Samaritan Inhospitality

Today's Reflections

                            

Samaritan Inhospitality

Lk 9:51-56

⁵¹When the days for [Jesus to be] taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, ⁵²and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, ⁵³but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. ⁵⁴When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” ⁵⁵Jesus turned and rebuked them, ⁵⁶and they journeyed to another village.

Jesus turned and rebuked them. When the Samaritans do not welcome Jesus, the “sons of thunder”—James and John—attempt to replicate the feat of the prophet Elijah who called down fire from heaven to consume King Ahaziah’s two companies of soldiers sent to capture him (cf 2 Kgs 1:10-12). But Jesus teaches the firebrand brothers James and John a very neat lecture on the code of conduct in a hostile environment in the course of the missionary activity. It is not a process of elimination or retaliation but maximum tolerance and peaceful non-aggression.

Jesus’ teaching has always been about love, mercy, and compassion, and not about destruction or forced evangelization. It calls for mutual respect and appreciation of the standpoints of others that are brought about by dialogue and cooperation.

When faced with resistance and hostility, a missionary must be level-headed and possess a lot of patience and perseverance to make progress. Amid growing fundamentalism and intolerance in the contemporary world, Pope Benedict XVI in his Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei challenges every Christian missionary to be a “living sign of the presence of the Risen Lord in the world.”

“What the world is in particular need of today

is the credible witness of people enlightened

in mind and heart by the word of the Lord”

(Porta Fidei, n 21).