Jesus in Samaria : a model for cross-cultural ministry

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2005 by Eric John Wyckoff

Abstract

The narrative of Jesus' missionary journey to Samaria in John 4:4-42 had implications for the first-century Johannine community as they, like Jesus at Jacob's well, encountered new situations and new cultures. This article proposes that it may hold different but analogous implications for the church in every age. A contextual approach shaped by modern missiology, cultural anthropology, and local/contextual theology highlights the text's sensitivity to ethnic identity, cultural and religious traditions, past history, prejudice, marginalization, differences in perspective, and human processes in faith development. Read in this light, the passage can provide a model for ministry across cultural barriers in a pluralistic world still crisscrossed by divisions.

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In this age of globalization, the church faces the challenge of ministering in a world increasingly shaped by immigration, exile, language barriers, marginalization, and the need to reach out across prejudices old and new. Cultural barriers tied to race, religion, and politics were also a genuine challenge for the early community of believers as they faced a pluralistic and diverse Hellenistic society. Three Second Testament traditions address the issue of cross-cultural ministry in texts that narrate a dialog between Jesus and someone who would have considered him a foreigner. In all three cases his conversation partner is a woman: a Syrophoenician in Mark 7:24-30, a Canaanite in the much-redacted parallel in Matthew 15:1-28, and a Samaritan in John 4:4-42.

The Johannine passage, the most extensive of the three, demonstrates a particular sensitivity to the complex dynamics that come into play when ministry takes place in the context of an encounter between cultures. It may in fact function as a textbook case in how to minister across barriers such as ethnicity, cult, and gender. These hurdles already confronted Jesus' first-century followers and would only multiply as belief in Jesus continued to spread.

Nomenclature: "Ioudaios"

Only in this pericope does the Greek text of the Fourth Gospel identify Jesus as a "Ioudaios" (John 4:9), a term that has no direct equivalent in English when used for a first-century context. Rendered as "Jew" or "Jewish" in most English-language Bible translations, it indicates "one who identifies with beliefs, rites, and customs of adherents of Israel's Mosaic and prophetic tradition" (Danker: 478). In the ancient Mediterranean world, Ioudaios also denoted one's ethnicity and defined one's place in imperial politics (Oakman: 9).

A growing sensitivity in modern scholarship, upheld by the present journal, avoids the use of "Jew," "Jewish," or "Judaism" in referring to the era of the Second Testament:

   Incalculable harm has been caused by simply glossing Ioudaios
   with Jew, for many readers or auditors of Bible translations do not
   practice the historical judgment necessary to distinguish between
   circumstances and events of an ancient time and contemporary
   ethnic-religious-social realities, with the result that
   anti-Judasim in the modern sense of the term is needlessly
   fostered [Danker: 478].

Present-day Jews belong to religious traditions which for the most part developed after the time of Jesus, and many trace their ethnic origin to other than Palestinian roots (see Malina & Rohrbaugh: 44).

The loanwords normally used to avoid this problem do not prove feasible in the case of John 4:4-42. To speak of Jesus as a "Judean" would be confusing to many readers. "Galilean" would change the meaning of the passage, since it was not with inhabitants of Galilee per se that the Samaritan woman took issue. Even more problematic for the present discussion would be "Israelite," a term applicable to both dialog partners. For the woman, being a descendent of Jacob and hence an "Israelite" is central to her cultural identity as a Samaritan; this is significant for the overall interpretation of the text. In view of all of the above, the present essay will simply use the untranslated terms Ioudaios (singular) and Ioudaioi (plural) as both nouns and adjectives.

Historical Context

Raymond Brown writes, "There is real reason to doubt that historically during his ministry Jesus converted many Samaritans to his preaching" (Brown 1979: 36). Although colored by the theological and literary interests of Matthew and Luke, the Second Testament includes accounts of Jesus forbidding the disciples to enter any Samaritan town (Matt 10:5), Samaritan villagers rejecting Jesus (Luke 9:52-55), and Philip leading a mission to Samaria only some years after the resurrection (Acts 8:4-25). Together with these factors, the quintessentially Johannine theology, vocabulary, and literary devices of John 4:4-42 make historical critics wary of claiming with certitude anything beyond "echoes of a historical tradition of an incident in Jesus' ministry" or a "substratum of traditional material" at this narratlve's historical core (Brown 1966: 175; see also Barrett: 191; Meier: 547-48).