Cultural Literacy (pt. 1 of 3): The Samaritan Woman
A few summers ago, while I was in Peru and Chile, I had the chance to read a book. Back in 2017, I went on a date with a really amazing woman, and sister in Christ, Jaleesa. Following the date, she resolved to get me a book as a gift. After consulting with a few friends who knew me (if a girl is consulting your friends to get you a gift after a date, then obviously she’s awesome), she decided to get me Race & Place: How Urban Geography Shapes the Journey to Reconciliation. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Jaleesa, I wouldn’t have the luxury of leisure reading for the next year or so, because I’d be starting a PhD program. As you would imagine, in a PhD program, there’s a lot of reading (my first year, I read about 300 pages every week).
No, I wouldn’t get to this book for some time. But I was able to finish it while I was in South America. It was a great read, so thank you, Jaleesa. This series, in part, was inspired by that book (others, too; see my series on residential segregation: part 1, part 2, and part 3).
As you may or may not gather from the title, Race and Place is a book on urban ministry and how things like race, race-related tension, residential segregation, and the like affect our ability to build diverse churches in America. Although the book doesn’t fair as well in comparison to other, more thorough books on segregation in America (see “the Color of Law”, or “American Apartheid”; these books are a little bit dense, but they’re both great if you’re willing to take the time to read them), what I did like about the book was, to me, it explored the intersection of two topics, segregation and Christian Ministry in the United States, that we should be thinking a lot more about.
There were a number of intriguing propositions throughout the book, but perhaps the one I found most intriguing, and the one I choose to focus on here, is the idea of cultural exegesis.
Exegesis is a term familiar enough to many of us: thorough analysis and critical examination, particularly in the context of a religious text. In our case, that means a critical examination of the Bible. But the author of the book, Dr. David P. Leong, extended this idea in an important way.
‘Reading’ isn’t just going line by line and understanding the words on a sheet of paper and being able to articulate what they mean. No, that doesn’t do justice to the exercise of reading. Sometimes we need to read ‘situations’, ‘relationships’, ‘interactions’, ‘political developments’, etc. And we need to ‘read’ these things in the scriptures, as well as ‘read’ these things in our day-to-day experiences.
As far as the scriptural component is concerned, to the extent to which we have to read to better understand historical/cultural context, this would be part of the exegesis… a cultural exegesis of sorts, if that makes sense.
I loved his argument and wholeheartedly agree (although I hardly think his point is unique to him or he’s the first to make it). It made me wonder about churches today. In our ironic emphasis on exegesis, are we culturally literate? That is, are we able, and willing, to “read” culture?
The answer is complicated: I landed on sometimes yes and sometimes no.
Let’s start with sometimes yes.
It’s true. There are moments in time when the church demonstrates its cultural literacy. Fact. We’ll mention in our commentary of the Gospel all the interaction Jesus had with women in his ministry, even women of ill repute (Luke 7:36-50; John 8:1-11)… I’ll talk more about that in just a second. I mean, that’s absolutely cultural literacy. We’ll talk about how Jesus spent time with tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 2:15-17). Again, that, too, is cultural literacy. We might even go as far as to say that the 12 disciples that Jesus called, for the most part, were poor, uneducated, dudes. Hey, more cultural literacy… these are all important reading insights.
But sometimes the answer is no. That is, sometimes (maybe a lot of times) the church is NOT culturally literate.
And I think this manifest in one of three ways. I’ll, very briefly, touch on each, in no particular order.
(1) In reading the Bible, we somehow miss ethnic, racial, and cultural tension during the period.
I’m reading through Joshua now. It’s a book I go to when I need to be inspired, because Joshua is all about conquest (literally). Joshua replaces Moses, and he leads the Israelite people into the promised land. But to do so, he ends up going city to city and basically killing all of the other ethnic groups in the region (today, we would call this ethnic cleansing). As a person who’s spent ALL of my life in church, it’s so easy to gloss over that, right? But if I was reading in a news article today that Country X was going to war with Country Y because Country X believed, as a result of their religious tradition, the land belongs to them, I would be extremely concerned. But when I read it in the Bible, I don’t even think twice about it. I have to remind myself that ethnic cleansing is very much a part of cultural tension, both past and present. I tell people that throughout human existence groups have gone to war for many reasons, but 3 common ones are respect, resources, and/or religion (If you can’t tell, I really like alliteration). And we see lots of ethnoreligious conflict in the Bible, when we choose to be culturally literate. It’s not unlike some of our modern tensions between different ethnic and religious groups, in the US or otherwise. That leads to the second point.
(2) In reading the Bible, we see and recognize the ethnic, racial, and cultural tension during that period, but we fail to see how it connects to ministry today.
To be fair, part of this is very much an artifact of living in America. This is beyond the scope of this post, but there’s a body of work in psychology investigating the Mythology of Progress (as a qualifier, these scholars usually study racial progress, although I suspect their findings would be similar for other dimensions of progress, too). Importantly, this body of work doesn’t say that America hasn’t made (racial) progress. Quite the contrary: America has made tremendous progress. The Mythology of Progress is about the peculiar tendency among Americans to overestimate America’s progress in addressing inequality: whether racism, sexism, classism, etc. In the same way people seem to show a general tendency to have an overly positive view of themselves, it would seem one of the consequences of living in one of the wealthiest and most respected countries on the face of the planet is to assume we’ve been more effective in our pursuit of progress than we actually have been, objectively.
Imagine a graph with time on the X axis and “progress in addressing inequality on the Y axis”. That measure of inequality could be any measure you’d like. Education, health, income, poverty rates, wealth inequality, home ownership rates, etc., for all the different groups that live in America: gay, straight, Black, White, etc. We can then ask people there estimates of inequality in the 1920’s. The 1930’s. The 1940’s. The 1950’s. The 1960’s. All the way to the present. And at every point, we can compare their estimates to objective data. The research shows most Americans are under the impression that America’s pursuit of progress in addressing inequality is [mostly] linear and positive (especially since the Civil Rights era). In other words, since providing women and Black people rights, things have only gotten better for Americans. Everybody has their rights now, so it’s only up from here. Here’s the kicker though: In America, not only are there many measures of progression towards equality that have been a flat line (mathematically, a flat line means there’s no rate of change) over the last 70 years, some measures are actually worse than what they were earlier in the 1900’s.
I say that to say, I think it’s easy for Christians in America to read about oppression or suffering in the scriptures and to feel like (1) oppression and suffering is a thing foreign to America or (2) oppression and suffering is a thing of America’s past, and we don’t have to worry about it as much in America’s present or future. Aside from being false (data supports that), this train of thinking is harmful (data supports that, too), perhaps ESPECIALLY for Christians.
(3) We romanticize ministry in the scriptures, as if they did not deal with the ethnic, racial, and cultural tension that we do today, which is categorically false.
There was tension between Jews and Gentiles (Matthew 18:15-18). The was tension between Jews and Samaritans (Luke 10:25-37). There was even tension among Jews, based on things like exposure to Greek culture (Acts 7), diet (Acts 10:9-16; Mark 7:14-19), and circumcision (Galatians 2:11-14). This racial, ethnic, and cultural tension isn’t specific to the present era of history… Christians back then wrestled through the same things… and trying to figure out how to grapple with these topics didn’t mean they loved God any less.
I think it’s important to remember that one of the most defining elements of the Ministry of Christ was that he was COUNTERCULTURAL. This is almost the epitome of cultural exegesis. By countercultural, I don’t simply mean going against culture. I specifically mean resisting the urge to conform to culture in ways that don’t promote Biblical values. To that end, we need to understand that part of being like Jesus is being countercultural.
You can’t be countercultural if you can’t read culture.
You can’t be countercultural if you insist on being blind to race, ethnicity, and culture.
You can’t be countercultural if you don’t understand what culture might expect you to do in a given situation and how Jesus calls you to a different standard.
You can’t be countercultural if you can’t recognize how culture (may) affect your own ministry and the ministry of other Christians today.
Guys, we need to be able to read culture. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of churches today aren’t excelling in this area. With this in mind, this 3-part series is on cultural exegesis. It’s a cultural examination of three text in the Bible, and I’ll make it an emphasis to try and circle back with applications today.
So, let’s jump in with our first text, the Samaritan Woman (John 4:1-26).
Before digging into John 4 though, perhaps some history on the conflict between Jews and Samaritans. You can read about Israel’s history throughout the Old Testament. Although Israel was, at one point, a unified nation, later in its history it split into two kingdoms. The Northern Kingdom, consisting of 10 of the 12 Jewish tribes, was called Israel and the capital was Samaria. The Southern Kingdom, consisting of the remaining 2 Jewish tribes, was called Judah and the capital was Jerusalem.
Divided, Israel didn’t stand a chance.
Both kingdoms were attacked.
Both kingdoms were defeated.
Both kingdoms experienced captivity in the nation of the country that defeated them. But the outcome for the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom is markedly different.
The Southern Kingdom was defeated by the Babylonians. After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, the King actually gave them permission to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the city that the Babylonians laid waste to. Look at God! This captivity is where we get a number of Old Testament text in the Bible.
In Jeremiah, an Old Testament prophet named Jeremiah was sad, because God TOLD him Judah was about to be attacked by Babylon. He tried to warn the Jewish people, but they refused to repent and turn to God (That notion is kind of a theme in the Old Testament, although that’s not unlike my relationship with God… yours, too).
In Daniel, 3 promising Jewish men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, are brought before the Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar, who expects them to fall on their knees and worship him. They insist on worshiping their own God, Yahweh, and of course, Nebuchadnezzar throws them in the furnace.
In Nehemiah and Ezra, after the Babylonian king gives the Jews from Jerusalem permission to go back to their city, they go back to rebuild the temple, so they can worship God.
All things considered, God was very gracious to the Jews from Judah, as their captivity lasted 70 years.
The Northern Kingdom, on the other hand, was defeated by the Assyrians. Here, the story differs in that the Assyrians never gave these Jews permission to go back to Samaria and rebuild their city. The story ends with them being taken into Assyria, and they never come back out. That’s crazy!
Since Assyria defeated the Northern Kingdom, Israel, its capital Samaria is now part of the Assyrian empire. As is common practice in colonization, the Assyrian King sent Assyrians to occupy Samaria. The territory belongs to them, after all.
When these Assyrians go to Samaria, they’re greeted by a small remnant of the Jews that were not taken into Assyrian captivity.
They become friendly, and they start to intermarry with each other. The result is a new ethnoreligious group of people who are part Jewish and part Assyrian. Ain’t that somethin’!
This group of people is called the Samaritans, because, of course, all of this happened in Samaria.
There’s a reason why God said Israel should NOT intermarry with foreigners (Deuteronomy 7:2-4; Ezra 9:10-14). Exactly what God said would happen did happen. Although the Samaritans were half Jewish, the Assyrian cultural influence lead them astray. Particularly:
The Samaritans used a different version of the Torah, so in essence, they had a separate religious text than the Jews
The Samaritans had a different place of worship than the Jews, so, naturally, this led to dispute as well.
Samaritans were POLYTHEISTIC. They did worship Yahweh. But they worshipped lots of the Assyrian gods, too.
As you would imagine, a lot of these religious and cultural differences created tension between the Jews and Samaritans.
Case and Point: Ezra Chapter 4. The Jews from the Southern Kingdom are returning from Babylon, and although Jerusalem was initially destroyed by the Babylonians, they’re intent on rebuilding their city and having a fresh start. When these Jews are rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, the Bible says the Samaritans weren’t particularly enthused about it. The Samaritans offer their help, and Zerubbabel, one of the Jewish leaders in the campaign to rebuild, responds as follows (emphasis added): “You have NOTHING to do with us in building a house to OUR God; WE ALONE will build to the Lord, the God of Israel…”
Talk about throwing shade! Things sound tense. Keep in mind, this is around 550 BC. That means this tension would continue to strain and the relationship would continue to sour for over 500 years.
Then Jesus shows up on the scene. That’s where we pick up in John 4.
Can you imagine trying to read a scripture like John 4, an interaction between a Jewish religious teacher and a Samaritan woman, without understanding this cultural landscape? A cultural exegesis of sorts, to stay true to the title of the series? I think if you read John 4 without seeing the ethnic, cultural, and racial tension, you probably missed the most important thing, in my opinion.
Even the woman notes how strange their interaction is in verse 9, because Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
Jesus wasn’t supposed to be in Samaria (he could have taken a longer route to avoid passing through there).
Jesus wasn’t supposed to be talking to Samaritans (he could have avoided interacting with anyone while he was in town).
Jesus wasn’t supposed to be drinking this lady’s water, because Jews thought Samaritans were unclean, so drinking her water would make Jesus unclean, too.
Jesus certainly wasn’t supposed to be offering this woman the gift of salvation, because 500 years of history says that the Samaritans were perhaps the greatest enemy of the Jewish people.
But remember what we said. Jesus defines his ministry on being countercultural.
This doesn’t just manifest on race/ethnic lines. We also need to understand the culture of a male-dominated society, like the one we have in this text. This is a very conservative culture, and here we have a man interacting with a woman who he knows is promiscuous, in some sense of the word.
Jesus could have said, “Give me your water.”
Jesus could have said, pardon my language, “Give me your water, you disgusting whore.”
Jesus could have said, “Give me your water. Oh, by the way, I heard you’re always down for a good time, so what’s up with me and you?”
Not only is there racial and cultural tension, but there’s important religious distinctions, too. If you look at verse 12, this woman calls Jacob her father. What’s important about that? Well, Jacob is the father… of Israel. In fact, in Genesis 32, we see a passage where Jacob’s name actually becomes Israel. He is literally the forefather of Israel as a nation… and this woman, who’s only part Jewish, is claiming that’s her daddy, too.
Hmmm, that’s a stretch. If Jacob were alive, he would probably rebuke the Samaritans for their idolatry. So, it’s a stretch to call him the forefather of the Samaritan people.
In many ways, Samaritans were the embarrassment of the Jewish people. The result of a mistake, with several generations of consequences to prove it. Somehow, I’m not so sure if Jacob would have claimed this group of idolatrous, half-Gentile people.
I’m convinced that any other Jewish man or woman would have found this woman claiming to be a descendent of Jacob extremely insulting. Remember, the Samaritans are probably regarded as an embarrassment. In many ways, they represented the greatest embarrassment of the Jewish people. The Samaritans represented what happens when the Jews aren’t obedient to God. The Samaritans represented what happens when the Jews aren’t holy and are led astray by foreign traditions. The Samaritans represented what happens when the people of God compromise and become just like everyone else. And here was this woman, claiming that her and Jesus both had the same father, Jacob.
But Jesus doesn’t flip. He totally keeps his cool. He converses with her for some time and concludes the interaction by telling her that he is indeed the Son of God.
Jesus was absolutely, 100% culturally literate. I think that’s one of the reasons why we see so many cases between Jews and Samaritans in the Gospel: Luke 9 (Jesus is turned away at Samaria), Luke 10 (the parable of the ‘Good’ Samaritan), and Luke 17 (Jesus heals 10, but only one, a SAMARITAN, returns to say thank you). Jesus knew exactly what it would mean for him to have so many interactions with the Samaritans, in spite of 500+ years of sour history.
This is just my opinion, but I personally think Jesus was more interested in talking to this woman perhaps for that reason. I think Jesus wanted to build bridges between groups that weren’t “supposed” to be interacting. Jesus is described as a man who fellowshipped with sinners and tax collectors. Those aren’t the kind of people you would expect the ‘religious’ folk to be hanging out with.
Similarly, Samaritans aren’t the kind of people you would expect the King of the Jews to be hanging out with, either. And certainly not a woman… I mean, come on, if you’re going to interact with Samaritans, at least interact with someone of higher standing, I imagine the Jews would say. Yet and still, we see Jesus here with this woman.
I want to return to my earlier point… if we’re not culturally literate, we miss ALL of this.
But here’s the kicker… this isn’t just an archaic rivalry between 2 groups of people in the Bible.
You guys already know about racial tension today. You guys already know about ethnic and cultural tension today.
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you’re gentrifying my community.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you don’t want to stand for the pledge.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you’re probably in this country illegally.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you’re wearing a MAGA hat.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; your reliance on government assistance puts a huge drain on the economy.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you love black culture more than you love black people.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you don’t support our police.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you were only admitted to my school because of affirmative action.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you’re probably looking for any opportunity to call the police on me.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you make black people like me look bad.”
“I don’t want to talk to people like you; you’re a white supremacist masquerading as a patriot.”
I won’t spell things out, but here’s what I’ll say instead. I think in looking at a text like John chapter 4, we see a great lesson in intentionality. Jesus isn’t blind to the realities of the situation. He doesn’t use rhetoric like, “I don’t see your race,” or, “I don’t think of you as Samaritan; I just think of you as a person,”. Jesus recognizes that he IS Jewish and she IS Samaritan.
But he also reads the culture. In this moment, I think of Jesus taking 30 seconds to do a cultural exegesis. It may be something like…
Year: approximately 27 AD
Time: the sixth hour
City: Samaria
Me: [Single] Jewish man
Her: [Single] Samaritan woman
My religion: Monotheistic (Yahweh)
Her religion: Polytheistic (Yahweh, plus others)
Conclusion: This is a great opportunity to do something that is very unorthodox, based on the cultural climate. This interaction will be historic because of all of these considerations and many more.
Maybe we’ll park here to end part 1. Part 2, we’ll perform a similar exercise with the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8. Feedback welcome.
Some random thoughts,
Nnamdi