The historian Josephus recalls that the Galileans took the road to Samaria when they traveled to the Feasts in Jerusalem. It is good to remember that James and John were given the nickname of Boanerges which meant “sons of thunder”. Jesus, their cousin, knew their temper.

In the chronological narrative by apostle Luke, perhaps the recent event of the Transfiguration has remembered Elijah (II Re 1.9-12). The Persian version includes “… James and John and the disciples seeing this …” seems to indicate that all the disciples participated.

Conflict between Jews and Samaritans was historic. It arose from the time of division into the kingdom of the North and kingdom of the South. The kingdom of the North suffered more miscegenation with other peoples. This created a cultural gap between them.

mico#12

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman, He was willing to break the wall of separation. The Samaritan woman expressed in that dialogue what the Samaritans thought about Jews. Jesus by pass his arguments. Jesus finally disarmed her. She found someone who could forgive.

Fábio Damasceno, in The Psychology of Forgiveness, explains that “… the problem of forgiveness is that you do not update the debt. You remember the subject, but you do not let all the feelings attached to that subject come to light. You do not allow all thoughts and fantasies to appear. In the same way, all the anger and will to take revenge can be hidden “.

Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain to the Pharisee who was the next of the expression ‘to love the neighbor’. Next to the parable was the bandit-smitten Jew who was rescued by the Samaritan. The Samaritan, the protagonist of the parable, looked at the man’s need. He had no rules and laws that kept him from helping others. The scribe and the priest had these impediments. They had no reason to act differently.

  1. It is a pay the mico (brazilian giria about action or failure to understand correctly) when we do not forgive someone who wants our forgiveness. When we tell this person that there is nothing to be forgiven we may be hiding our resentments. Here is the famous question that gets different points of view: Is it easier to forgive or ask for forgiveness?
  2. It is a mico when we do not seek forgiveness. When we live in a way we feel we do not need to ask for forgiveness. Or when we ask for forgiveness for ” something ” that we have done. We make mistakes in retail but we want to ask for wholesale pardon. It means that in our dealings with people or with God, we need to evaluate every attitude and word to gain the freedom of our soul.