The peacemaking role of the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-42 : a mirror and challenge to Rwandan women

Abstract

The story of Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4:42 has been interpreted in very different ways. While some patriarchal interpretations of the text have described the Samaritan woman as a woman of disrepute who attempted to distract or seduce Jesus, the present paper reads the story with different eyes. It pays attention to the dignity of this woman by exploring the cultural issues of her time which have been overlooked so that a stereotypical image has been attributed to her. This paper investigates the peacemaking, bridge-building role of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. After being challenged by Jesus' initial transcendence of the barriers caused by the existing social traditions, the transformed woman became a tool for unity building between the Judeans and the Samaritans. Understood from this perspective, the Samaritan woman becomes a mirror for and a challenge to women finding themselves in societies marred with divisions, exclusion and prejudice. Women in general, and Rwandan women in particular, cannot but learn from the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-12, having themselves experienced a history of disempowerment as women in a situation of discrimination and ethnic conflict that culminated in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

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