2 Kings 17:24 And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.

If you will read the passages following verse 24 you will get a sense of why the Jews upon their return to Jerusalem from exile refused to allow Samaritans to worship in the temple at Jerusalem. Israel was in Babylon for seventy years. I am not sure how long after their exile this displacement occurred, but let us fast forward some five hundred years.

John 4:9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Five hundred years have passed and historical resentments have carried on for centuries. Could it be that nothing had changed in five hundred years?

John 4:12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

“Our father Jacob” the woman identified Jacob as an ancestor. Was it by blood or adoption? Jews did allow for conversion and allowed those to worship in the temple. But not these Samaritans. For the Jews nothing had changed.

How can we relate to this telling in our present lives, now two thousand years removed from the event? I would have to say it has everything to do with historical resentment. The pain and suffering of the past haunts many people today yet they were not a part of that history. These Samaritans were a displaced people, not of their own choosing, forced by circumstances. Many people have had to live under similar circumstances and the historical resentments surrounding their displacements are passed down from generation to generation infecting a people who had no part in the event.

Jesus broke the segregation barrier and reached out to the disenfranchised.

He still does, in us.