A Wider Table: Samaritans

In Acts 8, Philip carries the gospel to Samaria, where Simon the sorcerer, a man who once held the whole city in awe, believes and is baptized, and then tries to buy the Spirit from Peter and John. I wonder if both stories about Simon are a little bit true, that he was a sincere convert who didn't have his act together yet, and that Peter was still wrestling with a lifetime of assumptions about Samaritans. When we widen the table, things get messy, and Jesus is right there in the mess with us, so we keep asking how to welcome people well while doing the lifelong work of repenting of our own biases.