Embracing the New Samaria

Opening Our Eyes to Our Multiethnic Future

Alejandro Mandes

• Publisher: NavPress
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781641584340
• eBook ISBN: 9781641584364
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

What does the Bible tell us about ethnic diversity? How far do we need to travel to fulfill the Great Commission?

Walk out your front door and you'll find our "new Samaria"—a land of immigrants, refugees, and people of countless cultures and backgrounds longing for us to welcome them and to share the good news.

Dr. Alejandro Mandes has dedicated his life to helping bridge cultural gaps in the church. He shares his vision for the church "to see, love, reach, and ultimately be the new Samaria in a way that brings true transformation to our churches and communities." A Latino and a native of the US-Mexico borderland, he has traveled around the world to understand cultures, equip thousands of leaders, and befriend influencers within the emerging immigrant church.

With the ultimate goal of unity, Embracing the New Samaria will help you to consider new ways to do church that accommodates multiethnicity, community development, and theological diversity. You'll see that Mandes is a teacher who admonishes out of love and trains from a huge, passionate heart. You'll be challenged with thoughtful questions, hear memorable stories, learn key strategies, and make plans to equip those around you to impact your changing community in loving, tangible, and practical ways.

It's time for all of us to catch the vision that Mandes presents, to make disciples and love our neighbors, so that we embrace a great community of every tribe, language, and tongue.

CHAPTER 1: Recalibrating Our Vision

ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES is A Christmas Carol (1984), based on the novel by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge, a name that today has become synonymous with stinginess, is a curmudgeonly businessman who experiences a remarkable transformation. At the beginning, we see Scrooge walking down the street when he is solicited for help for the poor. His response is callous.

“Are there no prisons?” he asks.

“Plenty of prisons . . .”

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“Both very busy, sir . . .”

“Those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”[1]

Shortly thereafter he is confronted by his deceased business associate, Marley, who expresses concern for his soul. Marley, who is wandering about as a troubled spirit, tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three ghosts. The first ghost recounts Scrooge’s past and how business became his god. When the second ghost visits, he reveals the joys of Christmas that Scrooge has missed all around him. Before his departure, the ghost opens his robe and reveals two gaunt, dirty, and hungry children.

Scrooge asks, “Spirit, are they yours?”

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”[2]

Scrooge demands that they be covered up. He doesn’t want to see them any longer. They are not his problem. The ghost obliges but says they are still there.

People throughout all time have chosen to not see uncomfortable truths when confronted with them. We choose to look away or cover them up, but that does not mean they are not there. We might not be as crass as Scrooge and dismiss people by calling them “surplus population,” but we, too, hedge ourselves from issues that cause dissonance.

This story is reminiscent of the many times in Scripture when Jesus opened the eyes of the disciples to see things that they had become blind to. Humans are contextual beings. We see and interpret things around us based on the culture and context of the time in which we are living. When the disciples began following Jesus, they viewed their theology and worldview through a very particular historical, societal, and political lens. Very quickly we begin to see Jesus turn everything on its head. It turns out that the disciples had a lot to learn.

We as Christians face the same problem today. As Christian church leaders, we all embrace a mission for our lives and our ministry, and the ways in which we live out the mission are influenced by our culture. The question we must continually ask ourselves is, What or who might I be overlooking?

My guess is that some of you will define the church’s mission more in terms of evangelization—sharing the Good News with people around you, making disciples, planting churches, sending missionaries to the ends of the earth—and for good reason, as this is the Great Commission that Jesus left for us. Others of you might define the church’s mission more in terms of loving people—showing compassion toward the suffering, serving your community, bringing justice to the oppressed. This, too, is essential, as it is the Great Commandment that Jesus left for us.

As I stated in the introduction, both of these facets of the mission are essential. Unfortunately, we as Christians have done a poor job of executing both at the same time. The tendency of many churches is to lean more toward one, and in my experience in full-time ministry, as the population of our country has shifted, many churches have leaned into the evangelism mandate while the Great Commandment to love our neighbors has fallen to the wayside. We find ourselves wondering, just as the religious expert did in Luke 10, “Who is my neighbor?” and hope that the answer is people who are just like us. We’ve filled our churches with people who look like us, talk like us, eat the same foods as us—people who aren’t going to make us too uncomfortable or make too many waves. The reality is that we’re only willing to fulfill the Great Commandment halfway. I’ll share more about this in chapter 7.

As you reflect on the way you are living the mission as a Christian and as a church, think about the people who are sitting at your table and the values you emphasize. Who and/or what is missing? Many of us have blind spots that we don’t even realize are there. It’s hard to see what you don’t know. Jesus saw the blindness in his disciples, and he was prepared to overturn centuries of conventional wisdom in order to recalibrate their vision.

Twelve Clueless Guys

In John 4, at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, he gave his disciples a not-so-subtle command to look at what they did not want to see. Many people refer to this chapter as being about “the woman at the well,” but I don’t think it’s as much about the woman at the well as it is about twelve clueless guys being taught an important lesson by their master. The story is about more than the woman’s conversion and subsequent witnessing; while that aspect is very important, there is more to the story. Jesus used his encounter with the Samaritan woman as an opportunity to train his disciples, and we also have much to learn from this lesson in today’s context.

In John 4:1-4, we see that Jesus intentionally chose to go through Samaria with his disciples. If you know the history and cultural context of the Samaritans and their relationship with the Jewish people, you’ll understand why this decision was so significant. Jesus is teaching his disciples a lesson about the importance of mission over convention. While I’m certain that Jesus had the heart of the Samaritan woman in mind, he also had a bigger, broader lesson to teach regarding the disciples’ predisposition to not see people that their worldview told them are not of value. Frankly, the lesson is as important today as it was then.

In 2 Kings 17, we learn that Israel and Judah were not keeping the commandments of the Lord, so God sent the people of Israel away from their own land into Assyria. So the area would not be depopulated, the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and they began to reside in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. We learn that the new residents did not follow the ways of the Lord, so God sent lions among them, which killed some of them.

As a result, the king sent one of the priests who had been carried away from Samaria back into the land in order to teach them how to live in a way that would please the Lord. Interestingly, while they did learn to fear the Lord, they still served their own gods “according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away” (2 Kings 17:33).

Here is an interesting point. When the Jews came back to the land, the Samaritans did not leave. Instead, they inhabited the section between Israel and Judah and were loathed by the Jews as unwelcome immigrants. But they had been living in the land for around two hundred years, so as far as the Samaritans were concerned, the Jews were the immigrants. My point is that both groups should have exercised a bit of pause relative to who were the landowners. The Jews forgot that they were at least remigrants to the area. Even though the Samaritans considered themselves worshipers of the Jewish god, the Jews never accepted them; in fact, the Jews hated them. The Jews called them dogs and declared that “righteous” Jews would not walk among them.

The Appointment That Should Have Never Happened

Taking this context into consideration, it’s obvious that Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well is an appointment that should have never happened. Jesus, who was a prominent Jewish rabbi, should have never walked through Samaria with his disciples. Furthermore, when Jesus stopped by the well to speak to a Samaritan woman, he was going way out on a limb.

Jesus sent the disciples into the Samaritan city to get food while he stayed out by the well. He knew that the disciples would have resisted his decision to talk to this woman, just as they resisted when women brought their children to be blessed by him. He had to get rid of the disciples for this conversation to happen.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.

JOHN 4:7-10

The conversation between Jesus and the woman went on for a few more verses, but verse 10 is essentially the outline of their entire conversation. Allow me to break it down, since I’m amazed by the theology packed into this conversation.

1. First, Jesus clarifies the what: when he refers to “water,” he’s actually talking about the gift of God, the living water, which is eternal life.
2. Then he addresses the who: the source of the living water, the giver of eternal life, drawing attention to himself as the Messiah.
3. Finally, he refers to the how: in order to receive the gift of eternal life, you must ask the giver and he will give it to you.

In the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, you can see the wheels in her brain turning as she tries to work out the theology and figure out who Jesus is and how he fits into the story of God that she’s been taught. In fact, she asks him for the “living water” before she even understands that he is the Savior. After he points out her sin and she comes to realize her need for the salvation he brings, she doesn’t need to ask again. The work is done.

At this point, the disciples return from getting food in the city. We can only imagine the looks of judgment that the disciples give this woman as she talks with Jesus. She walks away from the conversation under the gaze of the judgmental disciples, but it doesn’t matter. She is a transformed woman.

The woman left that conversation no longer afraid of people’s judgments. It is reasonable to speculate that she may not have been welcome at the water wells inside the city because of her reputation; therefore, what she did next was remarkable. John 4:28-39 says: “The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ‘Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did.’” Her testimony was simple. The people immediately went to see Jesus, not because he revealed her sin—everybody knew her sin—but because they saw how the woman was transformed.

Mission over Convention

Now here is where the real lesson begins. The disciples wonder why their beloved rabbi was speaking to a Samaritan woman, as it goes against every social and cultural norm that has been ingrained in them. They are completely unaware that Jesus has just transformed a person’s life. They return from the city with chips, cookies, and ham sandwiches (okay, maybe not ham sandwiches), while the woman returns with more souls to transform. I believe the visible contrast we see there was intended.

In this passage we see Jesus crossing cultures and breaking down barriers. Jesus could tell that the disciples were surprised, maybe even disappointed, that he was engaging in an interaction that shouldn’t have happened. In response, Jesus tells them, “Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest’” (John 4:35, NIV).

My father-in-law was a farmer for most of his life in North Dakota. It was literally his job to look at the harvest. All farmers know that they h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Endorsements
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I: See the New Samaria
• Part II: Love the New Samaria
• Part III: Reach the New Samaria
• Part IV: Be the New Samaria
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author