Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
336. The Untold Power of Women's Leadership in Scripture
The story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well is familiar to many, but what if everything we thought we knew about her was filtered through centuries of misinterpretation? Dr. Caryn Reeder joins us for a paradigm-shifting conversation that challenges traditional views of this remarkable biblical figure.
For generations, sermons have painted the Samaritan woman as a sexual sinner—a prostitute, a fallen woman. Yet as Dr. Reeder points out, the text of John 4 never once mentions sin or forgiveness. This deliberate sexualization and minimization of her story has had far-reaching consequences, contributing to the silencing of women's voices in Christian communities.
What emerges instead is the portrait of a theological intellectual who engages Jesus in the longest recorded conversation in the Gospel of John. Unlike Nicodemus—the powerful, educated man who meets Jesus in darkness and leaves confused—this nameless Samaritan woman meets Jesus in broad daylight and demonstrates remarkable spiritual insight. She becomes what Dr. Reeder calls a "paragon"—a touchstone against which discipleship should be measured.
The contrast couldn't be more striking: a marginalized woman becomes the first evangelist while the religious elite remain in darkness. This reversal challenges everything we think we know about spiritual authority and who God chooses to work through. When understood in its historical context, the Samaritan woman's marital history reflects the harsh realities that women faced in the ancient world, rather than a moral failure.
This conversation invites us to reconsider how we read scripture and how we value voices in our communities. What might happen if we recognized the theological contributions of those we've overlooked? How might our understanding of leadership transform if we truly saw this woman as Jesus saw her?
Learn more about Dr. Reeder's work: Westmont
Order Caryn's book: The Samaritan Woman's Story
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As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme. Here on today's Heart Lift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world one heart at a time.
Speaker 1:Today, we welcome Dr Karen A Reeder. She is a professor of New Testament and coordinator of the Gender Studies program at Westmont College. We're going to learn so many new things about the Samaritan woman. Her new book is the Samaritan Woman's Story, Reconsidering John 4, after the hashtag church to movement. So this is going to be a grab your journal conversation, because a huge part of this year, as you know, is focusing on becoming emotionally intelligent, emotionally healthy, and those will lead to our capacity to be spiritually attuned to what God is doing in the life of the church in this time. So let's welcome Dr Karen, a reader, to the show. Oh, my goodness, dr Karen, I know that we will call you Karen and I love the way your name is spelled. That's Irish, isn't it? C-a-r-y-n. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Who knows? My mom got it from a friend. I love it.
Speaker 1:It's so lovely, this book, the Samaritan Woman Story. I said before we hit record, I have so many notes I have learned, I love to learn new words and how. I had never heard the word paragon. Right, I was like wait a minute, I'm not sure I don't know what that is, but I have a whole page of notes. So would you because I know that my lovely heart lifters will read this book can you tell us what a paragon is? And you say this about paragon? This is it. This message is powerful, to be sure. This is what you're writing in describing the Samaritan woman story.
Speaker 1:But, Miguel de la Torre notes. These interpretive moves prevent men and women in the church from identifying the Samaritan woman as an example of women's leadership. Took my breath away. Yes yes, after all, he adds, if the woman at the well or Mary of Magdala are sluts and whores. Interesting that men are never given these titles. How? Could they serve as paragons. How could they serve as paragons to emulate or have anything virtuous to contribute to the conversation? This sentence is where I would love to start.
Speaker 1:After you tell us what a paragon is the reductive sexualization of the Samaritan woman and other biblical women contributes to the minimization. Write that word down, heartlifters. Minimization of women in Christian communities. We've not talked about any of this here on today's Heart Lift and that's why you're here and I think that word minimization I also did a deep word study on. That is why I want you here, because I feel like now is the time where that needs to stop. So welcome again, thank you.
Speaker 2:What is?
Speaker 1:a paragon and let's just dive right on in because we need to.
Speaker 2:Let's just dive right on in because we need to. Yeah, yeah. So the Samaritan woman is a paragon, right. She is a model for us to follow in understanding faith development and understanding the call of Jesus. For all disciples not just women, but for all disciples she is a model to follow, but for all disciples she is a model to follow and I think, as a paragon, she is walking ahead of us all and showing us the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I read that it's from the Italian and it means touchstone. Oh my gosh, that is so amazing. And then in the Greek it means to sharpen. So you're telling us that she is this touchstone. Right, and that touchstone I just have to give this because I was just blown away and we really love to learn here. A touchstone is a black stone that was formerly used to judge the purity of gold or silver. The metal was rubbed on the stone and the color of the streak indicated its quality. Touchstone and paragon have come to signify a standard against something which should be judged. That's what you're saying to us. So here is the Samaritan one. Every person inside or outside the walls of a church know this story right. It's referenced in movies, it's referenced. So you chose her. Why is she a paragon? Why? Why did you choose her to focus all this research on?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you look at John's gospel, the story as a whole, of course it's the ancient world, there's a lot of men in it, but in John's gospel there are actually a number of stories through the gospel where women take primacy. So we get Mary, the mother of Jesus, who basically starts Jesus' public ministry at the wedding of Cana, the Samaritan woman and I'll come back to her. Then, right in the middle of the story, you have Martha and her sister Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, right. Martha makes the most vibrant declaration of faith in the Gospel of John. And then, at the end of the story, mary Magdalene going to the tomb and being faithful and meeting, being the first person to meet the risen Jesus, yeah, and she, as the church has often said, becomes the apostle to the apostles, right Taking the message back to them.
Speaker 2:I see the Samaritan woman as an important character in that lineup. She's the only one without a name, which is interesting, and draws our attention to her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, she's also the only one who's not Jewish, right? All the other women are Jewish and would be expected to know something about Jesus, at least a little bit, but a Samaritan woman, what is she going to know? Right, right, and why would she know? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Nameless woman, a Samaritan, an outsider, someone who probably wasn't very wealthy. She's going to a well to get water for her household herself, not sending someone else. She is a woman, however, in the Gospel of John, who becomes the model of what a disciple is supposed to do. I can't say.
Speaker 1:I've been taught that, and this is why I love you, and that's why your voice is necessary. That's why you're alive in this time.
Speaker 2:Because her story gets completely minimized. She is turned into yeah, she's just, she's turned into this example of women's sin, women's sexual sin in particular, and because of that, that's where my term the sexualization and the minimization of her really comes into play.
Speaker 1:It's very important words.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's what the history of this woman's story has been in the church. She's an example of women's sexual sin and therefore her story is only applicable to women who are engaged in sexual sin, and the rest of us don't need to pay attention to her.
Speaker 1:But you give us the historical context of who she actually was, that she wasn't a whore, she wasn't. I'm just saying these words because that's what we are told. They don't say that in church pulpits usually, but because Jesus brings to the attention, and it's written, that she had well, you know, you've had five husbands in fact. But like you say here, this is so revelational to me Sin is not mentioned in that conversation.
Speaker 2:Karen, why am I not seeing that? I know right, I know right. I was actually. I was teaching on this story at a church for a gathering of it was an older, like a Sunday school for older adults, and at the end of my presentation a woman who had been reading this story all her life raised her hand and said but it says right in there, jesus tells her go and sin no more. And he said, no, it's not there. It doesn't say that. Yeah, so sin is not mentioned in this chapter. Forgiveness is not mentioned in this chapter. There's nothing about that. And that when we look at John's gospel as a whole, jesus is not shy about accusing people of sin.
Speaker 1:No he is not.
Speaker 2:He does it in the very next chapter with a man who he's healing, and that's a consistent thread through John's gospel. Sin is there, and so when it's not there, we should not bring it in.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, we should notice that it's not there. We shouldn't add it to the story. Which is what? If it's not actually like said or added to it, it is assumed.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, yeah, and it's only assumed because of her marital history.
Speaker 1:Right, but you were saying that in that time. Explain why that might not have been a life of sin for her.
Speaker 2:So women in the first century world, in the ancient world in general and this is true for Jewish women, samaritan women, roman women, greek women across the board women were getting married quite young, usually in their mid-teens. Their husbands tended to be significantly older than they were. So we're talking 20-year age gap, sometimes sometimes even more, maybe 10 years as an average right. So right there, you already have a situation where you've got a younger woman, an older man, who's likely to die before she is. Then you have a young widow who needs to get remarried in order to remain alive, right yeah, to sustain her life, Often arranged.
Speaker 1:You say they were often arranged.
Speaker 2:Yeah, marriages were arranged. And they were not arranged because family members thought these two would make a great partnership. It was arranged because the two families thought we can connect with each other, we can use this marriage to make an alliance together, and it will be advantageous to us both in some way economically, socially, yeah. So marriage was not about romance. It was not about love. You might grow to love your spouse, but that was not a prerequisite at all, and women often didn't have a lot of choice, so their parents were telling them who to marry and what their life would look like. So marriage, remarriage, divorce was not uncommon and it was not shameful, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really, it was actually quite common. Why wasn't it shameful?
Speaker 2:Why wasn't it so? Because marriage was about making political and social and economic alliances.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So if you've married your daughter off to one family but then realize actually this other family would make a better alliance for us, for a wealthier household, they could just make a child divorce one. And yeah, yeah, it was super easy. No courts were involved In Roman law. Actually, you could just turn to your spouse and say okay, we're getting divorced now, and that was it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there was nothing more to it than that.
Speaker 1:Is Paul alluding to that in 1 Corinthians 7, like when he talks about it? Is that where we're at?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And for women it could be if they were not interested in getting divorced, if they didn't have another option. That could put them in a quite vulnerable position, which I think is why some of the New Testament texts speak pretty strongly against divorce.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, that's so good to know that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Women. Also important thing to know here is that the children stayed with the father. So if you had children and you were divorced, then you might lose access to your children. There were some family arrangements could mitigate that.
Speaker 1:But it was legally. The children belonged to the father, not the mother. So much plays into the context the context, and that's why I'm so grateful for you being here, because I mean we want to be spiritually intelligent, right and spiritually informed what's the right way to say that In our journey of faith, and so I once again appreciate that. So this is the tales that have been told, the sermons that have been preached, the story. I mean way, way back. You have proof, even to the 16th century, you say, of what you're telling us.
Speaker 1:You know that this conversation with the Samaritan woman and Jesus was way more important than it's been given credence. Yes, yes, and that you say, is because she was intelligent herself. Right? Yeah, I love that you say that.
Speaker 2:Yes, more so than John. 3 and.
Speaker 1:Nicodemus. So can you compare and contrast that?
Speaker 2:That's so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah no. I love this too. Yeah, so John 3, you've got Jesus meeting a very powerful Jewish man, a Pharisee, so someone who is super well-educated. He has a name, nicodemus.
Speaker 1:He has a name. He is not nameless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the middle of the night in the dark and yeah, yeah, and he's basically John tells us he stays in the dark. Right, he comes out of his conversation with Jesus with no understanding. He is almost blatantly disrespectful. In his conversation with Jesus, jesus says you have to be born again. And Nicodemus says well, you want me to crawl back into my mother's womb? The conversation element of chapter three is pretty short actually. Nicodemus only says a couple sentences and then Jesus talks. For some time no-transcript are in the dark, remain in the dark and they don't come to the light because they don't want their sin to be seen.
Speaker 2:Then the next chapter. You've got Jesus meeting a nameless woman who's a Samaritan, who would be an outsider by the standards of the Jewish community. She's probably poor. She goes to the well to draw water for her household in the middle of the day. So bright light, right, contrast to Nicodemus. She says at the end of the story when she's talking to her neighbors this guy I just met at the well, I'm pretty sure he's the Messiah. He told me everything I've ever done. Her deeds are revealed, right.
Speaker 1:They are.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and so what Nicodemus is hiding? The woman is making clear in the middle of the day she has the longest conversation with Jesus in the entire gospel of John. Usually it is Usually in John's gospel someone starts a conversation with Jesus, but then it basically turns into a long sermon from Jesus. But this woman maintains her place in the conversation. She says more than anyone else, and her question about worship is what turns this story into the theological message that we really should be focusing on right, that all people are welcome in the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1:The inclusivity you say. I love that you bring that to point. Yes, it does demonstrate that, but you give words. I think that have never been put to the story. So, like minimization, sexualization, intellectual, their conversation is she has, she has knowledge and I've just never heard anyone bring that to our table that she was knowledgeable. She knew about jacob's.
Speaker 2:Well, she knew these things and you're telling us she shouldn't have I would say you know, jacob's well was right there in their community. So they probably grew up with the legends of that oral tradition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, overheard it, or heard it, or Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would also say the issue of worship. And where is the place to worship? Is it in Jerusalem, where the Jews say you should worship, or in the Samaritan temple, where the Samaritans say you should worship? They are actually. The swell is right at the base of the mountain where the Samaritan temple is. So again, local knowledge, Local knowledge the woman knows what's happening. Yeah, she's aware of this huge theological divide. Yeah, she's smart.
Speaker 1:She's smart.
Speaker 2:Let's just say it yeah, she's smart, and she's smart enough and savvy enough to bring this question to Jesus. This weird man, jewish guy, who's sitting by the well and asks her for water, and she's immediately like hold on, I'm Samaritan. Did you realize that? Yeah, hello, what are you asking me for here? And then she is able to participate in that conversation in a way that, yeah, like Nicodemus can't hold on to his own place in the conversation, no one else in John is able to hold on to that place.
Speaker 1:But what does this say to me? What should that say to the women who are now living in this particular culture at this particular time? You know, we were born for such a time as this. She was born for that time. How do we, like I, have been so immersed in her story for so long because I just love her and you are now making me love her more, but how then can, I okay, live up to her standard?
Speaker 2:as a paragon right. What am I?
Speaker 1:supposed to be scratching my stone on with her to see if I'm pure gold or pure silver. What can I really take away into my daily life today, in this century?
Speaker 2:This wasn't on my plan, but I just feel like I want to ask you. I think, educating ourselves right, reading the books, paying attention to what's going on socially, politically, culturally. I think that's what she was doing. I think, participating in public conversations right, she could have turned around and walked away when she saw this man asking her questions at a well. Right, she could have gone back home and ignored it.
Speaker 1:But she participated, she showed up, she sat down, she sat down, she took the risk yeah, she took the risk to be countercultural, we could say, which I've always taught when I teach on her. There was something about him, as we can only imagine, that made her feel safe, I think. I mean, I want to hope that. I think he created a sense of security and safety by his mere presence, and so her curiosity was then like oh, but I strangely feel safe here, Right?
Speaker 2:You shouldn't feel safe here, not threatened. Why do I feel safe I?
Speaker 1:wasn't threatened, she wasn't threatened by. He's not threatening that way At least that's how I've interpreted that story, and I think you're saying that that is correct, you know. And so she's smart, she's informing herself, she is. How else?
Speaker 2:can I draw? Participating? Participating is the word.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, and she then takes this message back to her own community, right? She speaks out in her community?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she goes. She's supposedly the first evangelist. Okay, we do hear that from certain teachings. Yes, she goes she's supposedly the first evangelist. Okay, we do hear that from certain teachings. She goes back and the point of the story that you bring out that once again is just like yes, is that they listen to her and they take her at her word and they follow her. So is that not, as you say, the paragon of women in leadership? Why is that missed?
Speaker 2:Right? Well, once you've decided she's just a sexual sinner, then you can ignore that part of the story.
Speaker 1:That's right. That goes back to that minimization. Let's keep this safe so that we minimize this force. This is where I'm at in my life and this is what project I'm working on. Is that it is as Deborah was in Judges 6, and then in Judges 7,? Her song says I arose, I, deborah arose, a mother in Israel. I feel like this woman arose as a mother in Samaria. Is that I'm checking myself?
Speaker 1:here because you're so remarkable and brilliant, you know, and it's like why is something minimized? And let me just read that definition, because I just had to the action of reducing something to the lowest level or making something smaller or less important than it is. Smaller or less important than it is. Minimizing, making it smaller? Well, that sounds a lot like oppression too, which is why you got into this book, from the hashtag me too, and then the hashtag church too. Yes, don't want to stop our momentum with the woman of the well, but you got angry and I feel like a part of what we're being called to be as a maternal present, as mothering to whatever sphere we're in is we've got to get angry. I've been angry for a good while. Yeah, what about? What did that anger look like?
Speaker 2:in your life.
Speaker 1:What did that look like If you would be help us?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, I was tying myself in knots over the news, you know, listening to more podcasts, reading the accounts that were coming out and then hearing the church's silence. That was yeah, yeah. I remember going up to a friend of mine, another New Testament scholar, at a conference and saying what are we going to do? What can we do in this situation? Was that?
Speaker 1:a male or female.
Speaker 2:It was a female. Okay, yeah. So some of the things that I started doing is certainly bringing it into my teaching, so talking about it with students, making it a place in the classroom where we could talk about these issues. But I'm a biblical scholar, I'm not a counselor, I'm not a pastor. No, I didn't know quite how to bring my anger together with something constructive.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love that.
Speaker 2:And yeah, but then one day I was thinking about the Samaritan woman story and how often we hear that. Well, she is just a sinner and a prostitute and A sexual sinner which is like you bring that into the right place of this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I've never seen her that way in that story.
Speaker 1:Well, I never have either, but that's just me. She's a theologian, she really is, but that's radical, I guarantee you. In some of the places where I have sat as a female in a church structure and system that could have got me ousted.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So then, thinking of that contrast between the way that I see this woman and the way she's often presented in the church, and thinking about how the way the church has traditionally taught the stories of women in scripture contributes to the problem of the abuse and oppression of women to the minimization of women in the church.
Speaker 1:Which is silencing the voice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if we want to recognize women's leadership, if we want to restore women to full participation in churches, if we want to protect people who are vulnerable from abuse, then we've got to go back and reread these stories and teach them in different ways.
Speaker 1:And you're doing that.
Speaker 2:I hope.
Speaker 1:No, you are, Karen for sure, and so it bothered you. Like I've been saying lately, this certain issue about mothering and this maternal rise of matriarchs in the church has bothered me, and I am a counselor and I have heard thousands as I say in the intro to the podcast of women I'm just maybe I don't even know thousands upon thousands in my 35, 40 years of this, you know who are silently weeping, silently shamed, silently minimized and then oppressed. I would say oppression is what I was oppressed, my voice was oppressed, yeah, okay, yeah, my voice was oppressed, yeah, okay, yeah. So you got angry, and I'm thankful that you did, but your anger looks like from what you're telling me a compulsion, a bothering, a prodding, a. I've got to do something about this, and I do think that's what your book is once again, another brick in my building of my own platform upon which to stand and use my voice. Your book is doing that and I'm so grateful because we have to get angry in all the right ways.
Speaker 2:We have to get angry, yes, in all the right ways. Yes, yes, not let our anger eat us up, but let our anger drive us towards justice Towards justice, yes, and solutions, and that's what you're saying to us.
Speaker 1:So that's where you started. You would read the news, because every one of us is reading the news right now, and if you're not getting angry, okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But, I am certainly getting angry, and I heard a brilliant teaching by someone else that I love, emily P Freeman, and she was talking about how we can be resistant to what's happening, and I pulled from her yesterday. Just sometimes resistance looks like prayer, so I'm guessing that you probably started to pray and talk to God. Okay, so angers first, and then you started talking to colleagues.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then how did you ultimately get to?
Speaker 1:putting listening to students. Okay, Gathering, gathering. And then you said I'm going to write a book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I was at another conference and ran into the person who ended up editing this book for me for InterVarsity Press, and we were talking about book projects and ideas and I said I've got this, I have this idea. I'm not sure if it would work. And she said yes, do it. Yes and amen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that I will say I wrote this book so fast. It was it just I felt Wow, yeah, it just poured, poured out, it poured, it poured out of me Research, your life, everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, it doesn't seem like you did, because it's you know it's not a beach, read it's not a light read.
Speaker 2:Well, it certainly had been things I'd been thinking about a long time, so that helped with the speed of it, but also, I think, just my passion for getting this story out and for helping people think differently, think clearly and deeply and truthfully about what we've done to the women in scripture and what that does to women in our churches.
Speaker 1:You know you write this, karen, without the lens of sin blinding us. It's just so freeing. I guess I'm just starting to feel more free. You know, we see this woman as she expresses wisdom, thoughtfulness and awareness. We've already said she was an intelligent partner to Jesus. In a way, nicodemus was not. This story challenges the values we place on status and identity. Can you speak to that? Because that's really the core of what we're must begin to find her voice and her not being minimized. Right Is you've got to know your value and your identity. And so you say this story speaks to the value we place on status and identity. Help us understand why it does, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would take us back there to that contrast between Nicodemus in chapter three and this woman in chapter four. I think John's gospel is so beautiful in the way it sets up this contrast that we come out of the introduction to Nicodemus in chapter three thinking, oh, he's powerful, he's smart, he's going to know who Jesus is and recognize Jesus and join right in. And of course he doesn't.
Speaker 1:No, he doesn't go back and disciple his community, no, no.
Speaker 2:And then we meet this woman and right from the beginning we know she is no one, she's an outsider, she's poor, she's just a woman. But she is the one who John's gospel presents as a model for discipleship. Not Nicodemus, and I think John, right there, is just hitting us over the head with the things that humans value. The things that society values are not right. We don't value the right things and we need to shift our perception to see that the people that God is working through may not be who we expect based on our own human value systems and our own cultural value systems, but they turn out to be the models, the paragons that we should be following.
Speaker 1:That is so unearthing and disarming. What does that mean to us then? Like I mean, let me paraphrase I really want us to understand that because of who Nicodemus was, I mean, he was all powerful, he was, you know, at the top of the game, as you would say, key influencer, Right. But here comes this woman who is anything but so all through COVID, I taught. I was living in that story, writing about her in my book, and what I was taking away for myself and then I thought I think this is for women at large in the body of Christ is that God is looking, he tells the, Jesus tells the woman at the well, I'm not about that system. It's not going to be about the walls, it's not going to be about that. It's going to be about those who worship me in spirit and in truth. Can you enlarge our understanding of what he meant by that?
Speaker 2:enlarge our understanding of what he meant by that. Yeah, so I mean it's nothing more or less than a spiritual revolution. I know, Right? Yes, what does it mean, though? So the conversation right there it's about do we worship in Jerusalem or in the Samaritan temple? So where does God live? Who are the people of God? For Jews, you've got to worship in Jerusalem. That's where God lives, and if you're not Jewish, then you're not part of the people of God. And the Samaritans are saying no, it's our temple, this is where God lives. You have to be part of us to be part of the people of God, and Jesus is just like nah, Actually, when you're in my presence, you're in the temple of God, right? So that takes us back the very first chapter of John's gospel. John says the word became flesh and tabernacled, templed among us Usually that's translated in English as dwelt.
Speaker 1:But when you look at dwell, it means to make a home.
Speaker 2:It just means to make a house in, right, yeah. And so when you're in the presence of Jesus, you're in the temple of God. God is there with you. And so he tells this woman you don't need to go to Jerusalem, you don't need to go to the temple here. God is looking for people who worship in spirit and truth. Right that's open to everyone.
Speaker 1:Inclusivity again. That's that word I couldn't find a little while ago Inclusivity, thank God. So what does that look like to us now? What might that look like if I'm out and I sit on a bench and then Jesus is sitting there with me? What would he be saying to me today? Because that's what I felt during COVID he kept saying during lockdown because first time in my life I wasn't in church. Yeah right, I'm still not back, not there yet, and it's perplexing my husband. I talked about it again last night, you know. But that system I just it's tough for me head is going to require that I have those who will worship me in spirit and truth. It's not going to be about a temple or system. It's going to be about that while I'm still, you know, downloading that and unwrapping it.
Speaker 1:I wonder if you can help me with that. What would that look like today? That's a tough question.
Speaker 2:You don't have to answer it. You don't have to answer it. Yeah, there are people who are doing different things right Doing, trying to come up with some sort of a house church model. That is an alternative.
Speaker 1:Lots of different things are going on, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. And communities that are not just physical but also virtual. So those are other ways to connect with people. I think listening to voices that we're not accustomed to listening to is important. So it's something I try to do in my classes. I'm teaching a class right now on gender and theology and we're yeah, yeah, it's a fantastic class.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's so amazing. I want to move to Santa Barbara and be in the classes.
Speaker 2:But one of our key books that we're reading is by Love Lazarus Seacrest, who is a Black American pastor and professor of New Testament, and she writes she brings together the wisdom of her Black church tradition and her feminist voice. Love this the interpretation of the New Testament and gives us some different ways of thinking about texts and traditions and also the work of being the church in the world right. So, coming from the Black church tradition, she is challenging us to be agents of justice, to be speaking up against oppression, and I think that's powerful. That's a way to be church that we don't always practice very well. At least in my traditions we do not always practice very well, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, so, using your voice and so all of this is so much food for thought, karen and I. Just I keep falling over myself in gratitude to you, but I can't help it. It's really been jarring in all the beautiful, right ways of making me think and think. How am I showing up for the world? Am I living passively? What am I doing and how do I want to do it? And what does that look like? As I move forward, I want to be a woman of wisdom, of thoughtfulness and of awareness. I want to be an intelligent partner with my savior right and be able to walk out my door with neighbors that I know are of all different races, genders, thoughts and have intelligent conversations.
Speaker 2:Is that what I'm going for?
Speaker 1:yes, yes yes, so that means I have to do some work, I have to listen and sit at tables where there are voices that are different than mine, okay, and learn how to aim a 3-3 life by walking together and being agreed, but then learning that I can agree to disagree.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely is that what this model looks like? Into yeah, but also being able to speak up and say I appreciate what you're saying. Here's my experience, and here are a few things that I've been reading and that leads me to a different perspective, and here are ways that I'm acting because of that different perspective I've had right. So, oh no, that's really a fabulous takeaway.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for that. Those are words, those are words, because I want to know how I can implement this woman's story. You know I wrote down here how can I be this Samaritan woman and be an example of women's leadership wherever my feet find me.
Speaker 1:And of course I want that to be within the church. I believe in the body of Christ, I believe in community, I believe in communion. I believe in it. I know that we've been set aside for a while and God will place this back in and, hopefully, as a woman leader, before we go, I have to honor your time. I wonder my biggest. I want to be able to take this away. How can I? If the atmosphere is one of minimization, what would be a great response for me other than leaving the church? Yeah right, because I feel like, when I look back on my journey, I didn't necessarily need to leave the church, even though my husband and I felt like we should, and all of those things. It's not a regret, but I wonder wow, if I had all of the information I have now, how could I have maybe been more of a bridge and what would that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, asking you tough things, hey, yeah, not a light subject, no, and I will say, I'm in a church that is very, very affirming and positive of women in leadership and I actually grew up in a church where we had women pastors and no one questioned it, wow Karen. So I did spend part of my life in situations where that was not the case, wow Karen. And he was quite against women in leadership and really really did limit what roles women could take in the church. I didn't give up, I just kept bringing well, have you looked at this text in the Bible? Have you read this?
Speaker 1:Have you ever thought about this?
Speaker 2:Years later, he told me that he'd actually thought that I was a heretic for all those conversations, I have no trouble believing that I've been called rebellious.
Speaker 1:I guess I'm not a heretic because I'm not a scholar like you, or?
Speaker 2:though maybe you know who knows, yeah, yeah, but eventually he read something that helped him rethink those conversations. He happened to read something written by a man, so you know, that's a way in to say have you read this by this man that you really respect and he right, is that a good one for that?
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think pulling in, pulling in resources that show you're not speaking out of nowhere, right? You've got the receipts to show where these things come from. I like the way you put that. I've got the receipts. Hard'm going to be brave, I'm going to keep speaking, because I do see the truth here and if we're missing that truth, then we're missing a huge part of God's kingdom.
Speaker 1:So good, so you now embody. How do you embody the Samaritan woman after spending so much time with her?
Speaker 2:Asking questions, keeping conversations going, I suppose preaching about her right yes, being a witness to the Samaritan woman's story as well as.
Speaker 1:Jesus' story. Oh, I love it. I love how you say that you know being a witness to it, like I always tend to make them my friends. You know, I spent two years with Hannah when I wrote my second book in First Samuel, and so it's like this woman at the well. I have to get her. I want to give her a name, you know, and I just think her name is Grace, and it's just amazing. And I now want to be a witness to her story and to the stories of all of these women whose stories I carry in the vault of my heart. I want to be a witness to these stories, and now I want to be a witness to my granddaughters, of course, my grandsons as well. So it's now really taking on a matriarchal air, and so I thank you again and again and again. Please continue doing your work.
Speaker 1:I want to read all of your books, because they all will help me, like this one did. And Heartlifters, I really encourage you to get Karen's book and to visit her website and read everything she's ever written in the whole wide world and rise up to be the paragon that is needed so desperately today and that starts. I want to remind us, like what you said, karen. That starts with us knowing that the kingdom of God honors things way differently than the kingdom of this world, all of those things where so many look so important today. Let's just remind ourselves that we're just like the Samaritan woman. Yeah, yeah, and we, you know we need to take our place. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's been delightful to be here with you today.
Speaker 1:You're so welcome. Thank you for listening today. Been delightful to be here with you today. You're so welcome. Thank you for listening today, Heartlifters. This was a very important conversation with Karen and I'm so happy to have brought it to you today. Meet me over at Heart Lift Central on Substack or right on Instagram at Janelle Rairdon, and we will continue this conversation Until next time.
