"Stay out of Samaria. Stick with your own kind." Jesus is speaking to people who would have had been used to disparaging Samaritans for a long time, a very long time. Look back at 2 Kings 17:24-41 for the background to this antipathy. After Assyria had destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel, they took the Israelites into exile and resettled their land with people from all over. The king of Assyria sent an exiled priest back to Israel--now called Samaria--to teach these new residents how they should worship the Lord. It didn't work out too well.
If we read ahead in Matthew's gospel, we see that Jesus did not intend the proclamations and care to be restricted. Remember the words of Jesus that we call the Great Commission: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.....
We must be careful in reading the initial instructions of Jesus to the disciples, recorded for us in chapter 10, as being the entire manual for discipleship. And we should be mindful that when we begin a new project, we might be better off if we tried accomplishing it in steps. Was Jesus talking about having a pilot project? Was Jesus judging the ability of his disciples to do any healing so that he wanted them to begin where they felt safest (or most comfortable)?
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