For many decades, Evangelical support for
Israel seemed rock solid. Today, however, many younger Christians in Western
churches are hesitant to give Israel the same unconditional support which their
parents did. Stories of Palestinian suffering have attracted the sympathy of
young Evangelicals, rather than the struggles and triumphs of Israel.
They appear to be motivated more by the
cause of social justice for the ‘oppressed’ Palestinians than a prophecy-driven
backing of the restored Jewish state. Many Christian youngsters have sided with
the Palestinians as the perceived underdog. And in any case, Jesus in the
Gospels seems to have very little to say about the current situation. So for a
generation known to read far less from the Old Testament than previous
generations, this supposed New Testament ‘silence’ makes a big difference in
how they view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Today, they simply ask: What
would Jesus do?
That is, would Jesus affirm the national
calling of Israel according to the promises made to the Hebrew patriarchs and
prophets? Would he affirm Israel’s right to live in the land? Or would he
rather side with the Palestinians as a weak and suppressed minority?
A strong guide for answering these
questions is to look at how Jesus dealt with the most prominent indigenous
minority living in Israel during his time. As we shall see, there are many
striking parallels between the Samaritan people in the days of Jesus and the
Palestinians of today. So who were the Samaritans and how did Jesus treat them?
A Replaced
People
The first time the Bible mentions the
Samaritans is in II Kings 17:22-41, which gives their historical background.
The passage recounts how the northern Kingdom of Israel was “carried away from
their own land” (verse 23) and taken into exile in 722 BC by Assyria, whose
King Sargon II followed a common practice of conquering empires in those days.
He replaced the dislodged Israelites with people from other regions of his
empire. Thus, he took people “from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from
Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of
Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities” (verse
24).
These new implants, thereafter called the
Samaritans, began intermingling with some of the Israelite remnant left in the
land and quickly adopted some of their religious practices. Besides their own
gods and traditions, they also worshipped and “feared” the God of Israel.
Then in 586-582 BC, a second uprooting
occurred when the southern Kingdom of Judah also was forced into exile by the
Babylonian Empire. This gave even more room for the Samaritan people to expand
and solidify their presence in the Land of Israel.
Resisting
the restoration
Some 70 years later, the Jewish people
started to return to the land and to rebuild the Temple and the city of
Jerusalem. Yet the Samaritan communities were among the strongest opponents of
this Jewish restoration. They resisted it religiously and politically (Ezra 4;
Nehemiah 4:1-3). Nevertheless, Jerusalem and the Temple were restored, and the
Jews re-established their presence again in their promised homeland because the
Lord was with them (Haggai 1:13).
Still, the Samaritans continued to oppose
the Jewish return and to develop their own rival culture and national identity.
Over time, they even cultivated their own form of pseudo-Judaism. The prophets
and other writings of the Tanakh were rejected and only the five Books of Moses
were considered binding. For this reason, they rejected the idea of a promised
Messiah from the lineage of David who would restore the Kingdom for Israel.
Rather, they expected a messiah figure who would be “a prophet like Moses”, as
the book of Deuteronomy foretold, ushering in a moral and spiritual revival but
not a national restoration.
Tense
Relationship
By the time Jesus came along, the
Samaritans had lived in the land for more than 700 years. They developed their
own narrative of the region’s history and considered themselves as the true
Israel and rightful heirs of the land, claiming descent from Ephraim and
Manasseh. The Temple in Jerusalem was considered an apostate shrine and its
worship blasphemous to God. During the time of Alexander the Great, the
Samaritans built an alternative temple on their holy mountain of Mt. Gerizim -
the biblical "Mountain of Blessing" overlooking Shechem.
Meantime, the Jews did not recognise the
Samaritans as part of their people and would not allow them to enter the Temple
in Jerusalem. Yet when Jesus was a child, around 6-to-9 AD, Samaritans
reportedly forced their way into the Temple during Passover and desecrated it
by throwing bones into the sanctuary. Indeed, for the centuries it was a
relationship characterised by tension and disdain. Jewish writings from 200 BC
called Samaritans “the foolish people”.
Thus, during the time of Jesus both Jews
and Samaritans refused to mingle (John 4:9). Jewish pilgrims who were on the
way to worship in Jerusalem were harassed (Luke 9:51-55). The Jewish historian
Josephus reports that in 52 AD, Samaritans even massacred a group of Jews
making pilgrimage to Jerusalem. For Jews, the name “Samaritan” became a curse
word (John 8:48). Even the disciples of Jesus were not fond of them and were
anxious to call down fire on their heads (Luke 9:54).
Jesus
Crosses the Border
Amid this hostile, complex relationship,
Jesus sets a refreshingly different tone towards the Samaritan populace. The
Gospels surprisingly record that Jesus healed them (Luke 17:16) and reached out
to them individually and as a community (John 4). In fact, Jesus rarely shared
such deep thoughts on worship, his own Messianic identity, and the Spirit of
God as he did with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. The encounter
eventually led to revival in the entire village and it was there that Jesus
spoke about the fields being white for harvest (John 4:35ff).
Then there is the legendary parable of the
‘Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10:30-37). Surely, it was offensive to Jewish listeners
when Jesus described the Samaritan and not the Jewish priests as being a true
neighbour to the man in need.
Thus Jesus would not allow himself to be
drawn in into the negative stereotypes of his time. When his disciples wanted
to call down fire on a Samaritan village for not allowing their master to pass,
Jesus rebuked them harshly, saying: “You do not know what manner of spirit you
are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save
them.” (Luke 9:56)
So Jesus did not consider them as enemies,
but reached out to them with compassion and love. He healed them, ministered to
them, used them as examples to his Jewish brethren, and even envisioned them as
part of the harvest.
Jesus and
the Samaritan Narrative
Still, while Jesus may have displayed an
unusually kind attitude towards the Samaritans he did not buy into their
version of history. When Jesus healed the ten lepers, the only one who returned
to thank him was a Samaritan, to which Jesus replied: "Were there not any
found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?" (Luke
17:18)
Jesus had reached out to him with compassion
and healing, yet he still considered him a “foreigner”. The Greek word used
here is “allogenes”, and is used in the Septuagint translation to mean the
“stranger” who dwelt within the land. He would have many rights and privileges
but was still excluded from the covenant promises and privileges of Israel. It
was the same Greek word used in the inscription around the temple courts
allowing access only to Jews but not to “allogenes” - foreigners.
So Jesus reached out to the Samaritan
people but also maintained a clear distinction between them and the Jews. He
once instructed his disciples “not to enter a city of the Samaritans”, but to
focus rather on “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6-5).
Finally, when Jesus ministered to the
Samaritan woman at the well, she confronted him with her people's own
narrative: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in
Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” (John 4:20)
In other words, she wanted to know whose
narrative was correct. And Jesus answered: “Woman, believe Me, the hour is
coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the
Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth….” (John 4:20–23)
Jesus portends that a new era in salvation
history was soon coming when the place of worship would become secondary, and
each believer would become a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus did not
conclude that Jewish tradition would become irrelevant. On the contrary, he
strongly challenged her Samaritan belief system, saying: “You worship what you
do not know.” At the same time, he identifies himself with Jewish tradition in
a manner rarely found in the Gospels: “We know what we worship, for salvation is
of the Jews.”
In a way, Jesus underscores with the
Samaritan woman what he also stated to the healed leper, that they were
'foreigners' to the covenants of God with Israel. The only way for them to
become truly part of the household of God would be through the covenants and
revelation given to the Jewish nation.
Note that he did not say that salvation is
received by becoming Jewish, but rather that she should reconsider her
theological and personal attitude towards the Jews. Decades later, the Apostle
Paul would make the same point: ““What advantage then has the Jew, or what is
the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were
committed the oracles of God.” (Romans 3:1-2; see also Romans 9:4–5)
Jesus thus affirms to the Samaritan woman
the ancient Abrahamic calling of Israel, that through them “all the families of
the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). This covenant relationship with
Abraham's natural descendants remains even if they reject Jesus as their
Messiah (Romans 11:28).
The
Samaritans of Our Day
There is still a small Samaritan community
living in Israel today. They number less than a thousand members and are mostly
located on Mt. Gerizim, near modern-day Nablus. However, they are too small to
play a significant role in current affairs. Instead, the community which more
closely mirrors the dynamic between Jews and Samaritans at the time of Jesus is
that of the Palestinians.
When the Jews were exiled by the Romans
under Titus in 70 AD and later under Hadrian in 120 AD, other people groups
moved in. Each successive conqueror seizing control of this major crossroads of
the world brought their own ethnic mix, whether the Romans, Byzantines,
Arab-Muslim invaders, the Crusaders, the Mameluks or the Ottoman Turks. The
result is an indigenous people with a broad amalgam of ethnic backgrounds. Some
Palestinian Christians today may claim to be descendants of the first Messianic
Jewish community in Israel, but this would be difficult to prove after all the
turbulent history in the region.
Scholars have also documented that when
Jews started to return and cultivate the Land of Israel in the 1800s, many
Arabs from neighbouring countries also came to find work created by the Zionist
movement.
Most of these people today would call
themselves Palestinians. The vast majority of these Palestinians are Muslims.
They not only reject the teachings of the Bible but also maintain that Jews
have no right or historic connection to the land. Supported by the global ummah
(body of Muslim believers), they resist by all means the restoration of Israel
on the land much like the Samaritans in the times of Nehemiah and Ezra.
On the other hand, the small Palestinian
Christian community shares in many ways a common faith in Christ and the Bible
that we do, yet they have developed their own unique twist to history and
theology. Many of the Palestinians Christians contest the restoration of a
Jewish State, both politically and theologically. In their own nationalised
version of Replacement theology, they not only see the Jewish people as being
replaced by the Church but Jesus has become a Palestinian - one of the true
custodians of the Holy Land. The promises of God to Israel have elapsed by
either being fulfilled in Jesus or now falling to the Palestinian people.
Like in biblical times, both sides rarely
mingle and the tense relationship has drawn even more blood than in the times
of Nehemiah, Ezra and Jesus.
A Call for
Today
The unique approach of Jesus to the
Samaritans can help us face the challenges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
today. Jesus demonstrated a heart of compassion towards the Samaritans, who
were not accepted by most of his fellow Jews. Under his ministry, they were
privileged as the only people besides the Jews who experienced the personal touch
of the Messiah. After his resurrection, Jesus instructed his disciples to
consider the Samaritans as the very first non-Jews to receive the Gospel.
Phillip, Peter and John did just that and brought a powerful revival to them.
Likewise, the Church today is called to
show similar compassion in reaching out to the Palestinian people and in
particular the believers among them. They often feel forgotten by many
Evangelicals around the world who show support to Israel but ignore their Arab
brothers living in the land.
But we also learn from Jesus that despite
the fact that Samaritans had lived in the land of Israel for hundreds of years,
Jesus still considered them 'foreigners', even though it surely offended them.
Jesus did not deny their right to live in the land, but he also affirmed the
unique covenant promises enjoyed by Israel, including the land promise.
Paul notes that Jesus “has become a servant
to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the
fathers” (Romans 15:8). He was sent by God to “remember his holy covenant,
which he swore to Abraham” (Luke 1:72ff), not to forget or forfeit that
covenant.
So Christ, in his time of earthly ministry,
set a remarkable example for us on how to reach out to the Palestinians - and
the Christians especially - without compromising the divine calling of his own
people.
This might be a challenging balancing act
for today, as the harsh realities on the ground are often more complex than
they appear. For Palestinian Christians to look into the eyes of young Israeli
soldiers and call them “beloved for the sake of the fathers” is far more
difficult than for Christians from abroad. For many Jewish believers, it is
equally difficult to accept as their brothers and sisters those Palestinian
Christians who question their biblical right to the land and even voice support
for Israel's worst enemies.
In the end, the Church in the nations is
called to pray and care for both sides. We are called to uphold God’s promises
to Israel and support a nation which after 2000 years has returned to the land
of their fathers and remains surrounded by implacable foes bent on her
destruction. We are also called to recognise the needs of our Arab brothers and
sisters in the land who are often caught in between their long-time Muslim
neighbours and the new Jewish reality.
That means we are called to be peacemakers
without compromising truth. May the Lord help us in pursuing these worthy aims.
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