Samaritan Encounters

And he had to pass through Samaria...A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) John 4:4,7-9
I came across another subject that is quite familiar to believers and non-believers--the Samaritan. Many people are well acquainted with the story of the Good Samaritan, but what about the bad Samaritan? Jesus encountered a "bad Samaritan" and reached out to her. The good Samaritan is someone that we all should strive to be like as Jesus clearly instructs us he says: Jesus said to the lawyer that he was telling the parable to, "You go, and do likewise." (Luke 10:37)
The Samaritan woman was not exactly a role-model. The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." (John 4:17,18)
This got me thinking and wondering who exactly these Samaritans are. I always just assumed that they were simply some heathen people that nobody liked but it turns out that they were actually descendants of the Northern tribes of Israel. They were actually quite religious and some articles even say that they were more Orthodox than the Jews and they had their own version of the Pentateuch. Even the Samaritan woman says: "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."
So it seems that the Jews didn't associate with the Samaritans because they didn't worship God in the same way. This is so prevalent in our society today! So many groups believe that they are superior to others in the way that they worship God and won't even associate with those that disagree.
There are so many groups that are despised for one reason or another and we feel justified in our stances. Who do you despise? Is it smokers? Is it "trailer-trash"? Is it another ethnic group? Whatever group it is, God hasn't called us to judge as He says in Luke 6:37 (another familiar and often misinterpreted verse)