There can be no doubt that Jesus' Jewish disciples were full of prejudices regarding the Samaritans. Jews were forbidden to eat in a Samaritan home, to intermarry with them, or to worship with them. James and John seem to have believed that Jesus thought like they did.
But Jesus rebuked them and said, "You don't know what kind of a spirit you belong to!"
The same spirit that was in James and John sometimes manages to get into believers today. This is a spirit that rejects someone who is not like me, perhaps because of traditions and customs, food, culture, outward appearance, language, and things like that.
Sadly, in our land we see this between Jews and Arabs, between oriental and western Jews, between those who were born in the land and those who immigrated, even between people of different Christian denominations.
In (John 4) we read of Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman. Jesus was tired and rested while his disciples went into the city to buy food. He started a conversation with the woman, who had come to draw water from the well of Jacob in Shechem.
She is surprised by Jesus' request, "Give me a drink." She reacts immediately: "You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan, so how can you ask me for a drink? Jews will have nothing to do with Samaritans." (John 4:7-9). In other words, "How is it that a Jew is ready to put his lips on the same cup Samaritans have drunk out of?"
In (1 Timothy 2:4) we read that God "wants everyone to be saved and to come to know the truth." This reminds us of what Jesus said to James and John, "the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." For this to happen, we have to come in the Spirit of Christ, without pride, without feeling superior to others, without prejudice or racism. We have to be ready to swim against the flow.
And what was the result? There was a spiritual awakening in the Samaritan town. "Many of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because the woman had said, 'He told me everything I have ever done.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. Many more believed because of his message, and they told the woman, 'We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard him, and we know that he really is the Savior of the world.'" (John 4:39-42)