You are a Samaritan!

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

You are a Samaritan and have a demon. This is what the Jews say to Jesus in John chapter 8. To the Jews, being a Samaritan and having a demon are equivalent. 700 years before Jesus, when the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by God for their wickedness, the Assyrian Empire took the Israelites of the northern ten tribes and scattered many throughout their empire, while moving other people into the north part of Israel. Those new people, foreigners and pagans, married Israelites, and they all began a mixed religion that worshipped both the Lord and other gods. They were called Samaritans, after the old Israelite capital of Samaria.