Samaritans and Jews were long time enemies. They hated each other dated back 536 B.C. the end of Babylonian Exile. The Jews who were in exile found Samaritans, among others, living in Jerusalem upon their return. They did not hold the Samaritans in high regard. Though they had been worshiping as Jews, the Samaritans were not pure Jewish blood, and they had intermarried with other nationalities. The Judeans regarded the Samaritans as being ritually impure and therefore refused to allow them to help rebuild the Temple or to worship in it. The Samaritans angrily returned north and established their own temple on Mount Gerazim. The two groups never reconciled. The Samaritan villagers had probably heard about Jesus and his good deeds and were interested. But unfortunately as soon as they learnt that Jesus and his disciples were Jews and were heading for Jerusalem, their admiration turned into opposition.

King Ahab of the Northern kingdom of Israel married Queen Jezebel outside Jewish religion. The worst of it, he even allowed Jezebel to place idols of her gods in Israel’s sacred places, which was an abomination. Elijah challenged Jezebel prophets by calling fire from heaven. The queen’s prophets prayed whole day but did not make even a single spark of fire, while Elijah with only few words of prayer was able to bring fires from heaven with great might. (1 kings 18:21 ff.) In the Gospel, James and John, the sons of Zebedee (or thunder) can not control their human emotions, thinking probably that they were the new prophets or representatives of Christ they wanted to invoke the same power of Elijah by sending fire to those inhospitable Samaritans.

Jewish community is known for its being patriarchal in nature. They have high respect to their fathers. In the First reading, when Elijah called Elisha to follow him, the latter asked for a permission to bid farewell to his family. Elijah allowed him to go back and say good bye to his parents. But surprisingly Jesus did not allow his disciple to say even good bye to his parents, not even to bury his father. This event points to the urgency of serving the Kingdom.

“Head” could be a symbol for intellect and teachings. In today’s very secular world it is very hard to find a place to “lay down” the teachings of Christ. We can not speak about Creation in public school anymore.  We hardly speak topics about religion and bible in public places and in casual conversations. Even unborn children have no place to “lay down” their heads, because they are always threatened by abortion. Let us put Christian spirit back to our society, and give even small space for Christ to lay down his “head.”