Applying the Analogy

Many Americans seem to view Muslims with a disdain similar to that with which the Jews of Jesus' day viewed Samaritans.

Like the Samaritans, Muslims are a religious minority in our midst. They strike the majority of Americans as profoundly "other."

Twenty-five percent of Americans surveyed by the Pew Center report knowing "nothing at all" about Islam. "Not very much" is the way another 30 percent answered the question, "How much do you know about Muslim religion?" Nearly 60 percent of Americans say they do not know a Muslim.

Prior to 9/11 these differences were easy to tolerate. But when terrorists claiming to act in the name of Islam attacked the United States and the United States went to war in Muslim-majority Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not surprising that tolerant ignorance might slide into ignorant intolerance.

Contributing to the troubled Samaritan-Jewish relationship was the complicity of Samaritans in Hellenistic oppression of Jerusalem over several generations before Jesus. Religious otherness, ethnic otherness, and political otherness combined to produce deep prejudice between Jew and Samaritan.

In the six references to Samaritans we have examined, Jesus accepts the difference between Jew and Samaritan. If anything Jesus highlights the differences to encourage his Jewish listeners toward greater self-criticism and self-awareness. The gospels seem to say: if even a Samaritan can know and do God's purposes, how do you explain your separation from God?

The religious practices of Samaritans - or Jews - did not much concern Jesus. As long as the rituals served to bring believers into a mindful and loving relationship with God and neighbor, Jesus honored the effort and participated in the practices. But religious practice was secondary.

As with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus calls us to approach each other with profound respect for the particular person. Who is this neighbor? Samaritan, Greek, leper or whatever is less important than knowing how this person is in relationship with God and how we are to be in relationship with each other.

In American attitudes toward Muslims we can perceive an echo of, "Who is my neighbor?" Christians should know the answer. Will we hear it? Will we live it?