had gotten any water to drink. That was never the point, to begin with. But the encounter between him and the woman at the well ends with the belief of many Samaritans from that town in him as the savior Messiah, and that they too are counted among those who will be saved. The woman brings good news to her village; and a thousand-year-old hostility is cured for those who were involved in that conversation, including Jesus himself.

Friends, this story is about Jesus as much as it is about a Samaritan stranger. It is a story of transformation.

One of my favorite contemporary biblical scholars Dr. William P. Brown has a famous saying: “shift happens.” With this humorous expression, he echoes the biblical truth that transformation is humans’ attempt to keep up with God, and the universal truth that we cannot stop transformation from happening. Jesus acknowledges that shift happens even in his worldview, even in the word of God.

So we see here a Jesus, who his dynamic, teachable and open to transformation, making shifts in his own beliefs, expanding the frame of his mission from a tribal to a universalistic scope. By the end of the story, Jesus claims back the woman’s and her people’s right to be treated as equals to the Israelites, and both she and Jesus walk away transformed and healed.

Friends, transformation of the mind is our theme for this week, however, it has never been as relevant and urgent as such a time as this. in the outbreak of the Coronavirus, we are learning to transform the way we do things. And I am not only talking about washing our hands, but there is a major transformation that needs to take place. The crisis we are all in is teaching us to transform the way we do and be Church. It is an overdue redefinition of the concepts of church and community. It is funny and sad, that a global crisis would finally urge us all to start transforming our values of how we are to act and respond as communities of faith.

But, maybe we needed a reminder; the pandemic, like the gospel for today, reminded all of us that the way we are doing things no longer works and transformation in and of our faith communities is needed for survival, but also to be faithful to our calling as Christians.

Thank God for the good news that God can and will transform our ideologies, can and will transform our societies, and can and will transform our humanity.

May our minds be found ready. Amen.