Two selections on Samaritans
1(Read pages 182-188. the section about Samaritans called "Get Off Your Donkey: Who are the Samarirans?" from Donald Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom. It's here on a PDF, and copied below). Choose which is an easier format to read.
2. Excerpt from Upside Down Kingdom by Kraybill, Full book PDF here, Read pages 212-218ff below :The Samaritan Box
This will help with your study the Good Samaritan parable week =3
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1,Get Off Your Donkey
What does agape love look like?· If God is like a foolish parent, does agape love look foolish as well? Jesus clarified his kingdom's new Torah of agape with a story. It concretely spells out the radical nature of upside-down love (Luke 10:25-37).
It begins in a believable fashion. A man walks along the winding, desolate road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The audience assumes the walker is a fellow Jew.· Bandits living in caves 'infested the barren countryside along the Jericho road.
A robbery came as no surprise. It was typical for priests and Levites from outlying areas to use this road after performing their week of duties in the Jerusalem temple. And the crowd knew that priests and Levites who followed the purity laws would be contaminated if so much as their shadow touched a corpse.
This traveler, stripped and beaten, appeared nearly dead. Thus a conscientious priest would avoid him. The audience expects the story to end with a scathing criticism of the religious elite. Like many of Jesus' other parables, this one also will criticize callous leaders for lacking compassion. The crowd expects a common farmer become the hero by rescuing a battered fellow Jew. Such an ending will prick the priests and Levites. A Jewish peasant shows more compassion than religious leaders!
Jesus flips expectations upside down. A Samaritan, not a Jew, pops up as hero. The audience is appalled. Why is a Samaritan so shocking?
Bitter tension divided Jews and Samaritans. Samaria was sandwiched between Judea and Galilee. The Samaritans emerged about 400 BCE from mixed marriages between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews regarded them as halfbreed bastards. They had their own version of the books of Moses. They had constructed their own temple on Mt. Gerizim north of Jerusalem. They even claimed their temple was the true place of worship. Samaritan priests traced their blood lines back to the royal priestly line in the Old Testament.
To the Jewish mind, the Samaritans were worse than pagans, because they at least knew better. Samaritans, hated and despised by Jews, were at the bottom of the social ladder. 4 The Scripture attests to the belligerent racism between the two groups. John (4:9) reports that "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans." When Samaritans refuse to give Jesus lodging, James and John become so angry they beg Jesus to destroy the village with fire (Luke 9:51-56). Jewish leaders call Jesus a "Samaritan," a derogatory nickname, reserved for the demon-possessed (John 8:48).
When Jesus was about twelve years old, Samaritans sneaked into the Jerusalem temple at night and,scattered human bones over the temple sanctuary. This outrageous act inflamed Jewish passions. Jews would not eat unleavened bread made by a Samaritan, nor an animal killed by a Samaritan. One rabbi said, "He who eats the bread of a Samaritan is like one that eats the flesh of swine."
Intermarriage was taboo. Jews .thought Samaritan women perpetual menstruants from the cradle and their husbands perpetually unclean. The saliva of a Samaritan woman was unclean. A whole village was declared contaminated if a Samaritan woman stayed there. Any place a Samaritan slept was considered unclean, as was any food or drink which touched the place. Another rabbi said the Samaritans "have no law or even the remains of a law and therefore, they are contemptible and corrupt."6 Samaritans frequently attacked Galilean Jews making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The devout Jew saw Samaritans as worse enemies than the Romans because the halfbreeds mocked Jewish faith by practicing a rival religion in the midst of God's holy land.
Jesus shocked Jewish minds when he said a Samaritan, that despicable enemy, stopped to aid the victim. If Jesus merely wanted to teach about neighborly love, the hero of the story could have been another Jew. Better yet, why not tell a story where a Jew rescued a Samaritan? That would have been comforting-good guy helps bad guy. But to turn a rascal into a hero? Unthinkable! Jesus flips .the crowd's social world upside down. The good guys the priests and Levites-turn bad guys. The villain turns hero.
What an earthquake! It shook the crowd's assumptions. Fault lines gaped in prior values. Dogmatic judgments, established conclusions, and conventional assumptions were suddenly overturned. The audience faced contradictory facts. Jewish leaders acted without compassion. A vile Samaritan behaved like a loving neighbor. The priest and Levite, representing the Jewish temple, refused to help because of religious regulations. The Samaritan, representing the rival temple, defied ceremonial prescriptions and offered tenderness.
Oil and wine were often used as a crude ointment and antiseptic. But they were declared contaminated if touched by a Samaritan. The Jerusalem temple contained sacred oil and wine stored in a holy place and used on special occasions as sacrificial elements. Only officiating priests could touch the sacred oil and wine. In the story, a stranger pollutes the sacred emblems with his touch and then uses them to heal a Jewish enemy. This is true worship, genuine sacrament!
The Samaritan lavishly pours the elements on his opponent, not even tithing them according to proper Jewish procedure. Like God's love, the oil and wine aren't restricted to special people in holy places. They are shared freely, even with enemies.
Only twice in the Gospels is Jesus asked how one gains eternal life. The first time, Jesus directs the rich young ruler to sellout to the poor and follow Jesus. The second time Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan to explain kingdom love to a sophisticated Jewish lawyer. This upside-down story is Jesus' shocking answer to the lawyer's questions, "How do I inherit eternal life?" and "Who is my neighbor?"
The story clarifies agape love in several ways.
(1) Agape is indiscriminate. Kingdom love mocked the lawyer's question, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus' disciples love indiscriminately, beyond obligation. Agents of agape don't draw lines of responsibility and exclusion. The answer to the lawyer's question is clear. If even enemies are defined as neighbors, then certainly anyone less hostile deserves agape assistance.
In other words, the question, "Who is my neighbor?" is moot. The story defines everyone, even my enemy, as my neighbor. The term "neighbor" is all-inclusive in the upside-down kingdom. The categories of friend and enemy dissolve since everyone isa neighbor. We treat as neighbor even those to whom we have no obligation to act neighborly, even enemies we can rightfully hate. Agape love responds to persons, not to social categories. Jesus reverses things by asking the lawyer, in essence, "Are you acting like a neighbor?"
(2) Agape is bold. Religious custom doesn't stymie it. It suspends social norms which might justify callous disinterest. Unlike the priest who feared his shadow might touch a corpse, agape values people over religious traditions. Agape penetrates the social barricades which hide people in prisons, hospitals, addiction centers,- and ghettos of all sorts.
(3) Agape is inconvenient. The priest and Levite "saw and passed by on the other side." The Samaritan had compassion and got off his donkey. He placed the victim on his donkey and walked alongside. It's inconvenient to get off the donkeys which carry us to places of comfortable security.
(4) Agape is risky. The whole scene might have been a frame-up. Perhaps the robbers were hiding nearby waiting to pounce on anyone who offered help. By walking instead of riding, the Samaritan made himself more vulnerable to armed attack after the rescue.
(5) Agape takes time. The Samaritan merchant's schedule was hampered. Stopping and bandaging the victim, walking alongside him, and stopping at the inn surely delayed his trip.
(6) Agape is expensive. The Samaritan paid the innkeeper the equivalent of twenty-four days of lodging and offered a "blank check" for any additional costs. If Jew were helping Jew, a civil court would have likely repaid the helper. But a Jewish court would never reimburse a Samaritan. The Samaritan freely lends finances without hope of return. This is precisely what Jesus prescribes in his formal instruction: "Lend, expecting nothing in return" (Luke 6:35).
(7) Agape jeopardizes social status. What happened when the word got back to the Samaritan's hometown that he was aiding Jews? He must have been considered a traitor to the Samaritan cause. His reputation and social status were tarnished. He likely faced ridicule from his own people.
This upside-down. parable leaves no doubt about the nature of agape. It's courageous and aggressive. Agape is more than warm fuzzy feelings. It's more than good attitudes toward others. It doesn't stop with sweet smiles. This foolish love is aggressive. It's costly, both socially and economically.
Although the parable portrays the shape of agape it doesn't answer all our questions. What if the Samaritan had found the robbers beating the victim? How would agape have responded? Would force be used to stop the atrocity? Does agape only apply Band-Aids to the wounded? Did the Samaritan ever get to the root of the problem by going back to the caves and searching for the robbers? If he found them, what did he do to them? What if one sees many battered victims? Which ones receive priority? These questions, unanswered in the parable, greet us in contemporary applications·of agape.
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2. Excerpt from Upside Down Kingdom by Kraybill, Full book PDF here, Read pages 212-218ff below
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The Samaritan Box
We've already noted, the barrier separating Jews and Samaritans. Jesus shattered this ethnic wall as well. Striking at Jewish pride, Jesus held up a "good" Samaritan as the supreme example of agape love. The implication, of course, is that Samaritans were, by definition, "bad." Another Samaritan, whom Jesus called a foreigner, was the only one of ten lepers to return and give thanks. This thankful half-breed was sole recipient of Jesus' blessing (Luke 17:16-19).
Jesus refused to comply when some of his disciples, "the Sons of Thunder," asked him to torch a Samaritan village (Luke 9:55). Some Samaritans incensed the disciples by denying Jesus lodging. The box-conscious Samaritans couldn't permit a Jew in their village, especially one heading for the rival temple in Jerusalem. So they kicked him out. The last place a Jewish rabbi wanted to be found was in a Samaritan village. Jesus, the upside-down rabbi, took the initiative to enter Samaritan turf. With daring irreverence for social boxes, Jesus strikes up a conversation with a sleazy Samaritan woman (John 4: 7).
The record is clear. Jesus doesn't bypass Samaritans just because of their name tags. He willingly meets them. He boldly walks on their turf because he loves them
...Consider a few examples of Jesus' upside-down attitude toward women. The most striking is his talk with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (John 4:1-42). Samaria was sandwiched between two Jewish areas: Galilee to the north and Judea to the south. Jews moving between these areas often bypassed Samaria to avoid attack.
In this instance, Jesus takes the shortcut and walks through Samaria. He waits alone, by a well, while the disciples try to buy food in a nearby village. A person approaches with three stigmas hanging around her neck: woman, Samaritan, flirt. Jesus asks her for a drink. In a split second he shatters all the social norms designed to prevent such behavior.
Jesus isn't merely being friendly to a woman. His simple request slices through five social rules. In the first place, Jesus violates turf rules. He has no business being here. Samaria is outside the Jewish box. Jesus has wandered into enemy territory and a rival religion. -
Second, she's a woman. Men weren't to even look at married women in public, much less talk with them. The rabbis said, IIA man should hold no conversation with a woman in the street, not even with his own wife, still less with any other woman, lest men should gossip." Woman she may be, but Jesus addresses her. This makes him vulnerable. Anyone walking around the corner and seeing the conversation could ruin his reputation. He doesn't care. He cares more for the person than his reputation.
Third, this isn't just another woman. She's having her sixth affair. She's a promiscuous flirt. Everyone in town knows her number. Rabbis and holy men scurry from such women. Jesus doesn't run. He takes a risk; he puts his career on the line by asking for her help.
Fourth, she's not only promiscuous, she's a Samaritan. Jewish rabbis said Samaritan women were menstruants from the cradle and thus perpetually unclean. Jewish social norms were clear: look the other way. Avoid her. Act as though you don't see her. Jesus boldly shatters the social barricades. He addresses her.
Finally, and worst of all, he deliberately defiles himself. As a supposed menstruant from the cradle, she was unclean. Anything she touched became unclean. A whole Jewish village was declared unclean if a Samaritan woman Inside Outsiders / 217 entered it. By asking for water she had touched, Jesus was intentionally polluting himself. The religious rule said, "Stay as far away as possible from unclean things." His brief request mocked the norms of purity. Jesus was completely out of place, doing the wrong thing with the wrong person in the wrong place. Yes, merely saying, "Give me a drink," shattered five social norms imprisoning this woman in a tight cultural box.
Such' unprecedented behavior startled the woman and the disciples. In her words, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" When the disciples returned, they "marveled that he was talking with a woman" (John 4:9, 27). The conversation obliterated the social trappings that separate people and lock them in boxes.
It began with water-the one element of life all humans need, regardless of their box. When it comes to water we're all equals. As the living water, Jesus provides life for all. No other person stands out as clearly in the Gospels as having received Jesus' private disclosure of his messianic identity. Jesus reveals himself not to the chief priests in Jerusalem, not to the members of the Sanhedrin, nor to the scribes-but to this promiscuous halfbreed. She asks about the Messiah. And Jesus tersely responds, "I who speak to you am he."
How upside down! A defiled woman from a rival religion receives the incomparable honor of hearing the Messiah identify himself in first person. Jesus not only cuts through social red tape to ask for a drink. He lifts this defiled woman up to the privileged holy of holies and whispers, "I am the Messiah." Truly a flip-flop!
This miracle moves Samaritan villagers to beg Jesus to stay with them. The unheard-of happens. Enemies fellowship and eat together. Many believe. They switch temples, not from Mt. Gerizim to Jerusalem, but to the temple of spirit and truth. And it is this new church of half-breeds that declares, "This is indeed the Savior of the world" (John 4:42). Not the Savior of the Jews but the Savior of all. The despised, the outlaws, the enemies-Jesus pulls from their boxes and elevates· them to authentic personhood.
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