"The water I shall give will become . . . a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
Exodus 17
Romans
5:1-2, 5-8
John
4:5-42
The Word for Sunday: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031917.cfm
I would
guess that our obsession for clean filtered water is a multi-million dollar
business today. We see shelves of
bottled water in grocery stores, we hear of water filters that eliminate nasty
particles and dirt from your drinking water, as we feel that for whatever
reason the water from the tap, despite what we are told, is simply not clean
enough to drink. Yet, it looks certainly safe to drink and use for whatever
other purpose. So, I don’t think we put water filters on our bathroom fixtures:
shower heads or bathroom sink faucet and we brush our teeth with water from the
tap for example. We wash our clothes
with that same “unfiltered” water so the psychology of marketing bottled water
for general use at home has made quite a market. We all look for clean water
that is safe to drink and enjoy; water that will satisfy our thirst but the
readings this Sunday remind us there is a deeper thirst we are really looking
to satisfy.
In the
first reading from Exodus, despite the complaining of the people, Moses strikes
the rock as God told him and clean, fresh water appeared to satisfy the thirst
of an ungrateful people. Yet, in that
case, like the Gospel, simple water became a moment of renewed faith in God’s
care for them.
Further, on
this third Sunday of Lent, we hear of water both from a well, hardly unfiltered
yet much cleaner and safe than water from the Dead Sea for example and of a
kind of strange “living water” that
Jesus offers. On a cultural level this is a shocking and complex story rich with
both theological and historical elements.
Simply
put, though, Jesus a Jew and a man,
engages in conversation, in public, with a Samaritan woman who comes from a
sect of Judaism that considers Jews in Jerusalem to be heretics and mortal
enemies. There would be no reason, and quite risky, for Jesus in his position
to ask this woman for anything and better for him to simply remain silent,
maybe turn his back, or to walk away.
Further,
this is no clandestine meeting between Jesus and the unnamed woman but in broad daylight, in the sight
of all, with this woman who was no doubt startled by the fact that Jesus would
even acknowledge her existence at the well. I would imagine that when she saw
him there, she may have hesitated to move towards the well. But, maybe not
considering her personal history we hear about.
Also, she comes alone in the heat of mid-day. That would have been unheard of since women would travel in groups, in the cool of the early morning, to engage in conversation and to draw drinking water for their day. So, there must have been some reason why she was shunned from the group of other local women and forced to travel alone to this well in the hot sunshine. So all around, this remains one of the most dramatic scenes in the Gospels.
Despite all
of that, Jesus strikes up a simple conversation with her as he requests a drink
of water. As the conversation goes deeper, we hear both theological and
historical references that are interesting but not so much the heart of this passage.
In this
dramatic scene, we hear words of hope from the mouth of Jesus to this woman: "Everyone who drinks this water will be
thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never
thirst; the water I shall give will
become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Since
water is essential for life, Jesus offers to the woman a call to look deeper
beyond the literal use of water to the sign of the new life he offers to
her.
Jesus
finally asks her, "Go call your
husband and come back." The woman answered and said to him, "I do not have a husband." Jesus
answered her, “You are right in saying,
'I do not have a husband.' For you have had five husbands, and the one you have
now is not your husband.” So shunned among the other women of the area due
to what may have appeared a promiscuous lifestyle, Jesus does not belabor that
issue nor do anything that would call her to public shame. Rather, in their dialogue, Jesus holds up a
mirror of her life to the woman. He
simply reveals what he knows as God and shows it to her. That powerful and
compassionate move on our Lord’s part is a door to deeper understanding and
conversion.
God offers
us “water” that will never end – union with him through forgiveness and eternal
life. It’s clear, however the woman
doesn’t understand the deeper symbolism of Jesus’ words fully but she does
perceive that this man she speaks with is unlike any other man she had ever encountered. Jesus offers something that
touches her on a level where our common human thirst for God is satisfied. The
woman reflects: "I know that the
Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us
everything." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one speaking with
you."
And she is
forever changed as she returns to her community and states in hope that Jesus
may be “the Christ” because he “told me
everything I have done.” Which perks
interest in wonder as to what more did Jesus reveal to her about her past? What
more did Jesus reveal to her about herself? And in that true “come to Jesus”
moment, the woman found her need satisfied in Christ; his living water, the
presence of the Holy Spirit, would become a “spring
of water welling up to eternal life.”
The other women
return in curiosity and come to believe in Jesus as the longed for Messiah, the
Christ. Through finding him, no longer
on the witness of another, they come to believe that Jesus is the “savior of the world.” They have come to
faith now no longer on the woman’s testimony alone but their own faith has been
moved by their encounter with the Lord.
Was the woman at the well a kind of Samaritan Apostle as she invited
others, like Andrew did with his brother Simon, to meet the Lord? It seems such in this beautiful story.
At this
time in Lent, along with our Elect preparing for baptism, confirmation, and the
Holy Eucharist, we are invited to see the change in this woman. She is us and despite the complicated
historical and theological discussion between Jesus and her at the well, what
really does matter for all of us is a personal encounter with Christ. In Jesus,
God’s love is revealed and this woman is now invited to seek the water that
will satisfy her thirst. To find that in Christ, we meet the source of Spirit
and Truth.
So, we may
feel confronted with our own lack of faith and our lack of knowledge and
invited to go deeper into the well of Jesus own presence both in the Sacraments
and the sacred Word of God. The
Scriptures are a living word that speaks to every age of human history. What is so appealing about writings that at
the newest are 2,000 years old? We read
ancient writings form the Greeks and Romans and various philosophers of the
same time when the Scriptures were written.
We hear stories from the ancient Egyptians yet the Word of God remains
alive. While such pagan writings have
historical and literary value there is a living presence to the Bible and there
we find God and his constant efforts to get our attention.
In our
Catholic life, our Sacraments are not just empty rituals or meaningless
words. The rituals are rather simple yet
in that simplicity, such as the Anointing of the Sick or even Baptism or the
Marriage Rite itself, we find the living presence of Jesus and through them we
experience an encounter with him most especially in the Eucharist where he
becomes food for us.
The
unnamed woman came to draw simple water from a well as she had done for a long
time. She never imagined that this
Jewish man who reached out in respect for her dignity would forever change her
life and that same moment is meant for all of us.
"Every Christian is a missionary to the extent
that she or he has encountered the love of God
in Christ Jesus."
(Pope Francis from his Apostolic letter:
"The Joy of the Gospel")
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