Week 14 ———  Jesus had to pass through Samaria
John 4:1-4

Recap:
Jesus was baptized on Feb 16 and spent 40 days in the wilderness.  The satan tempted him on March 28.  Then he returned to the area where John was baptizing, and John said, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.”  They travel north to Galilee, where he turns the water into wine at Cana.  Then he travels south to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover.  He throws the money changers out of the temple on April 10, has Passover on April 11, and then speaks with Nicodemus on April 12.  He leaves after the week of Unleavened Bread, and his disciples are baptizing in Judea.  When he begins to be noticed by the Pharisees, he decides to head north back to Galilee. 

I want you to take two minutes to watch this clip from “The Chosen.”  I am usually impressed at the series’s effort to try to be culturally and historically accurate.  They portray Jesus’ journey with the disciples as he decides to go through Samaria (much to their surprise.)  There are two minor disagreements with the Scripture in this episode.  First, they have somewhat placed this story out of order — note in the clip that Jesus has already called most of the disciples.  Secondly, they are traveling in the opposite direction from the Biblical account (north from Judea to Galilee in Bible and south from Galilee in the clip).  Nevertheless, I feel that the disciples’ response to Jesus’ decision to take the journey through Samaria is so well done that this has become one of my favorite scenes in the series.

John tells us “he had to pass through Samaria”  without explaining why. We only have one story on this journey: the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. So, we must assume this is his divine appointment. Next week, we will look at that encounter, but to understand this story, we must understand the conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans. Where did they come from?

The History Lesson

Around 1000 BC, David became king over all of Israel, and when he died, his son, Solomon, became king, and the land reached the peak of its prosperity.  Solomon dies in 931 BC, and there is a struggle for control. His son, Rehoboam, makes very poor decisions, and the kingdom splits.  Ten tribes in the North became known as ‘Israel’ (yes, a little confusing, sorry).  The capital of Israel was established in Samaria, with Jeroboam as their king.  The tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the South became known as ‘Judah’ with their capital remaining in Jerusalem and Rehoboam as their king.  Jeroboam’s first act in the North was establishing areas for worship in Bethel and Dan (so Israel wouldn’t have to travel back to Jerusalem to worship.)

1 Kings 12:26-29    And Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David.   If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the LORD at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”   So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”    And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

Things started badly for the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and they got worse until God sent Assyria to sack Israel in 722 BC. Assyria’s method of controlling its conquered countries was to export the leaders and a percentage of the population and then bring in people from other conquered nations to cause the people to lose their distinctiveness and be less likely to rebel.

2 Kings 17:24   And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. 

The Assyrians (in the Annals of Sargon II) claimed to have deported 27,290 people, but it is currently thought that only about 10% of the population of the northern kingdom was deported, and only about 1000 people were brought into the country from beyond.  So, there was less of an influx of foreign people than previously thought.  This is important because one of the reasons the Jews in Judah disliked the Samaritans was that they maintained the Samaritans were people who broke God’s laws about intermarriage; they called them half-breeds. The Samaritans maintained they were descendants from the tribes of Levi, Ephraim, and Manasseh (Joseph), who were not deported to Assyria.  While the Bible mentions the influx of foreigners, I can’t find any Biblical reference to their intermarriage.¹  2 Kings 17:29ff discusses the foreign idols placed in the land, but the transplanted people place these, not the people originally from the Northern Kingdom who the Assyrians did not carry away.  “But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived.” (2 Kings 17:29).  There are around 900 Samaritans today, with most living in Nablus which is in the location of the ancient city of Samaria.  Interestingly, genetic studies were done in the past 25 years that support the Samaritans’ claim of their pure ancestry, refuting the once-held claims of the Jews in the Southern Kingdom.  

One hundred thirty-six years after the Northern Kingdom was decimated, Babylon conquered Judah, and Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. Babylon had a different policy of controlling conquered nations. They exported most people from the land, leaving only a few very poor.  So Judah was exiled in Babylon for 70 years.  Persia conquered Babylon and allowed all those captives to return to their homes.  

When the exiles returned, they began rebuilding the temple. Some of the people who had already lived in the land offered to help, but they were refused.

Ezra 4:1   Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the LORD, the God of Israel,  they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.”  But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, las King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.” 

These were likely not Samaritans, as these people say the king of Assyria ‘brought them here.’  They are the imported people from the nations listed in 2 Kings 17:24.  But at this point, the people of Judah have refused to see any difference between the Jews who were not taken and the Gentiles who were brought in.  They lump them all together. (As do many people who discuss this time in history.)

The final separation between the Jews of Judah and the Samaritans comes when Nehemiah discovers that a grandson of the high priest, Eliashib, had married a daughter of Sanballat, the governor of the province of Samaria.  Since Nehemiah saw her as ‘non-Jewish,’ he felt the priesthood had been defiled and drove the high priest out of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 13:28-29). According to the historian Josephus, Sanballat then built a temple on Mount Gerizim where this exiled priest could function.

And then things get even worse.

After Alexander the Great died, his kingdom was divided among three generals.  The Seleucid leader Antiochus Epiphanes persecuted the Jews. He desecrated the temple and altar, leading to a rebellion and the Maccabean Wars in the 2nd century BC. The Jews in Judah asked the Samaritans for help fighting off the Selucids. However, they refused and aligned with the Selucids fighting against Judah. After Judah prevailed, in 108 BC, they went to Mt Gerizim and destroyed the Samaritan’s temple in retribution.  The Samaritans finally struck back in 6 AD and sneaked into the Jerusalem temple at night and scattered human bones around, defiling the temple and ruining the Passover celebration.

A few quotes from literature from that time further reveal the animosity:

The Wisdom of Ben Sirach 50:25-26  (ca. 200 BC)  “There are two nations my soul detests, the third is not a nation at all; the inhabitants of Mt Seir (the Edomites), the Philistines, and the stupid people living at Shechem.

Mishna Shebiith 8:10  “He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like to one that eats the flesh of swine.”

Finally, there is the story in Luke 9:51-56 where Jesus is again traveling through Samaria to the Feast of Tabernacles.  One of the Samaritan villages would not receive him, because he was a Jew headed to Jerusalem, so James and John ask Jesus “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54).  Jesus rebuked them and traveled on.²  The Hatfields and the McCoys had nothing on the Jews and the Samaritans.  

Samaritans were not just social outcasts — they were the enemy, the most hated people on the planet by Jews in Jesus’ day.  When Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” the people they would have pictured as enemies were Samaritans.  (Incidentally, who do you think about if you hear “Love your enemies”?)

Jesus had to pass through Samaria. He had a divine appointment. He will not miss this appointment, even if it means taking a more difficult journey that no one wants to take. He takes the path less taken only to have a meeting with this one woman. The woman we will see next week was isolated, lonely, and ignored by her community. In all of Samaria, he considers this one woman. And that conversation with one woman will lead to many believing in him.

Jesus had the ability to see the one among the many. In the Gospels, he saw a funeral procession with many mourners, yet he focused on one grieving woman. Amidst a crowd, he noticed the one woman in need who touched the hem of his garment. Walking through a busy market, he saw one tax collector and stopped to invite Matthew to follow him. Jesus saw the one who needed him most.  

“The God who sees”

Hagar is an Egyptian who is given to Abraham’s wife, Sarah, as a handmaiden.  She is mistreated and forced into the wilderness.  There, God finds her and gives her comfort and encouragement.  She calls him ‘El Roi’, the God who sees.   If you have ever felt lonely in a crowd, hopeless, or isolated, if you think the whole world is against you — God sees you, loves you, and looks out for you.  Like Hagar, he may not change your circumstances but will change you so you can bear them.

Sometimes, it is easier to see the many instead of the one.

It is easy to see the many and say they need help. It is easy to see the TV advertisement with starving children and say, “Let’s donate to help the children in Africa.”  It is not difficult to drop off some food at the local food pantry to help the hungry in our town, take some clothes to the Salvation Army, or go to a charity dinner to help single mothers. These are all good things, but that is not how Jesus did ministry.  Jesus spent more time talking to individuals than he did preaching to crowds.

Jesus was all about reaching out and making relationships, especially with those left out by society — look at who he worked with:  the hated people like Samaritans, tax collectors, prostitutes, zealots, the poor, and lepers — people no one would put on their dinner invitation list.   Can we just for a moment think about who Jesus ministered to and then look at our lives and see if we are following Jesus?

Did you notice in the clip that the disciples were ahead of Jesus, looking at a map? It is hard to follow someone if you are walking in front of them. The disciples were goal-oriented. They knew their final destination and were headed there with blinders on. They would never consider going to Samaria, calling a tax collector, touching a leper, or making a prostitute a disciple. At the end of the clip, Jesus steps ahead and says again, “Follow me.”

There are so many people left out—so many needs.  And again, we need to, like Jesus, focus on not the many but the one.

Mother Teresa worked for six decades among the desperate and hopeless streets of the extremely poor in Calcutta, India. When asked how she was not overwhelmed by the crowds in need around her, she said,  “I don’t see crowds; I see individuals.”

On my first trip to Guatemala to do medical missions, we woke up early and drove up the side of a volcano to a village where the missionary told people to gather for free medical care. As we wound up that road, we began to pass people standing in a line that stretched for what seemed like miles. I asked our missionary, “What are those people in line for?”  He turned around and grinned and replied, “To see you.”  That day, I was overwhelmed by the crowd of sick children.  Then, I got some of the best advice I had ever received in my medical career.  “You will see hundreds of children today.  The needs will be great, and you will not be able to meet them all.  Do not see the hundreds. See the one.  The only one that matters is the one in front of you at the moment.  Give your all to that one.”  

There is a well-known parable I like to share with people as we depart for mission trips.  A man was walking on the beach early one morning.  He was the only one out that early, except for a boy he could see far in the distance.  As he walked further, he saw the little boy throwing something into the ocean.  As he got closer, he saw that the tide had washed up thousands of starfish on the beach.  They were drying out in the morning sun, but the little boy threw one after another back into the water.  The man said, “Hey, kid, there are thousands of starfish washed up.  Stop wasting your time.   You can’t possibly make a difference.  The little boy picked up another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean and then replied to the man, “It made a difference to that one.”

Do you see the many, or do you see the one?

Later in his ministry, a Bible scholar will ask Jesus a question that Jesus answers by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. The question was, “Who is my neighbor?”  The answer was “The one who saw to the needs of another.”  It is easy to say everyone is my neighbor.  But you can’t meet “everyone’s” needs.  Who is your neighbor?  Do you know the people who live around you?  Do they have needs?  You can’t meet everyone’s needs, but you can meet someone’s needs.  We need to follow Jesus’ lead and see the one, make relationships, and share the love of God. There are divine appointments out there for each of us.

Let me close this by sharing one of my divine appointments.

It had been a tough week.  That Monday, I saw a very sick 10-day-old baby and sent her by ambulance to Children’s Hospital.  She ended up that evening in the ICU, and I was told she was stable.  She died the following day.  I had tried to reach out to the family and share my condolences and offer support, but the phone number and address we had were not good.  I was on-call that weekend and had finished my hospital rounds on the babies and sick kids by noon.  I was just ready to go home and forget the week.  I stopped for gas on the way home and was headed in to pay (because, of course, the pay-at-the-pump was broken.)  A rough-looking man was sitting on the curb near the door, and I got the message from God that I needed to talk to him.  Begrudgingly, I did.  We talked a bit, and I discovered he had hitchhiked over 400 miles in the past several days.  He was headed to Guntersville, where I was headed.  I offered to take him there.  On the way, I asked him what brought him to our little town.  He teared up and said he was coming for the funeral of his 2-week-old granddaughter, whom he never got to see.  Sure enough, it was the baby I had seen.  So, God enabled me to reach out to this family in a way I could not have imagined.  After leaving their house, I had to repent of my poor attitude, my reluctance to listen, and all the other times I had ignored the Holy Spirit when I was so focused on going where I wanted to go.

Let me challenge you this week to see beyond the many and see the one.  God has a divine appointment for you.  Don’t miss it.

And let me ask you to do one more thing: Please share your own story of your divine appointment. I would love it if several of you posted your story as a comment on this blog. It will bless us all.  

Thanks.  

1. I could not find any scriptural evidence for the common belief that there was a large amount of intermarriage between the Israelites not taken by Assyria and the imported people. If you know if a reference, please let me know.
2. Jesus rebukes James and John for their continued animosity towards the Samaritans. Perhaps this is part of the reason Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan in the following chapter in Luke.