Matthew is careful to categorise Samaritans (perceived as an heretical Jewish sect) with non-Jews rather than with Jews. He does so in one of Jesus’ mission commissioning: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans’ (10.5). It is his only reference to them, although presumably they are caught up with the whole non-Jewish category in the final commissioning: ‘Go make disciples of all nations’ (28.19).
But Luke invites us to value them quite differently. It was an old thought which came back to me again on St Luke’s Day yesterday. The clues may be in his second book, Acts, explicitly identifying them in the mission commissioning at the very start: ‘You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’ (1.8).
He then tells of them as the first successful mission field: ‘all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria... Philip went down to a city of Samaria proclaiming the Messiah to them... (they) listened eagerly... hearing and seeing the signs... they were baptised both men and women... (and) the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God’ (8.1,5,6,12,14).
So, when we look back to his Gospel, it is the first Christian Samaritans who might have been in his mind as he wrote. Perhaps he even knew such Samaritan Christians. If so, the three stories of Samaritans which his Gospel uniquely preserves are not just about a category of ‘outsiders’ but about ‘insiders’: ‘I’ve included some stories of Jesus already valuing you, dear often discriminated against fellow Christians, dear first fruits of the church’s mission’.
Luke tells of Jesus rebuking those who wanted revenge on a hostile reception in one of their villages (9.52-55). Luke record’s Jesus story of a Samaritan’s exemplary care of neighbour, contrasted with that of two Jewish religious officials (10.30-37). Luke highlights one Samaritan’s thankfulness to Jesus, contrasted to nine other apparently non-Samaritans (17.11-19).
Mark, on whose earlier, shorter Gospel Matthew and Luke build, mentions them not at all. John does the once, the story of the woman at the well at Sychar, but that is a story for many other days.
